Voluntary Employee Withdrawal and Inattendance: A Current Perspective

227 Pages·2002·5.117 MB·English

by  Abraham Sagie, Meni Koslowsky (auth.), Meni Koslowsky, Moshe Krausz (eds.)

Voluntary Employee
Withdrawal and
Inattendance
A Current Perspective
INDUSTRIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY:
THEORY, RESEARCH, AND PRACTICE
Robert D. Smithers, Series Editor, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida
VOLUNTARY EMPLOYEE WITHDRAWAL AND INATIENDANCE
A Current Perpsective
Edited by Meni Koslowsky and Moshe Krausz
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring
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Voluntary Elllployee
Withdrawal and
Inattendance
A Current Perspective
Edited by
Meni Koslowsky
Bar-Ilan University
Ramat Can, Israel
and
Moshe Krausz
Bar-Ilan University
Ramat Can, Israel
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
ISBN 978-1-4613-5151-1 ISBN 978-1-4615-0599-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-0599-0
©2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York in 2002
Softcover reprinl of Ihe hardcover 1s I edilion 2002
http://www.wkap.nl/
ro 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A c.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
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Contributors
Helena Mensah Addae
University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad & Tobago
Vishwanath V. Baba
Michael G. DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton,
Ontario L8S 4M4, Canada
Julian Barling
School of Business, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6,
Canada
Gary Blau
Human Resource Administration Department, Temple University, Fox
School of Business Administration, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
Yair Amichai Hamburger
Department of Psychology, Bar-Han University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 52900
Kathy A. Hanisch
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011
David A. Harrison
Department of Management and Organization, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
Muhammad Jamal
Department of Management, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
H3G 1MB, Canada
Gary Johns
Department of Management, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
H3G 1M8, Canada
v
vi Contributors
Rabindra N. Kanungo
Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec. H3A IG5,
Canada
E. Kevin Kelloway
Department of Management, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova
Scotia, B3H 3C3, Canada
Meni Koslowsky
Department of Psychology, Bar-Han University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 52900
Moshe Krausz
Department of Psychology, Bar-Han University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 52900
Manuel Mendonca
Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A IG5,
Canada
Abraham Sagie
School of Business Administration, Bar-Han University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
52100
Caroline Weber
School of Industrial Relations, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario,
K7L 3N6, Canada
Preface
When we started editing this volume, the world seemed to be a worker's
heaven: the high-tech industry was flourishing then and the "New
Economy" seemed to have the leading role in the business world.
Moreover, the burgeoning need for new recruits created a labor market
where the employees had the upper hand. Job candidates and new
recruits often dictated the salary and benefit packages that they wanted
whereas employers-start-ups as well as more established companies
had to yield to their demands. R&R, i.e., recruitment and retention, were
the major concern of many companies due to the disparity between need
for, and supply of, qualified and often even unqualified applicants. In
addition to their constant demands throughout the recruitment process,
employees were also involved in voluntary turnover, leaving one com
pany for the next one, sometimes foregoing a thorough search of the avail
able alternatives and, frequently, having more than one offer at hand.
This state of affairs has taken a marked downturn starting shortly
after the beginning of the new millennium and exacerbated by the terror
ist attacks in New York City and Washington. The world has undergone a
deep economic crisis affecting, in particular, high-tech where burgeoning
numbers of employees are losing their jobs across the Western world. The
power balance has shifted toward organizations that now have wider lati
tude in dictating salary and benefits to job candidates as well as restricting
their current employees. As a result, employees are more likely to stick to
their current jobs or, at least, to be much more timid and cautious when
contemplating mild as well as more severe forms of voluntary withdrawal
such as late arrival to work and full-day absences, let alone leaving the job
and the organization, topics that form the core of the current volume.
In addition, other questions and doubts are raised about the "New
Economy" and the outcomes of globalization. Verbal, as well as physical,
attacks on the concept of globalization have just culminated in the mur
derous terrorist attacks in the United States, which the heinous perpetra
tors as well as various more objective observers have attributed to the
negative outcomes that globalization has had on poorer parts of the
vii
viii Preface
world. During the current phase of the business cycle, companies can dic
tate the terms of employment; the pressure is on to cut many jobs and
severely curtail the choice now available to job searchers.
To borrow a term that has been one of the key concepts explaining
employee turnover-perceived ease of mobility (March & Simon, 1958)
labor markets have moved, within one year, from a high and often insa
tiable quest for new workers to large scale downsizing, with some
companies near bankruptcy. This situation has created fewer labor market
alternatives for those beginning their careers as well as for "old-timers"
wishing to make a job change or midlife transition. The reader must be
cognizant of the fact that these recent developments will undoubtedly
have an effect on the issues dealt with in the current volume. The ques
tion may, therefore, be raised as to whether voluntary withdrawal behav
ior is at all an important issue under these circumstances. Moreover,
whereas economic and labor market status reflect situational trends in the
demand and supply of employees, affected by cyclical fluctuations, the
world has for quite some years been undergoing changes that appear to
be more enduring and stable.
A related question raised by Harrison in his chapter concerns the
present status of the milder or temporary forms of withdrawal, namely,
lateness and absence. Are they still viable and important organizational
measures in an era where work communication may be considered as
"continuous," i.e., not bound by time or distance? Thus, working at home,
on the road, or over the Internet does not require an office and is not lim
ited to the hours between 9 and 5.
While current knowledge does not provide firm answers to such
questions, it is our belief that the various forms and modes of withdrawal
behavior will continue to prevail, though possibly on a somewhat smaller
scale. First, good workers and performers are still a premium and are still
in demand (Donovan, 2001) even during these times. Second, for the aver
age worker, even in labor markets that are indeed more risky and uncer
tain for employees, individuals will continue to be absent voluntarily and
ponder the possibility of finding a "better job," even if chances of doing
so are slim. Such behaviors and attitudes are just natural reactions and
are, to a large extent, independent of the economy. For example, the oft en
quoted turnover model by Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, and Meglino (1979)
does include job alternatives as an antecedent but also incorporates
within it many individual difference variables and company-related
measures. Thus, psychological reasons such as job dissatisfaction or the
need to alleviate the stress associated with working on dull and unsatis
fying jobs would be expected to explain a large amount of turnover
variance. In addition, people will still arrive late or take days off, perhaps,
Preface ix
less frequently and less conspicuously than before so as not to jeopardize
their present employment or to prevent other less-drastic employer
initiated sanctions. Although it may be expected that throughout difficult
labor market periods, such as currently prevail, the traditional measures
of withdrawal will decline, other forms of withdrawal may very well
develop (e.g., high frustration with a job that one cannot easily leave may
be conducive to psychological problems, lack of concentration and moti
vation, and, in the extreme, more violence and abuse in the workplace).
As for the communication technologies that allow employees to be
"absent" but also at the same time to work individually or collaboratively,
it should be noted that the benefits as well as the original forecasts about
the future of teleworking or telecommuting appear to have been exagger
ated and the number of employees working from home is far less than
predicted. In fact, even companies that have favored such arrangements
are more sensitive to some of their shortcomings (Kurland & Bailey, 1999)
and seem to be shying away from them, "retreating" to the more tradi
tional form of face-to-face work communication.
In conclusion, we contend that employee withdrawal will continue to
be an important research and practical issue despite transitory and long
range environmental changes.
A brief review of the various chapters will illustrate quite clearly the
wide gamut of issues represented here. The order of chapters follows, in
general, a progression from theoretical presentations at the beginning to
more empirical and practical applications toward the end.
In the first chapter, Sagie, Koslowsky, and Hamburger present a mul
tilevel model of lateness. Unlike Blau, there is no distinction between
chronic and incidental lateness, nor is length considered. Instead, the
authors emphasize the usefulness of analyzing lateness in wider con
texts-individual, organizational, and cultural-and draw the effects on
each of those circles. Mensah Addae and Johns (Chapter 2) claim that in
cross-cultural absence research both individual- and cultural-level
absence legitimacy are distinctive criterion measures since absence is
influenced by factors beyond employees' control. The model posits sev
eral variables that influence absence legitimacy perceptions such as work
centrality and time perceptions. Also, the meaning of time varies by cul
ture. Additional cultural variables relevant to absence legitimacy are locus
of control, gender role differentiation, and social support systems. The
authors assert that by examining cross-cultural factors, the role of social
influence on absenteeism is clarified and permits generalizations beyond
single site studies which are constrained by specific and unique factors.
In Chapter 3, Krausz outlines some newer forms and unexplored
antecedents of employee turnover behavior, in particular considering
x Preface
turnover as part of an individual's preplanned career program, regardless
of work satisfaction and not contingent on unsolicited job opportunities.
It is also suggested that turnover may be an outcome of other employees'
behavior or of nonwork changes such as relocation of a spouse. The
author argues that more attention should be given to intraorganizational
job mobility where employees move to another unit or branch. Such
moves are similar to extraorganizational turnover since they may involve
meaningful losses to the employee him-or herself, to colleagues, to super
visors, and to entire organizational units or branches.
In Chapter 4, Kanungo and Mendonca discuss three types of with
drawal: avoiding or reducing membership behavior such as tardiness,
absenteeism, and turnover, avoiding or reducing performance behaviors
such as work restriction and social loafing, and avoiding extra role behav
iors which are not part of the role itself. All of these withdrawal forms
hamper innovative behavior and reduce the organization's effectiveness.
The authors propose that withdrawal is actually a manifestation of
employee powerlessness and weak commitment to the job and the organ
ization. Each of these three types represents a relief from tension-ridden
environments. Kanungo and Mendonca outline the performance man
agement process-a strategy to reduce employee withdrawal, enhance
mutual trust, and increase commitment.
In Chapter 5, Harrison contends that although lateness and absence
differ quantitatively from each other, both of them differ qualitatively
from turnover, thus justifying a distinction between two types of with
drawal-temporary and permanent. In addition, the author proposes
studying turnover as a multiple- as opposed to a single-occurrence vari
able with individual differences describing a continuum of propensity to
turnover. In addition to the organizational definitions, Harrison offers a
workflow or psychological definition of both lateness and absence, which
do not necessarily agree with the organizational definitions. A co-worker
may consider a fellow employee as arriving "late" because of work over
load rather than as a result of a violation of organizational rules. In the
same manner, lateness or absence may be considered a 360-degree phe
nomenon as seen by suppliers, customers, and superiors regardless of the
organizational definition ("1 don't care what your company thinks, you
were too late for my needs and plans").
Blau contributed two chapters (6 and 7) to this volume. The first of
these is a reprint of the now-classical paper on employee lateness which
David Harrison described (Chapter 5) as the "data set [that] probably
contains the most meticulous and time-sensitive data measurement in the
literature. Few lateness researchers can hope to have the detailed records
he was able to exploit, if they can get archival data at all." Blau developed