Why can’t I get out? The mediating role of internal inertial forces in the relationship between job embeddedness and the perceived likelihood of leaving: a test of the theory of career inaction

People who are embedded in their organization are less likely to leave their organization, even when they desire or intend to do so. Yet, so far, it remains largely unclear why this happens. The theory of career inaction states that highly embedded people who are less likely to realize a desire to leave because they get internally paralysed by several inertial forces when thinking about leaving. According to this theory, every person in the same situation is at least to some degree susceptible to these inertial forces and, thus, the relationship between job embeddedness and the inertial forces should not depend much on personal characteristics. Via three vignette studies and one field study, we examined whether the relationship between job embeddedness and the perceived likelihood of leaving is mediated by internal inertial forces. In the field study, we also explored whether personal characteristics (i.e. gender, age, educational level, and proactive personality) indeed did not moderate the relationship between job embeddedness and the internal inertial forces. In all four studies, inertial forces were found to mediate the relationship between on-the-job embeddedness and the perceived likelihood of leaving. For the relationship between off-the-job embeddedness and the perceived likelihood of leaving, we found mediation in the first three studies, but not in the survey study. Finally, we found no moderation effects of personal characteristics in the field study. Our results thus confirm several of the propositions in the theory of career inaction.