Exit interviews as a tool to reduce parting employees’ complaints about their former employer and to ensure residual commitment

Abstract

Purpose: According to previous research, exit interviews do not fulfil the purpose of generating useful feedback from parting employees. According to signaling theory, they might, however, serve a different purpose: to leave one last good impression on parting employees.
Design/methodology/approach: This idea was tested by surveying 164 German employees.
Findings: Consistent with arguments based on signaling theory, those who experienced an exit interview reported more residual affective commitment towards their former employer and less willingness to complain about it, and these effects were mediated by interpersonal fairness perceptions. In addition, the probability of having an exit interview was found to depend on the resignation style of employees.
Originality: This is the first study that proposes a signaling theory perspective of exit interviews and that links exit interviews with the literature on resignation styles.
Research limitations/implications: This new perspective on exit interviews can renew the interest in studying how organizations manage the offboarding process.
Practical implications: This study advises employers to conduct "exit conversations" (as two-way interactions rather than one-way interviews) and to carefully plan the exit phase.

Full text

Running head: EXIT INTERVIEWS 1
Exit interviews as a tool to reduce parting employees’ complaints about their former
employer and to ensure residual commitment
Cornelius J. König, Manuela Richter, and Isabela Isak
Universität des Saarlandes, Germany
Current status: In press at Management Research Review
Author Note
Cornelius J. König, Manuela Richter, and Isabela Isak, Universität des Saarlandes, AE
Arbeits- & Organisationspsychologie, Saarbrücken, Germany. Manuela Richter works now
for Radeberger Gruppe, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Isabela Isak works now for
thyssenkrupp Gerlach GmbH, Homburg/Saar, Germany.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cornelius König, Universität
des Saarlandes, AE Arbeits- & Organisationspsychologie, Campus A1.3, 66123 Saarbrücken,
Germany. Email: ckoenig@mx.uni-saarland.de

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Abstract
Purpose
According to previous research, exit interviews do not fulfil the purpose of generating useful
feedback from parting employees. According to signaling theory, they might, however, serve
a different purpose: to leave one last good impression on parting employees.
Design/methodology/approach
This idea was tested by surveying 164 German employees.
Findings
Consistent with arguments based on signaling theory, those who experienced an exit
interview reported more residual affective commitment towards their former employer and
less willingness to complain about it, and these effects were mediated by interpersonal
fairness perceptions. In addition, the probability of having an exit interview was found to
depend on the resignation style of employees.
Originality
This is the first study that proposes a signaling theory perspective of exit interviews and that
links exit interviews with the literature on resignation styles.
Research limitations/implications
This new perspective on exit interviews can renew the interest in studying how organizations
manage the offboarding process.
Practical implications
This study advises employers to conduct “exit conversations” (as two-way interactions rather
than one-way interviews) and to carefully plan the exit phase.
Keywords: exit interviews, exit conversations; resignation styles; residual commitment;
signaling; impression management

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Introduction
Practitioners and academics do not seem to agree on the benefits of exit interviews –
interviews to find out why employees resign and to use parting employees’ feedback to
improve organizations. Whereas researchers hold a negative view, suggesting them to be
useless (e.g., Lefkowitz and Katz, 1969; Pearce, 2012; Zarandona and Camuso, 1985),
practitioners continue to use them (see, e.g., Spain and Groysberg, 2016). The reason for the
negative view in academia is that researchers have challenged the assumption that parting
employees are truthful about their reasons for resignation, which empirical data suggest they
are not (e.g., Lefkowitz and Katz, 1969; Zarandona and Camuso, 1985).
If we do not want to attribute practitioners’ use of exit interviews to a “stubborn
reliance” (Highhouse, 2008, p. 333) on tradition and subjectivity or to an ignorance of
academic literature (Fisher et al., 2021; Rynes et al., 2002), we must look further into why
practitioners continue to use exit interviews. Building on signaling theory (Bangerter et al.,
2012; Connelly et al., 2011) and a qualitative study conducted by Kulik et al. (2015), we
argue that offering a conversation at the end of the employees’ working time at an
organization is a signal to parting employees that the organization wants the parting employee
to continue to view the organization positively. This new perspective is tested with survey
data from 164 German employees.
Our study makes three main contributions to the literature. First, we show how much
can be gained by applying signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011) as a
new theoretical perspective to exit interviews. Second, we link the idea of exit interviews with
the evolving literatures on residual commitment (the commitment to a former employer,
Breitsohl and Ruhle, 2013) and on resignation styles (Klotz and Bolino, 2016). Finally, this
study contributes to the field of human resource management by (hopefully) reviving research
on exit interviews as a phenomenon that has been neglected for a long time.

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Review of Literature
Turnover is costly for organizations because replacing employees requires
organizations to invest resources into the recruitment, socialization, and training processes.
Although some turnover can be beneficial for an organization if non-fitting employees leave,
meta-analytical evidence points towards a predominantly negative relationship between
turnover rates and organizational performance (Park and Shaw, 2013). Turnover costs are
particularly high when there is a labor shortage, for example because an economy is in a
boom phase or because working conditions in an industry are not that attractive for potential
applicants.
To understand turnover, organizations may use what is typically called exit interviews:
Departing employees are interviewed about their motivations for leaving (e.g., Givens-
Skeaton and Ford, 2018). This interview typically happens at the end of their time as an
employee, and the hope is to get feedback from the departing employees. This feedback helps
to identify current challenges in the workplace (e.g., unfilled training needs or a harsh climate
in a particular organizational division) that if remedied, will prevent other employees from
leaving (Givens-Skeaton and Ford, 2018). Exit interviews might be conducted by the manager
of the departing employee, someone from the human resource department, or an external
consultant.
However, research has questioned how useful the feedback obtained in exit interviews
is. For example, Lefkowitz and Katz (1969) compared the reasons for leaving given in exit
interviews with the reasons mentioned in follow-up questionnaires later and found only weak
convergence – in fact, parting employees appeared to withhold information and their opinions
during the exit interview and distorted their parting reasons in a socially desirable way. Such
response distortion was also reported by other researchers from the US (e.g., Feinberg and
Jeppeson, 2000; Hinrichs, 1975; Zarandona and Camuso, 1985; see also Miller, 1926/27) and
by studies in other parts of the world (Johns, 2016; Kulik et al., 2015; Williams et al., 2008).

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Departing employees might prefer to speak about topics for which they have positive feelings
and conceal negative experiences (Giacalone and Duhon, 1991).
Signaling Theory as a New Theoretical Perspective on Exit Interviews
Previous research on exit interviews has predominantly focused on the question of
whether organizations can trust the feedback they receive from resigning employees in these
interviews. Although this research has resulted in important knowledge about exit interviews,
we argue that alternative perspectives on exit interviews are not only possible but also
necessary to better understand this phenomenon. In particular, we propose that it is fruitful to
apply signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011; Spence, 1973) to exit
interviews.
Signaling theory is a very general theory stemming from economics (Spence, 1973)
and biology (Zahavi, 1975) that has now been used in many other fields, including
management (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011). Signaling theory investigates
communication situations in which two parties that have to or want to interact (i.e., two
signalers) exchange signals that may or may not perceived as credible (i.e., both send and
receive signals that communicate a certain unobservable quality). Importantly, signaling
theory assumes (a) information asymmetry, meaning some pieces of information are only
known by one party, and other pieces only by the other party; and (b) only partly overlapping
interests, meaning that sharing certain pieces of information might be more beneficial for one
party than for the other.
If applied to exit interviews, signaling theory predicts that both sides will send signals
of interest: parting employees to soon-to-be-former employers and soon-to-be-former
employers to parting employees. The idea that parting employees send signals to the
organization for which they had worked is consistent with previous research showing that
parting employees tend to provide an overly positive description of their work experiences
(e.g., Lefkowitz and Katz, 1969; Giacalone and Duhon, 1991; Williams et al., 2008). Whereas

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organizations are most likely interested in credible, honest feedback, parting employees might
rather be interested in leaving a positive final positive impression in case of future
interactions.
That organizations use exit interviews to send signals of interest to parting employees
also follows from signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011) because
organizations are likely interested in ensuring residual affective commitment (the
commitment felt towards an employer after having left; Breitsohl and Ruhle, 2013, 2016) and
consequently re-hiring employees (or at least in having the possibility to re-hire). Re-hiring is
often attractive for organizations because re-hiring reduces recruitment, socialization, and
training costs (Apy and Ryckman, 2014). Re-hired employees, also called boomerang
employees, also seem to stay longer once re-hired (Booth-LeDoux et al., 2019), and
organizations often hope that re-hired employees perform better (Swider et al., 2017; but see
Arnold et al., 2020). Furthermore, organizations might also send signals to prevent former
employees from talking badly about the organization. If people complain about their former
employer, this might not only damage the reputation of the organization among potential
customers but might also reduce the attractiveness of the organizations for other potential
applicants (negative word-of-mouth, Van Hoye, 2014). Keeping the numbers of complaints
low is also often a goal in situations where organizations lay off their employees (e.g., Richter
et al., 2018; Wood and Karau, 2009). Thus, signaling theory predicts that organizations will
engage in impression management towards parting employees, and this would also be
consistent with new research showing other instances in which organizations engage in
impression management (e.g., in hiring situations: Wilhelmy et al., 2016; Langer et al., 2019).
Initial evidence on the broader range of purposes for exit interviews comes from the
qualitative interviews Kulik et al. (2015) conducted. For instance, one of their interviewees
mentioned (p. 901) that the manager “said all the right things” in the exit interview so that the

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interviewee (a documents controller) later “came and just helped them with processing all the
documents.”
Such an exit interview should increase employees’ perceptions of being treated fairly
during the parting process. If an exit interview gives parting employees an opportunity to
voice their concerns, positive feelings they might still have for this employer, or whatever
topic they like to raise, this should be perceived as a fair act on behalf of the employer. Such
acts of interpersonal fairness would have a positive influence on employees’ attitudes
(Colquitt, 2001). Previous research in the context of layoffs has already shown that fairness
perceptions are an important process variable – for instance, fairness perceptions mediated the
effect of respect in a layoff meeting on anger experienced by the laid-off employee (Richter et
al., 2018) and the effect of layoff training on the willingness to complain (Richter et al.,
2016).
Taking stock of these arguments, we propose the following hypotheses:
H1: Compared to employees that did not have an exit interview, employees that had an exit
interview will report (a) higher residual affective commitment and (b) lower willingness to
complain, and these effects will be (c) mediated by greater perceived interpersonal fairness
during the parting.
Signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011) can also be used to
predict that organizations’ willingness to send signals will depend on the way employees have
communicated their resignation, because if parting employees used a positive style (e.g.,
expressed their gratitude), this can be understood as a signal that parting employee are
particularly open to the possibility of being re-hired. Thus, it is more beneficial for an
organization to send signals of interest to those who have a higher probability of coming back.
Klotz and Bolino (2016) recently established a resignation taxonomy of resignation styles that
differentiates between positive and negative styles. This taxonomy differentiates between
three positive styles (“grateful goodbye,” “in the loop,” and “by the book”) and four negative

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styles (“avoidant,” bridge burning,” “impulsive quitting,” and “perfunctory”). If parting
employees use the “grateful goodbye” style, they express their gratitude for having worked at
the organization and often try to minimize the disruption their resignation might cause.
Parting employees using the “in the loop” style inform their managers about their plans to
leave so that a later resignation does not surprise the organization. If employees leave “by the
book,” they approach their managers (primarily in a face-to-face meeting), tell them about the
decision, and explain why they are leaving. If people do not tell their supervisors directly that
they are resigning (i.e., just inform others or write an email), this is the “avoidant” resignation
style. If employees leave in anger and even insult their managers or otherwise harm the
organization, this is the “bridge burning” style. If someone’s resignation is characterized by a
spontaneous decision without any prior notice, this is referred to as the “impulsive quitting”
style. Finally, if employees meet their manager but only express their decision to resign
without giving reasons, then Klotz and Bolino (2016) call this the “perfunctory” resignation
style. Klotz and Bolino (2016) showed that supervisors show different emotional reactions
depending on the resignation style used by employees. “Grateful goodbye,” “in the loop,” or
“by the book” resignations styles elicit positive affect, whereas the others styles elicit negative
affect. To summarize, the resignation style taxonomy of Klotz and Bolino (2016) can be
combined with signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011) to argue that
employees who resign using a positive style have a higher probability of being offered an exit
interview in comparison to those who use negative styles. Thus, we propose the following
hypothesis:
H2: The probability of an exit interview is higher if employees’ resignation style is positive
compared to if it is negative.

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Method
Context
The data were collected in Germany, a country with specific regulations regarding
termination of jobs. In particular, German employees often continue working after resigning
for a considerable time period – up to six months after handing their resignation in some
sectors (e.g., according to the current German collective labor agreement for the public
service [“Tarifvertrag für den öffentlichen Dienst”]; Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau
und Heimat, 2019). Furthermore, employees who handed in their resignation are sometimes
suspended from work on full pay (“Freistellung” in German; sometimes described in Anglo-
Saxon countries with the euphemism “garden leave” because these employees are typically
not allowed to work for other organizations either and thus have ample to time to work in
their garden; see Coulthard, 2009, and Sullivan, 2016). Although such suspension is a costly
employer reaction, it is sometimes considered necessary to, for instance, prevent the leakage
of internal knowledge. Furthermore, some employees try to avoid coming to work by calling
in sick.
Sample
Given that all sampling strategies have their the advantages and disadvantages (see,
e.g., Highhouse and Gillespie, 2009; Landers and Behrend, 2015; Wheeler et al., 2014), we
decided to find participants using personal contacts and social network sites for two main
reasons. First, such a sampling strategy allows for anonymous and broad sampling (i.e., not
only from a small number of organizations), which seems particularly important for studying
a sensitive topic such as a resignation. Second, contacts in organizations who could provide
researchers with email address have only addresses of current employees but not of former
employees because former employees’ email addresses are nearly always discontinued by the
employer.

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We obtained data from 165 German employees who voluntarily participated without
any rewards. Participants had to have experience with voluntarily leaving an organization. To
identify careless responses in our online data (Meade and Craig, 2012), we controlled for
participants’ self-reported diligence and excluded one participant who explicitly stated their
data should not be used (using an item taken from Meade and Craig, 2012). Of the remaining
164 participants, 67 participants reported the existence of an exit interview (40.9%), and a
sensitivity power analysis (using G*Power, Faul et al., 2007, and assuming an alpha error of
.05 and a beta error of .20) revealed that such a sample size was sufficient to detect an effect
size (i.e., Cohen’s d) of .40 and greater. Furthermore, this sampling size allowed us to test
moderate mediation effects according to the sample size suggestions of Fritz and MacKinnon
(2007).
Descriptive information about the participants can be found in Table I (including
reasons why participants left their job). We also collected information about the exit interview
if applicable. If employees reported the existence of an exit interview, these interviews
typically took place either on the last day (37.3%, n = 25) or the second to last day (23.9%, n
= 16). In most cases (80.6%, n = 54), exit interviews were conducted by the direct supervisor.
Exit interviews took on average 26.3 minutes (SD = 28.2). The extent to which typical topics
were covered in these interviews is depicted in Figure 1. In addition, Figure 2 describes
activities initiated by the supervisor, the organization, and colleagues as well as activities
initiated by the parting employee.
Data was collected in April and May of 2017. Ethical review was not required for this
study in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The data of this
study are available on request from the first author but are not publicly available because
participants of this study did not give their explicit approval for their data to be shared
publicly.

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Measures
Participants rated all measures on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 = “strongly disagree”
to 5 = “strongly agree” unless otherwise mentioned.
Residual affective commitment was measured with five items that were developed
on the basis of Allen and Meyer’s (1990) affective commitment scale (for a German
translation, see Schmidt et al., 1998; see also Breitsohl and Ruhle, 2016) and that included the
following items: “I would be very happy to work again for this company,” “I still feel
committed to this company,” “I am proud that I was part of this company in the past,” “I still
have a strong feeling of belonging to this company,” and “I think that my values still fit to the
values of this company.” Cronbach Alpha for this scale was .91. Furthermore, Breitsohl and
Ruhle (2016) reported that their scale highly correlated with the intention to return and the
likelihood of recommending the previous employer to others, indicating the construct validity
of this scale.
Willingness to complain was measured with four items adapted from a scale
developed by Wood and Karau (2009) (for a German version see Richter et al., 2018). The
items were adapted by changing the subjunctive form to an indicative past form and by
specifying that the former employer was meant (e.g., “I would complain to friends about this
employer” became “I complained to friends about my former employer”). One item in this
scale is reverse-coded. Cronbach Alpha for this scale was .82. Wood and Karau (2009)
reported some construct validity evidence for this scale (i.e., if a termination interview
mentioned positive attributes of a laid-off employee, the willingness to complain of this
employee was reduced), and in Richter et al. (2018), willingness to complain was strongly
correlated with anger and (negatively) with fairness perceptions.
Interpersonal fairness during the parting was measured with an adapted four-item
scale developed by Colquitt (2001) (for a German translation see Maier et al., 2007). The
adaptation was to add “during the parting” (e.g., “During the parting, I felt treated in a polite

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way” and “During the parting, I felt treated with respect”). Cronbach Alpha for this scale was
.95.
A confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit for a three-dimensional factor model
in which each latent construct (residual affective commitment, willingness to complain, and
interpersonal fairness) loaded on the respective items: The comparative fit index (CFI) was
.96, the non-normed fit index (NNFI) was .95, and the standardized root-mean-square residual
(SRMR) was .06, with χ2(27) = 115.71,  < .001 (see Kline, 2011). In this confirmatory factor
analysis, we included no cross-loadings and no correlated error terms.
Additional items
Participants were asked whether there was an exit interview (1 = yes vs. 0 = no).
Furthermore, we developed a list of items (see Table II) capturing the seven resignation styles
included in the Klotz and Bolino (2016) taxonomy, using the definitions proposed by these
authors.
In addition, participants were asked several questions about the exit situation,
including topics in the exit interview (if it existed) and other activities around the exit (for
more details, see the first paragraph of the results section). These questions were added to
enrich the description of the situation.
Statistical analyses
We analyzed our data using SPSS for Windows (version 27.0, IBM Corp, 2020),
extended by Amos (Version 26.0; Arbuckle, 2019) for the aforementioned confirmatory factor
analysis and by the SPSS macro PROCESS (version 3.4), developed by Hayes (2018), for
testing mediation models. Hayes (2018) recommended bootstrapping for such mediation
analyses because it does not assume a normal sampling distribution and has more statistical
power than other approaches to test mediation. His macro generates bias-corrected percentile
bootstrapped confidence intervals for each indirect effect (in our case with 10000 resamples),
and the significance of an indirect path is indicated when the 95% confidence interval does

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not contain zero. Similarly, the PROCESS macro reports the 95% bias-corrected confidence
intervals for the direct effect, and if they do not contain zero, this signals partial mediation
(and if they do, full mediation). Furthermore, Hayes’ macro also reports the results for the
Sobel test as an additional (but less recommended) test for mediation.
Results
Hypothesis testing
Compared to employees who did not have exit interviews, employees who had exit
interviews reported more residual commitment (Mexit interview = 2.93 vs. Mno exit interview = 2.37; a
d of 0.52) and less willingness to complain (Mexit interview = 2.03 vs. Mno exit interview = 2.30; a d of
-0.31), which supports Hypotheses 1a and 1b (see Table III).
To test the mediation Hypothesis 1c, we run mediation analyses separately for each of
the two dependent variables, residual commitment and willingness to complain, based on the
correlations reported in Table IV. Table V reports the mediation results regarding residual
commitment and Table VI shows the mediation results regarding willingness to complain.
Both mediation analyses are visualized in Figure 3. As can be seen, there was evidence for a
partial mediation of the effects of exit interviews (yes vs. no) on residual commitment through
interpersonal fairness, indicated by the drop in the regression coefficient linking the
independent variable (i.e., exit interview yes vs. no) and the dependent variable (i.e.,
commitment) from 0.56 to 0.30. Furthermore, there was evidence for full mediation of the
effects of exit interviews (yes vs. no) on willingness to complain: The regression coefficient
dropped from -0.27 to -0.07, with the latter not being significant anymore. In addition, Sobel
test estimates were significant for both mediations (for residual commitment: z = 2.61, p <
.01; for willingness to complain: z = -2.61, p < .01), which is consistent with the findings
obtained through bootstrapping. In addition, controlling for gender (cf. Becker et al., 2016)
did not change results for both mediations (details available upon request from the first
author). Together, these results support Hypothesis 1c.

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To test Hypothesis 2, we categorized the resignations styles as either positive or
negative using the Klotz and Bolino (2016) taxonomy. Participants with a positive resignation
style were more likely to experience an exit interview (i.e., 60 out of 131) than those with a
negative resignation style (i.e., 7 out of 33) (see Table VII). Testing revealed a φ coefficient
of .20, p < .05, which supports Hypothesis 2.
Discussion
This study aimed to explain the gap between academics’ negative views of exit
interviews (e.g., Lefkowitz and Katz, 1969; Pearce, 2012) and practitioners’ use of them (see,
e.g., Spain and Groysberg, 2016) by using arguments derived from signaling theory
(Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011). More precisely, we argue that organizations
offer exit interviews to signal that they are interested in ensuring employees’ residual
affective commitment and reducing their willingness to complain. Our empirical results were
consistent with these arguments. Furthermore, we found that these effects were mediated by
interpersonal fairness during the parting process. We also argued that organizations send such
signals particularly to parting employees whose resignation style (Klotz and Bolino, 2016) is
positive, and this was also supported by the results.
Signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011) had not been
previously applied to exit interviews, but our results show that using this theoretical
perspective is a fruitful way to understand the phenomenon of exit interviews. An exit
interview can be considered an interaction event in which both parties – soon-to-be-former
employers and soon-to-be-former employees – exchange communication signals that might be
partly honest and partly not, because both parties like to leave a positive impression. For
example, the organization might try to re-hire the employee in future or may just want to
prevent the parting employee from speaking badly about the company to others. Parting
employees might be preparing to re-apply in the future or may just want to get a positive
recommendation letter for a future job.

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These results challenge the negative view of exit interviews that is found in the
academic literature (e.g., Feinberg and Jeppeson, 2000; Lefkowitz and Katz, 1969; Williams
et al., 2008; Hinrichs, 1975). Although our results do not question the older finding that
parting employees tell only parts of the truth for why they leave (in fact, this is consistent with
a signaling perspective on exit interviews), our results suggest that human resource
departments should not use exit interviews to elicit reasons for leaving, but should rather
consider them as a tool that (a) results in a better public reputation and (b) allows for a fruitful
relationship even after the end of employment. This relationship could result in people
returning (as “boomerang employees”, Booth-LeDoux et al., 2019) or in higher willingness to
buy products from the previous employer (Iyer and Day, 1998).
Our mediation results indicate why exit interviews have such positive effects: because
parting employees have the impression that they are treated fairly. The importance of
interpersonal fairness has already been found in other contexts, with the context of layoffs
being particularly relevant here because that is another situation in which employees leave the
organization (Richter et al., 2018; Richter et al., 2016). This study goes beyond previous
findings and shows that it is crucial that employees who have resigned themselves feel fairly
treated, which then causes them to stay committed to the former employer. In addition, these
results support ideas in the organizational impression management literature (Wilhelmy et al.,
2016) that organizations sometimes engage in impression management to signal fairness.
Although Wilhelmy et al. (2016) focused on fairness signals in hiring situations,
organizations might also signal fairness when employees leave.
Furthermore, our research also shows that parting employees can influence the
probability of having an exit interview by using a positive (vs. a negative) resignation style
(based on the categorization proposed by Klotz and Bolino, 2016). If they resign “by the
book,” by keeping their supervisors “in the loop,” or by even stressing how grateful they were
for being employed here (“grateful goodbye”), they seem to signal that they are interested in a

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continuation of a relationship and this increases their probability of having an exit interview
in comparison to other, more negative resignation styles (i.e., if they leave impulsively, in
anger, without explaining reasons, or without getting in personal contact with their
supervisors).
Interestingly, the frequencies of resignation styles in our German sample were fairly
similar to the US samples reported by Klotz and Bolino (2016). The main similarity is that the
“by the book” resignation style was the most common style in Germany and in the US (for a
comparison: between 31% and 43% in Klotz and Bolino’s US samples), and “impulsive
quitting” and “bridge burning” were rather rare in both countries (between 1% and 10% in the
US samples). The main difference seems to be the “avoidant” style, which seems to be more
common in the US (up to 16% in one US sample) than in Germany (around 5% in our
sample). This dissimilarity could be due to the fact that avoiding supervisors is difficult in
Germany, because Germany employees often come to work for a long time after handing in
their resignation letter. Nevertheless, it should be noted that neither the German, nor the US
samples were representative, which limits generalizability.
Practical implications
For organizations, this study implies that if they are interested in managing the exit
process in a way that leaves a good impression, they should (a) offer exit interviews more
often and (b) likely rename it as an “exit conversation” (Kulik et al., 2015, p. 893). Our
results also show the potential of exit conversations is not fully realized because only a
minority (41%) of the employees reported such an exit interview. This means that the chance
to leave a good impression on parting employees was missed by more than half of the
organizations. Even though losing employees can be disappointing considering the time and
resources an organization invests in its employees and because of the investment needed for
recruiting, socializing, and training new employees, organizations should employ a long-term
frame of thinking and search for ways to continue the relationship with parting employees. To

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do so, it seems crucial to engage in a conversation where both parties can voice their views,
instead of an interview in which the employer asks and the employee answers, and if it is a
conversation and not a one-sided “interview”, the expression “exit conversation” of Kulik et
al. (2015, p. 893) seems appropriate. (We should add that this point is not relevant in German
because “Austrittsinterviews”, the literal translation of “exit interviews”, is a rarely used
expression, whereas other terms are more common – more common are “Austrittsgespräch”,
translatable as “exit talk”, and “Abschiedsgespräch”, translatable as “farewell talk”.)
Even worse than an exit interview would be an exit survey in which employers ask
parting employees for the resignation reasons in a written or online questionnaire (see, e.g.,
Giacalone et al., 1997). Not only does this prevent the employee from starting a conversation,
it will also most likely be perceived as less interpersonal than any face-to-face
communication. This might result in lower interpersonal fairness perceptions (Colquitt, 2001),
which played a major role as a mediator in this study.
More generally, this study underlines the importance of managing the offboarding
process, in particular in countries like Germany where employees often continue working for
their employer after handing in a resignation letter (and where we collected our data).
Whereas researchers and practitioners seem to have devoted much attention to onboarding
process (e.g., Bauer et al., 2007; Fang et al., 2010), a comprehensive human resource
management approach should also keep an eye on the handling of the offboarding process,
especially given the probability of re-hiring former employees (e.g., Apy and Ryckman, 2014;
Booth-LeDoux et al., 2019)
Limitations and future research
As all studies, this study is not without limitations. First, readers should keep in mind
that there are many legal differences between countries regarding the resignation (and firing)
of employees and that our German data might not generalize to other countries. For example,
if the time period between announcing the resignation and the last day of work is shorter than

EXIT INTERVIEWS 18
in Germany, managers also have less time to get over their disappointment (or even anger) of
losing a good employee, which likely makes it harder to engage in activities that ensure a
fruitful relationship beyond the departure. Furthermore, the practice of “garden leave” where
employees are suspended from work on full pay after their resignation (see also Coulthard,
2009, and Sullivan, 2016) likely also varies between countries, although this practice has yet
to receive substantial research attention. Future research should aim to gather samples from
different work or cultural contexts and examine the influence of these situational factors. A
second limitation is the use of a cross-sectional design. Ideally, future research will use
longitudinal designs to follow up on employees who have left their employer, with or without
an exit interview. A third limitation is the rather small research sample (N = 164), which is
additionally limited by a comparatively low mean age. If a future research study replicates or,
even better, extends this study, data from a larger and more representative sample should be
collected. Fourth, we do not know whether participants’ answers were biased by social
desirability (cf. McCrae and Costa, 1983). If researchers want to ensure that parting
employees voice their views in a honest way, they could use specialized techniques that were
developed for the assessment of sensitive issues such as the randomized response technique
(see, e.g., König et al., 2020). Fifth, it should be kept in mind that a correlational design
cannot prove that exit interviews causally influence former employees’ residual commitment
and their willingness to complain – establishing causal relationships needs experimental
designs.
The signaling perspective on exit interviews opens many avenues for future research
in this area. According to signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al., 2011),
receivers of signals try to determine how honest signals are (e.g., Brosy et al., 2021). In an
exit interview, some statements are likely biased towards the positive side. For example, when
our participants report that the exit interview was used to give performance feedback, one
might wonder (and study) how honest this feedback really is because mentioning negative

EXIT INTERVIEWS 19
performance aspects might ruin the positive impression an organization wants to make on the
parting employee.
Conclusions
This article shows that it is time to shift from the study of how truthful responses are
in an exit interview, to exploring how a carefully planned offboarding phase, including an exit
conversation, leads to long-term benefits for organizations because it allows the employee-
organization relationship to continue beyond the employee’s tenure with the organization.
This is a new perspective based on signaling theory (Bangerter et al., 2012; Connelly et al.,
2011), and we hope this study will stimulate research on this important topic.

EXIT INTERVIEWS 20
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Table I
Sample description
Variable
% (n)
Gender
Female
61.62% (101)
Male
38.4% (63)
Highest school education within the German system
Lower secondary general education certificate (“Hauptschulabschluss” in German)
1.2% (2)
General certificate of secondary education (“Mittlere Reife”)
14.6% (24)
A degree qualifying for entering a university of applied sciences
(“Fachhochschulabschluss”)
25.0% (41)
University entrance qualification (“Abitur”)
59.1% (97)
Highest tertiary-education education
An apprenticeship degree (“Lehre” in German)
37.8% (62)
Bachelor degree from a university of applied sciences (“Fachhochschule”)
9.1% (15)
Master degree from a university of applied sciences
3.7% (6)
Bachelor degree from a university
24.4% (40)
Master degree from a university
13.4% (22)
No tertiary-education degree (so far)
11.0% (18)
Invalid answer
0.6% (1)
Reasons for resigning from the job a
Missing career options
33.5% (55)
Working condition
32.3% (53)
Pay
29.3% (48)
The work itself
27.4% (45)
Supervisor
18.9% (31)
The organization as a whole
15.9% (26)
Colleagues
10.4% (17)
Various other reasons
41.5% (68)
What participants did between announcing their resignation and their last day on the job
Continued working (including 29 who first continued working and then took
holidays)
78.7% (129)
Took holidays
9.8% (16)
Suspended from work on full pay (“Freistellung”)
5.5% (9)
Sick leave
4.9% (8)
Note. N = 164, average age = 29.94 years (SD = 6.22; four people with missing data).
a = several answers possible

EXIT INTERVIEWS 28
Table II
Participants’ Resignation Styles (Using the Taxonomy of Klotz & Bolino, 2016)
Style
Item
n
Percentage
By the book
I approached my supervisor for a personal meeting, announced my resignation and explained the
reasons for it.
87
53.0%
Grateful goodbye
I announced my resignation to my supervisor in a personal meeting and expressed my gratitude. I also
mentioned that I will try to minimize the disruption my resignation might cause.
36
22.0%
Perfunctory
I approached my supervisor for a short meeting to announce my resignation. I did not (yet) explain the
reasons for it.
12
7.3%
Impulsive quitting
Suddenly and without advance warning, I announced my resignation to my supervisor in a personal
meeting.
9
5.5%
Avoidant
I only handed in a written document announcing my resignation or gave it to someone from human
resources.
9
5.5%
In the loop
I announced my formal resignation to my supervisor in a personal meeting after having informed
him/her beforehand that I am looking for job alternatives.
8
4.9%
Bridge burning
I announced my resignation to my supervisor in a personal meeting. During this, I flew into such a rage
that I insulted the supervisor or the organization.
3
1.8%
Note. N = 164. Items were translated from German by the first author.

EXIT INTERVIEWS 29
Table III
Comparing Participants with and without Exit Interviews
Variables
Exit interview
(n = 67)
No exit interview
(n = 97)
t-test
M
SD
M
SD
t(162)
d
Residual commitment
2.93
0.99
2.37
1.14
3.42††
0.52
Willingness to complain
2.03
0.80
2.30
0.94
-1.94†
-0.31
Interpersonal fairness
4.19
1.12
3.67
1.21
2.81††
0.44
Note. †p < .05, one-tailed; ††p < .01, one-tailed.

EXIT INTERVIEWS 30
Table IV
Intercorrelations of Variables and Means and Standard Deviations
Variables
M
SD
1
2
3
1. Exit interview: yes vs. no
.41
.49
-
2. Residual commitment
2.60
1.11
.25**
3. Willingness to complain
2.19
0.89
-.15a
-.64**
4. Interpersonal fairness
3.88
1.20
.22**
.56**
-.52**
Note. Exit interview: yes coded as 1, no as 0. N = 164.
ap < .055, two-tailed; *p < .05, two-tailed; **p < .01, two-tailed.

EXIT INTERVIEWS 31
Table V
Regression Results for the Mediation of Interpersonal Fairness on the Relationship between Exit Interview (Yes vs. No) and Residual
Commitment
Model
R2
Coefficient
SE
p
95% CI
Effects of the independent variable on the mediator
Exit interview: yes vs. no → Interpersonal fairness
.05
0.52
0.19
< .01
[0.16, 0.89]
Effects of the independent variable and the mediator on the dependent variable
.33
Exit interview: yes vs. no → Residual commitment (i.e., direct effect c’)
0.30
0.15
< .05
[0.01, 0.59]
Interpersonal fairness → Residual commitment
0.49
0.07
< .01
[0.36, 0.63]
Indirect effects
Indirect effect via interpersonal fairness
0.26
0.09
-
[0.08, 0.45]
Note. CI = bias-corrected confidence interval. Coefficients are unstandardized. Exit interview: yes coded as 1, no as 0.
nwith exit interview = 67, nwithout exit interview = 97.

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Table VI
Regression Results for the Mediation of Interpersonal Fairness on the Relationship between Exit Interview (Yes vs. No) and
Willingness to Complain
Model
R2
Coefficient
SE
p
95% CI
Effects of the independent variable on the mediator
Exit interview: yes vs. no → Interpersonal fairness
.05
0.52
0.19
< .01
[0.16, 0.89]
Effects of the independent variable and the mediator on the dependent variable
.52
Exit interview: yes vs. no → Willingness to complain (i.e., direct effect c’)
-0.07
0.12
.55
[-0.31, 0.17]
Interpersonal fairness → Willingness to complain
-0.38
0.05
< .01
[-0.49, -0.28]
Indirect effects
Indirect effect via interpersonal fairness
-0.20
0.08
-
[-0.36, -0.06]
Note. CI = bias-corrected confidence interval. Coefficients are unstandardized. Exit interview: yes coded as 1, no as 0.
nwith exit interview = 67, nwithout exit interview = 97.

EXIT INTERVIEWS 33
Table VII
Contingency Table Resignation Style (Positive vs.
Negative) × Exit Interview (Yes vs. No)
Resignation style
Positive
Negative
Exit interview
Yes
60
7
No
71
26
Note. N = 164.

EXIT INTERVIEWS 34
Figure 1
Topics Raised in the Exit Interviews
Note. Participants (nwith exit interview = 67) answered on a 5-point Likert scale
from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree.” Error bars depict
standard errors.
4.16
3.58
2.97
2.91
11.5 22.5 33.5 44.5 5
I was asked about my plans for the future
I received feedback about myself and my job
performance
I was again asked about the reasons for my
resignment
I was asked about my opinion about the
employer (e.g., improvement opportunities)
Agreement

EXIT INTERVIEWS 35
Figure 2
Activities before the Exit as Reported by the Participants (N = 164)
Activities initiated by the parting employee
Activities initiated by the supervisor, the organization, or colleagues

EXIT INTERVIEWS 36
Figure 3
Mediation of the Relationship between Exit Interview (Yes vs. No) on (a) Residual Commitment and (b) Willingness to Complain
a)
b)
Note. Coefficients are unstandardized. Exit interview: yes coded as 1, no as 0. nwith exit interview = 67, nwithout exit interview = 97.
*p < .05, two-tailed; **p < .01, two-tailed.
Residual
commitment
Exit interview
yes vs. no
Interpersonal fairness
(c = 0.56**)
c’ = 0.30*
Willingness to
complain
Exit interview
yes vs. no
Interpersonal fairness
(c = -0.27*)
c’ = -0.07n.s.

EXIT INTERVIEWS 37
Cornelius J. König is professor of work and organizational psychology at the Universität des
Saarlandes (Saarbrücken, Germany). He received his PhD in psychology from the Philipps-
Universität Marburg, Germany. His main research interests are personnel selection, job
insecurity and firing, time management, and the research–practice gap. He has published in
journals such as Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel
Psychology, and International Journal of Selection and Assessment, amongst others. He is
currently also the Vice-President for Internationalization and European Relations, Universität
des Saarlandes.
Manuela Richter received her PhD in psychology from the Universität des Saarlandes, which
was awarded with the prize for the best dissertation of the Work and Organizational
Psychology Division of the German Psychological Society. She works now for the
Radeberger Gruppe, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Her research has appeared in journals such
as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Applied Social
Psychology.
Isabela Isak studied psychology at the Universität des Saarlandes and works now for
thyssenkrupp Gerlach GmbH in Homburg, Germany.