Roller Coaster
The major negative impact of Thompson's resignation is the loss of a star analyst, and likely his junior, leaving the company with a major gap in coverage. Further, there is a deal in the sector that the company is trying to put together, so the resignation comes at a time when it will cost the company an unusually high amount of money. There is specific revenue losses associated with losing Thompson. If Thompson does leave, the company will likely need to poach another semiconductor analyst, because it is important to have someone in the sector. This will probably cost more than the cost of paying Thompson more.
Thompson's departure probably does not have a lot of great opportunities. It might force the company to bring in another analyst, but that is unlikely to be an improvement. Or the company might have to focus on other sectors, like finding an analyst in an emerging sector to promote as the company's next big rock star. Such a move, however, is not mutually exclusive to Thompson's departure. The other opportunity, promoting Rina, has already been discussed, but again is not nearly as positive as keeping Thompson.
Stephen Connor, when handling Thompson's intention to resign, has to consider the opportunity costs. Yes, retaining Thompson will cost a lot of money, but Connor has to weigh that increased cost against the hit that the business will take in terms of commissions, prestige, and the potential for finding pathway that ends up being better than the status quo. The way the case is framed, there is little opportunity for RSH to avoid taking a loss on this one they will probably just need to replace Thompson with a more expensive analyst, or pay Thompson more. It sounds like this is the nature of the business, actually, even if Connor is from a different generation and doesnt quite accept that.
For managing my own career, I would say that there is always that question of whether the grass is greener, but there is also the issue of whether or not the threat of a departure can be used as leverage. In this case, there is a publication that validates the analyst's rock star status. For people who don't have that, it is very much a calculated risk to threaten to leave as a point of leverage.
