ORIGINAL ARTICLE Exploring the interpersonal determinants of job embeddedness and voluntary turnover: A conservation of resources perspective Long Zhang 1 | Chuanhao Fan 2 | Yulin Deng 2 | Chak Fu Lam 3 | Enhua Hu 1 | Lingyun Wang 1 1 College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China 2 Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing, China 3 College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Correspondence Long Zhang, College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 29 Jiangjun Road, Nanjing 211106, China. Email: lzhang@nuaa.edu.cn Funding information Human Resource Development Research Base of Jiangsu Province, Grant/Award Number: 2017ZSJD002; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Grant/Award Number: NJ2018027; National Natural Sci- ence Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 71832006 and 71832007 Abstract This paper draws on a conservation of resources perspec- tive to understand employee voluntary turnover. We conceptualise voluntary turnover as an outcome of resource loss, and we view job embeddedness as an indication of resource levels. On the basis of this conceptualisation, we propose that workplace ostracism and leader–member exchange (LMX) affect voluntary turnover via job embeddedness. We also propose an interaction effect of workplace ostracism and LMX: Workplace ostracism increases voluntary turnover by depleting job embeddedness only when people experience high‐quality LMX. Data from 352 employees in a Chinese software com- pany obtained through a three‐wave survey support our model. Our findings illuminate the resource consequences of interpersonal interactions on job embeddedness and vol- untary turnover, and we offer practical implications for employee retention. KEYWORDS job embeddedness, leader–member exchange, ostracism, voluntary turnover 1 | INTRODUCTION Over the past two decades, job embeddedness—“the combined forces that keep a person from leaving his or her job” (Yao, Lee, Mitchell, Burton, & Sablynski, 2004, p. 159)—has attracted considerable interest as a proximal Received: 12 September 2017 Revised: 15 February 2019 Accepted: 22 February 2019 DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12235 Hum Resour Manag J. 2019;1–20. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 1