📄 social_science

Tour Guide Turnover Intention in Occupational Stigma Context：The moderating effect of occupational embeddedness

Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory, this study of 557 Chinese tour guides reveals that perceived occupational stigma increases turnover intention through job-family conflict stress, a relationship that is buffered by high occupational embeddedness.

Original authors: zhenhua he, ruiqing xie, lifeng chen

Published 2026-06-30

📖 4 min read☕ Coffee break read

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: zhenhua he, ruiqing xie, lifeng chen

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine a tour guide's career as a long, winding road trip. In this story, the Tour Guide is the driver, the Tourists are the passengers, and the Public Opinion is the weather outside the car.

This research paper is essentially a report on what happens when the "weather" turns stormy and the public starts throwing mud at the driver. The authors, Zhenhua He, Ruiqing Xie, and Lifeng Chen, wanted to understand why so many tour guides in China are quitting their jobs and what might stop them from doing so.

Here is the breakdown of their findings, using simple analogies:

1. The Storm: Occupational Stigma

In the past, being a tour guide was like being a celebrity diplomat—high status, good pay, and lots of respect. But recently, negative news stories (like guides forcing tourists to shop for commissions) have turned the public against them.

The paper calls this "Occupational Stigma." Think of it as a giant, invisible "Dirty" sign painted on the tour guide's back. The public sees them not as professionals, but as "bad," "unethical," or "dirty." This isn't just a bad reputation; it's a heavy psychological burden.

2. The Leak: Job-Family Conflict Stress

The study found that this "Dirty" sign doesn't just hurt the guide at work; it starts leaking into their home life.

The Mechanism: When a guide feels stigmatized, they feel disrespected and ashamed. This stress follows them home. Their family and friends might start treating them differently, feeling embarrassed to be associated with them, or offering less emotional support.
The Result: The guide feels like they are fighting a battle on two fronts: the public hates their job, and now their home life feels tense because of it. The researchers call this "Job-Family Conflict Stress."

The Big Discovery: The study found that the "Dirty" sign (Stigma) doesn't make guides quit directly. Instead, it makes them quit because it ruins their home life. The stress at home is the middleman that pushes them out the door. It's like a leaky roof (stigma) doesn't make you move out immediately, but the water soaking your furniture (family stress) eventually forces you to leave.

3. The Anchor: Occupational Embeddedness

So, why don't all guides quit? The paper introduces a concept called "Occupational Embeddedness."

Think of this as the roots of a tree or the anchors of a ship.

High Embeddedness: These guides have deep roots. They have strong connections with colleagues, they feel their skills fit the job perfectly, and they feel they would lose a lot (sacrifice) if they left. They are "stuck" in a good way.
Low Embeddedness: These guides have shallow roots. They feel disconnected and have little to lose by leaving.

The Magic Effect: The study found that these "roots" act as a shield.

If a guide has deep roots (high embeddedness), the "Dirty" sign from the public hurts less. They can say to themselves, "Sure, the public is mean, but I love my team, I'm good at this, and I have too much invested to leave." Their roots absorb the shock, so their home life doesn't get as stressed.
If a guide has shallow roots (low embeddedness), the "Dirty" sign hits them hard. They have no buffer, so the stress spills over into their family life immediately, and they are much more likely to quit.

The Summary of the Journey

The paper maps out a specific chain reaction:

Stigma (Public thinks guides are bad) ➔
Stress (This makes the guide's home life tense and unhappy) ➔
Turnover (The guide decides to quit).

However, if the guide has Occupational Embeddedness (strong roots), it acts like a shock absorber. It weakens the link between the public's negativity and the guide's home stress. The stronger the roots, the less likely the guide is to let the public's opinion ruin their family life and force them to quit.

What the Authors Suggest

Based on this "storm and anchor" theory, the authors suggest:

For the Government/Industry: Stop the "storm." Run campaigns to clean up the public's image of guides and crack down on the bad actors causing the stigma.
For Companies: Help the guides grow their "roots." Offer better support, flexible schedules, and training so they feel more connected and less likely to leave.
For the Guides: Build your own "roots." Connect with other guides and focus on the value of your work to make yourself feel more anchored.

In short, the paper argues that to keep tour guides on the road, we need to stop the public from throwing mud (stigma) and help the guides build deeper roots (embeddedness) so the mud doesn't knock them off their feet.

Technical Summary: Tour Guide Turnover Intention in Occupational Stigma Context

Problem Statement
The tourism industry in China faces a critical challenge regarding the sustainability of its workforce, specifically tour guides. Despite the industry's rapid growth and strategic economic importance, the tour guide profession suffers from high turnover rates (averaging 18% compared to 5–10% in other sectors) and low professional recognition. This instability is largely driven by "occupational stigma," a negative public stereotype fueled by media reports of unethical practices (e.g., forced shopping, kickbacks) and characterized by low wages, irregular hours, and minimal welfare protection. While the link between stigma and turnover is recognized in other sectors, the specific mechanisms within the tourism context—particularly the role of work-family dynamics and the buffering capacity of occupational attachment—remain underexamined. This study addresses the gap by investigating how perceived occupational stigma influences tour guides' turnover intention, mediated by job-family conflict stress and moderated by occupational embeddedness.

Methodology
The study employs a quantitative research design grounded in Conservation of Resources (COR) theory.

Sample: Data was collected via convenience and recommendation sampling from 557 valid respondents (out of 608 collected) representing Chinese tour guides. The survey was conducted between December 2024 and February 2025.
Measures:
- Occupational Stigma: Adapted from Shantz and Booth (2014), consisting of 6 items measuring the extent to which guides perceive public stigma.
- Job-Family Conflict Stress: Adapted from the Occupational Stress Indicator (Lu et al., 1997), consisting of 2 items.
- Turnover Intention: Adapted from Scott and Colleagues (1996), consisting of 4 items.
- Occupational Embeddedness: Adapted from scales by Thomas and Feldman (2009) and Adams et al. (2010), modified for tour guides with 14 closed-ended items measuring links, fit, and sacrifice.
- All variables were measured on a 5-point Likert scale.
Analysis: Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and Mplus 8. The study utilized reliability and validity tests (Cronbach's $\alpha$ , Composite Reliability, AVE, Confirmatory Factor Analysis), hierarchical linear regression, and bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) to test mediation and moderation effects.

Key Results
The empirical analysis supports all proposed hypotheses:

Direct Effects: Occupational stigma has a significant positive effect on both turnover intention ( $\beta=0.172, p<0.01$ ) and job-family conflict stress ( $\beta=0.327, p<0.01$ ).
Mediation: Job-family conflict stress fully mediates the relationship between occupational stigma and turnover intention. The direct effect of stigma on turnover became non-significant when the mediator was introduced, while the indirect effect was significant (95% CI [0.114, 0.272]). This indicates that stigma drives guides to leave primarily because it depletes resources in their family domain, creating stress that necessitates a change in occupation.
Moderation: Occupational embeddedness significantly negatively moderates the relationship between occupational stigma and job-family conflict stress ( $\beta=-0.073, p<0.01$ ). Simple slope analysis reveals that for guides with high occupational embeddedness, the positive impact of stigma on stress is weaker compared to those with low embeddedness.
Conditional Indirect Effect: Occupational embeddedness also negatively moderates the indirect path from stigma to turnover intention via job-family conflict stress. High embeddedness weakens the mediating effect, suggesting that resource-rich guides are better able to buffer the stress caused by stigma without resorting to turnover.

Key Contributions
The paper claims three primary theoretical contributions:

Extension of COR Theory: It identifies job-family conflict stress as a critical "resource loss pathway" linking occupational stigma to turnover intention, a mechanism previously underexplored in tourism research.
Contextual Resource Identification: It introduces occupational embeddedness as a specific contextual resource that buffers the stigma–stress relationship, demonstrating that individuals with greater accumulated occupational resources (links, fit, sacrifice) are more resilient to stigma-induced stress.
Mechanism Clarification: By establishing full mediation through job-family conflict, the study challenges assumptions of direct stigma effects, highlighting the importance of the family domain in the retention decisions of service occupation workers.

Significance and Practical Implications
The study posits that reducing stigma-driven turnover requires addressing both the external perception of the profession and the internal resource reserves of guides.

For Government and Associations: The authors recommend establishing national anti-stigma campaigns, developing professional certification systems to enhance legitimacy, and strictly regulating markets to eliminate practices (like forced shopping) that fuel negative stereotypes.
For Enterprises: Tourism companies are advised to implement family-friendly policies (flexible scheduling, paid leave) to reduce job-family conflict and provide emotional/skill-based support to increase occupational embeddedness.
For Individuals: Guides are encouraged to engage in professional communities and continuing education to strengthen their occupational links and reframe the value of their work to build resilience.

Limitations
The authors acknowledge that the study relies on scales adapted from other contexts rather than those specifically designed for tour guides, which may limit specificity. Additionally, the cross-sectional nature of the data prevents causal inference regarding the dynamic evolution of stigma over time. Finally, the sample is limited to specific provinces in China, suggesting a need for broader geographical representation in future research.