Voluntary Employee Withdrawal and Inattendance: A Current Perspective PDF
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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 delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. 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 AII rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specificalIy for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. 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
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