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Editorial verdict
Methodologically competent regional study. The PLS-SEM approach is appropriate and robustness checks are thorough, but the cross-sectional 2019 Chinese dataset and sector-specific sample limit generalizability — the job embeddedness superiority claim is directionally credible but not definitive.
Executive summary
This study addresses the persistent challenge of high turnover intention among social workers in China, where approximately 28.8% of surveyed workers have considered quitting and 18% plan to leave the industry within three years. The authors argue that existing turnover models — specifically the Price-Mueller (PM) model and the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model — rely excessively on endogenous attitudinal variables such as job satisfaction and burnout, and insufficiently account for structural network forces. To address this, the study integrates 'job embeddedness' as a dual mediating construct alongside job satisfaction, constructing a model tested via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using data from 671 Chinese social workers drawn from the China Social Work Longitudinal Study 2019 (CSWLS 2019). Key findings indicate that organizational working conditions — job stress, work support, and salary — significantly influence turnover intention both directly and indirectly. Job embeddedness demonstrated stronger mediating power than job satisfaction across most pathways, particularly for job stress and work support. Salary uniquely operated only through job satisfaction, not through job embeddedness. The authors conclude that retention strategies in the social work sector warrant prioritization of embeddedness-building mechanisms, given the relational and Guanxi-oriented nature of Chinese professional social work culture.
Key insights
- 1Job embeddedness demonstrated stronger explanatory power for turnover intention than job satisfaction, with effect size (f2) evidence supporting its superior contribution to variance explained in the turnover construct.
- 2The mediating pathway from salary to turnover intention operated exclusively through job satisfaction, not through job embeddedness, suggesting salary influences retention primarily via affective evaluation rather than structural network deepening.
- 3A statistically significant serial mediation chain was confirmed for job stress and work support (working condition → job embeddedness → job satisfaction → turnover intention), indicating a sequential cognitive-then-affective mechanism for employee retention decisions.
Practical takeaways
- Organizations seeking to reduce social worker turnover may find that interventions targeting structural embeddedness dimensions — Links, Fit, and Sacrifice — produce stronger retention effects than interventions focused solely on job satisfaction or compensation adjustments.
- Demographic variables including age, marital status, educational level, and organizational tenure showed significant effects on turnover-related constructs, indicating that uniform HR retention policies may be less effective than differentiated approaches tailored to workforce subgroups.
Frameworks mentioned
Price-Mueller Model
A turnover model categorizing determinants of turnover intention into external environmental, individual, and organizational environmental factors, with job satisfaction as a core mediator.
Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model
A framework classifying job characteristics into demands (e.g., stress, emotional burden) and resources (e.g., support, job significance), used to explain burnout and turnover via resource depletion mechanisms.
Conservation of Resources Theory
A stress theory positing that individuals accumulate and protect resources, and that stress results from resource loss or threat; applied here to explain how work support buffers and job stress accelerates turnover intention.
References
- East China University of Science and Technology (2019).China Social Work Longitudinal Study 2019 (CSWLS 2019).
- Academy of Management Journal (2001).Why people stay: using job embeddedness to predict voluntary turnover.
- Journal of Applied Psychology (2001).The job demands-resources model of burnout.
- International Journal of Manpower (2001).Reflections on the determinants of voluntary turnover.
- Journal of Applied Psychology (1984).A review and meta-analysis of research on the relationship between behavioural intentions and employee turnover.
- Social Service Review (2001).Antecedents to retention and turnover among child welfare, social work, and other human service employees: what can we learn from past research? A review and metanalysis.
- Personnel Psychology (1993).Job satisfaction, organisational commitment, turnover intention, and turnover: path analyses based on meta-analytic findings.
- Research on Social Work Practice (2021).Baseline survey of China Social Work Longitudinal Study 2019: design and implementation.
- Sage (2022).A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), 3rd Edition.
- Australasian Marketing Journal (2019).How to specify, estimate, and validate higher-order constructs in PLS-SEM.
- Tourism Economics (2020).Structural model robustness checks in PLS-SEM.
- Journal of Social Work (2020).Will material interest make social workers quit their job? A meta-analysis.
- Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration (2022).Relationship of job stress to turnover intention in hospital nurses of rural areas: job embeddedness as a mediator.
- Cogent Psychology (2022).Job embeddedness profiles: associations with supervisor relations, job satisfaction, and work engagement.
- Sustainability (2020).Sustainable relationship development between hotel company and its employees: linking job embeddedness, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, job performance, work engagement, and turnover.
- Leadership Quarterly (2011).The mediating role of organisational job embeddedness in the LMX–outcomes relationships.
- BMC Health Services Research (2022).How do working conditions affect the turnover intention of medical social workers in China?.
Source & Provenance
frontiers
Yang Luo, Xiaoge Zhao
April 1, 2026
Research Study
Asia-Pacific
Original source metadata is preserved. AI analysis is generated separately.
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