Innere Kündigung

Innere Kündigung translates literally as "inner termination" or "inner resignation." The term was introduced by Reinhard Höhn, a German management theorist and founder of the Harzburg model of delegative management, who first described the phenomenon in a newspaper article in January 1982, initially calling it "self-retirement." His 1983 book, Die innere Kündigung im Unternehmen: Ursache, Folgen, Gegenmaßnahmen (Inner Resignation in the Company: Causes, Consequences, Countermeasures), provided the first comprehensive definition.

Höhn described innere Kündigung as the deliberate withdrawal of initiative, creativity, and effort while continuing to fulfill the minimum contractual obligations of employment. The employee shows up, performs routine tasks, leaves on time, and invests nothing beyond what is strictly required. The decision is conscious, a response to perceived injustice, poor leadership, lack of recognition, or broken trust between worker and organization. Höhn identified the primary cause as the quality of relationships within the workplace, particularly with direct supervisors.

Wolfgang Elsik provided the first formal academic definition in 1994, distinguishing innere Kündigung from open resignation: the employment relationship is not terminated, but the employee's provision of discretionary effort ceases entirely. Later research in the teaching profession and public sector found the phenomenon widespread in organizations where employees had high job security but low control over their working conditions, a combination that made leaving costly but staying fulfilling impossible.

When the English-language concept of "quiet quitting" went viral on TikTok in 2022, German commentators noted that innere Kündigung had described the same phenomenon for four decades. The German term, however, carries a clinical, diagnostic weight that the English phrase lacks, framing disengagement not as a lifestyle trend but as an organizational pathology with identifiable causes and measurable costs.