Sustainability performance and employee turnover. Does industry's technological intensity matter A quantile regression analysis of European listed manufacturing companies

The present paper aims to explore the link between the three dimensions of sustainability performance (ESG: social, environmental and governance), approximated by Standard and Poor's (S&P) ratings, and employee turnover. Furthermore, it examines the impact of the technological intensity of industries in which companies operate on this relationship. Panel data quantile regression models are estimated using a sample of 105 manufacturing firms listed in the European capital market during the period 2017-2019. With the exception of the economic dimension, the estimation results show that sustainability performance scores are negatively associated with employee turnover rate in high and medium-high technology industries. However, the opposite is found for companies operating in medium-low and low technology industries. Nevertheless, the determinants of employee turnover and the extent to which it is affected by sustainability performance scores are strongly dependent on the conditional distribution of turnover rate as well as the industry's technological intensity.