The existing literature on corporate political action has predominantly focused on firm decisions, neglecting the individual-level perspective. Our study addresses this gap by investigating the voluntary turnover of politician directors, who are board members with prior work experience in the government. Drawing upon the unfolding model of turnover, we argue that firm actions that deviate from government agendas can serve as a shock to politician directors, threatening their personal ideologies and political connections. While political deviance as a shock may trigger voluntary turnover among these directors, individual responses vary. We further argue that politician directors are more likely to opt for voluntary turnover as their response when they perceive the shock to be sufficiently strong and view voluntary turnover as a viable means to mitigate the shock’s impacts. To test our hypotheses, we analyze a sample of 8,077 politician directors from publicly listed Chinese firms. We specifically examine these directors’ responses to firms’ environmental misconduct, which contradicts the Chinese government’s environmental protection agenda. Our findings contribute to the research on corporate political action, employee turnover, and environmental misconduct.
