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Analyzing voluntary employee turnover: A data-driven explanatory modeling approach
Article
Pöppel, Elisa, Schiller, Alexander
and Weinfurtner, Lucas
(2026)
Analyzing voluntary employee turnover: A data-driven explanatory modeling approach.
Decision Support Systems 208, p. 114713.
DOI to cite this document: 10.5283/epub.79682
Abstract
A widespread shortage of skilled employees, which also includes the increasing difficulty to retain talented employees by limiting voluntary employee turnover, impedes company success. To gather insights on voluntary employee turnover, previous research has conducted explanatory research focused on theory-driven hypotheses, or utilized predictive models, aiming to predict which employees are most ...
A widespread shortage of skilled employees, which also includes the increasing difficulty to retain talented employees by limiting voluntary employee turnover, impedes company success. To gather insights on voluntary employee turnover, previous research has conducted explanatory research focused on theory-driven hypotheses, or utilized predictive models, aiming to predict which employees are most likely to leave the company based on historical data. In contrast, we propose a methodology that combines predictive data mining methods, causal decision trees, and an expert validation to yield firm-specific actionable explanations for employee turnover. The proposed methodology is applied to a real-world case of a mechanical engineering company. Here, our data-driven causal analysis identifies patterns of voluntary service technician turnover, which are validated by domain experts and used to derive targeted measures for reducing future employee turnover. The results are shown to provide valuable insights, adding to the a priori knowledge of the experts, revealing discrepancies between subjective opinions and quantitative results, and substantially informing the company's decision-making. A follow-up study demonstrates that almost all of the derived measures are being realized and indicates early positive effects on employee turnover.
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Details
| Item type | Article | ||||
| Journal or Publication Title | Decision Support Systems | ||||
| Publisher | Elsevier | ||||
| Open Access Type | DEAL (Elsevier) | ||||
| Volume | 208 | ||||
| Page Range | p. 114713 | ||||
| Date | 15 June 2026 | ||||
| Date of publication | 23 Jun 2026 05:24 | ||||
| Institutions | Business, Economics and Information Systems > Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik > Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik II (Prof. Dr. Bernd Heinrich) Informatics and Data Science > Department Information Systems > Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik II (Prof. Dr. Bernd Heinrich) | ||||
| Identification Number |
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| Keywords | People analytics, Workforce analytics, Employee turnover, Employee churn, Attrition, Retention | ||||
| Dewey Decimal Classification | 000 Computer science, information & general works > 004 Computer science 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics | ||||
| Status | Published | ||||
| Refereed | Yes, this version has been refereed | ||||
| Created at the University of Regensburg | Yes | ||||
| URN of the UB Regensburg | urn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-796825 | ||||
| Item ID | 79682 |
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