Journal of Organizational Behavior J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 707–729 (2002) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/job.166 To stay or to go: voluntary survivor turnover following an organizational downsizing GRETCHEN M. SPREITZER 1 * AND ANEIL K. MISHRA 2 1 School of Business, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A. 2 Charles H. Babcock Graduate School of Management, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, U.S.A. Summary This paper examines the relationship between survivor reactions to a downsizing and retention subsequent to a downsizing. We hypothesize that survivors who experience the downsizing as distributively, procedurally, and interactionally just and who see top management as trust- worthy will feel more attached to the organization because each reduces the threat inherent in downsizing. In addition, we hypothesize that survivors who feel empowered will also feel more attached to the organization because they feel better able to cope with the downsizing. We further hypothesize that those survivors who feel more attached to the organization fol- lowing the downsizing will be more likely to remain with the organization in the coming year. The theoretical model is tested on a sample of aerospace employees who survived an organi- zational downsizing. The trustworthiness of management, distributive justice, procedural justice, and three dimensions of empowerment are found to facilitate more organizational attachment. Higher levels of attachment are found, in turn, to facilitate less voluntary turnover in the year following the downsizing. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Introduction Downsizing is defined as a purposeful reduction in the size of an organization’s workforce (Cascio, 1993). Prior research has shown that downsizing can have profound effects on survivors’ (i.e., those who remain employed subsequent to downsizing) behavior including, for example, job involvement (Allen, Freeman, Russell, Reizenstein, & Rentz, 2001; Brockner, Grover, & Blonder, 1988), good citi- zenship behavior (Bies, Martin, & Brockner, 1993), withdrawal (Brockner, 1990), work effort (Brockner, Grover, Reed, & DeWitt, 1992) and productivity (Brockner, Davy, & Carter, 1985). While we know quite a bit about survivors’ immediate reactions to a downsizing, we have only a limited understanding of survivors’ longer-term behavioral responses, particularly in terms of survivors’ will- ingness to remain with the firm subsequent to the downsizing. Evidence suggests that an organizational downsizing, whether or not one’s job security is threa- tened, deeply affects the attachment survivors feel toward the organization (Brockner, Tyler, & Received 27 August 2001 Revised 3 June 2002 Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 7 June 2002 *Correspondence to: Gretchen M. Spreitzer, School of Business, Room A2144, The University of Michigan, 701 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234, U.S.A. E-mail: spreitze@umich.edu