Assigning sales agents to a roommate from their home village can prevent them from quitting, but the moment that roommate leaves, the agent's risk of quitting doubles.
April 26, 2026
Original Paper
Informal Ties and Sales Agent Turnover: Evidence from Randomized Dormitory Assignment
SSRN · 6632638
The Takeaway
Randomly assigning employees to shared living quarters with people of a similar background creates a powerful emotional anchor for the company. Shared dialects and hometown connections serve as a form of social insurance that keeps workers stable in high-pressure sales roles. However, these ties are extremely fragile because they create a contagion effect for turnover. When one person in a pair decides to leave, the remaining person loses their primary social support and is far more likely to quit immediately. Companies can engineer loyalty through these informal ties, but they also become vulnerable to a domino effect of resignations.
From the abstract
Sales agent turnover poses significant challenges for firms that rely on sales agents to maintain customer relationships and generate revenue. This paper studies how informal ties (e.g., shared hometowns) among agents affect turnover. We develop a conceptual framework that distinguishes between the effect of informal ties while tied peers remain present and the incremental effect of losing a tied peer. The framework helps clarify whether informal ties reduce turnover overall and whether they ope