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Frequency versus time lost measures of absenteeism: Is the voluntariness distinction an urban legend?
Abstract
We investigate a long-standing methodological rule of thumb, the idea that the frequency of absenteeism from work approximates an expression of voluntary behavior while total time lost better reflects involuntary behavior and ill health. Conducting original meta-analyses and using results from existing meta-analyses, we determine that time lost and frequency are equally reliable, that the relationship between them approximates unity when corrections for measurement artifacts are applied, and that there is very little evidence for differential criterion-related validity predicated on the voluntariness distinction. We supply new meta-analytic estimates of the reliability of absenteeism adjusted for aggregation period and determine that most extant meta-analyses of the correlates of absenteeism have markedly under-corrected for unreliability. Our results question the basic construct validity of the time lost–frequency distinction, and they contradict the practice of using “trigger points” that factor absence frequency into attendance monitoring and associated discipline systems so as to discourage short-term absenteeism, assumed to be volitional. We conclude that the idea that time lost and frequency reflect different degrees of voluntariness is an unsupported urban research legend. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... 8 In regard to the demographic change debate, organisational functionaries bring up concerns that, with chronological age, absenteeism rates also increase, resulting in higher costs caused by the outage and replacement of these human resources (Manyika et al., 2015;The Economist, 2014). Although managers and practitioners share these concerns (Manyika et al., 2015;The Economist, 2014), research does not draw a conclusive picture about the direction and strength of the relationship (see, e.g., Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Martocchio, 1989). Some studies support the stereotype postulating a positive relationship between chronological age and absenteeism (Badura et al., 2014;Frick & Malo, 2008). ...
... Other studies find a negative relationship (the older the less absenteeism; Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Kristensen et al., 2006;Nielsen, 2008), or even suggest that chronological age and absenteeism are not significantly related (Hackett, 1990). Even meta-analyses do not offer final clarity on the chronological age/ absenteeism relationship; they suggest that the type of absenteeism (e.g., in terms of short-term versus long-term absenteeism or frequency versus duration) should be considered to understand chronological age effects on absenteeism (e.g., Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Martocchio, 1989). ...
... Other studies find a negative relationship (the older the less absenteeism; Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Kristensen et al., 2006;Nielsen, 2008), or even suggest that chronological age and absenteeism are not significantly related (Hackett, 1990). Even meta-analyses do not offer final clarity on the chronological age/ absenteeism relationship; they suggest that the type of absenteeism (e.g., in terms of short-term versus long-term absenteeism or frequency versus duration) should be considered to understand chronological age effects on absenteeism (e.g., Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Martocchio, 1989). Thus, a group of researchers consider higher-level antecedents of absenteeism, considering that the team and organisational context can have a strong impact on absenteeism behaviour (see, e.g., Kristensen et al., 2006;Martocchio, 1994;Nicholson & Johns, 1985), which might explain the contradictory findings on the chronological age/ absenteeism relationship at the individual level. ...
... Time lost is generally regarded as involuntary because the absence results from factors beyond the person's control (e.g., illness, family problems; Darr & Johns, 2008), while frequency is regarded as voluntary (e.g., bad attitude). However, there is little support for the assumption that time lost measures of absenteeism are more reflective of illness than frequency measures (Johns, 2002), and that frequency measures are more reflective of bad motives than time lost measures (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). As energy is closely related to motivational processes at work and is a sign of good health (Shirom, 2011), and as time lost absences are often explained by these factors (Darr & Johns, 2008;Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Magee et al., 2017), it makes sense for our theoretical model to posit that the influence of RLMX on absenteeism will occur through the effect of vigor. ...
... However, there is little support for the assumption that time lost measures of absenteeism are more reflective of illness than frequency measures (Johns, 2002), and that frequency measures are more reflective of bad motives than time lost measures (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). As energy is closely related to motivational processes at work and is a sign of good health (Shirom, 2011), and as time lost absences are often explained by these factors (Darr & Johns, 2008;Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Magee et al., 2017), it makes sense for our theoretical model to posit that the influence of RLMX on absenteeism will occur through the effect of vigor. We propose a partial mediation process, so we divided our hypothesis development into three parts (Hypothesis 2, Hypothesis 3, and Hypothesis 4). ...
... Furthermore, COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) states that people are motivated to minimize net loss of resources to protect their current resources and gain new ones. Low RLMX employees with low vigor will seek to use coping mechanisms to avoid further personal resource depletion by physically withdrawing from work (Shirom, 2011), and thus consider using absences as recovery and replenishment mechanisms (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). Supporting this view, vigor has been found to be negatively related to production deviance (i.e., coming to work late; Little et al., 2011). ...
This study examines how, why and when relative leader–member exchange (RLMX) influences absenteeism through the mediating effect of feelings of vigor, and the moderating role of unit-level leader–member exchange differentiation (LMX differentiation). Data collected from a Swiss retailer sample of 486 employees within 52 stores shows that RLMX is positively related to feelings of vigor, whereas feelings of vigor are negatively related to absenteeism. Also, RLMX has a stronger positive effect on vigor when LMX differentiation in the unit is high, and on absenteeism when differentiation in the unit is low. However, we found no evidence that the indirect influence of RLMX on absenteeism through feelings of vigor is moderated by unit-level LMX differentiation. The implications of these findings for research on LMX are discussed.
... Moreover, research suggests that work challenge perceptions may negatively relate to employees' absenteeism, both voluntary (i.e., as a type of avoidance) and involuntary (i.e., due to health-related issues; Johns and Hajj, 2015). When individual employees perceive their work as favourable and challenging, in particular, they are highly motivated to invest time and energy into their job, decreasing the likelihood of voluntary absenteeism among these individuals (Johns and Hajj, 2015;Lepine et al., 2005) and increasing their willingness to appear at work even when they suffer from minor indispositions (Michie et al., 1989). ...
... Moreover, research suggests that work challenge perceptions may negatively relate to employees' absenteeism, both voluntary (i.e., as a type of avoidance) and involuntary (i.e., due to health-related issues; Johns and Hajj, 2015). When individual employees perceive their work as favourable and challenging, in particular, they are highly motivated to invest time and energy into their job, decreasing the likelihood of voluntary absenteeism among these individuals (Johns and Hajj, 2015;Lepine et al., 2005) and increasing their willingness to appear at work even when they suffer from minor indispositions (Michie et al., 1989). In addition, positive work experiences tend to buffer feelings of anxiety and depression, which are known to promote involuntary absenteeism (Wedegaertner et al., 2013). ...
... Accordingly, prior research has illustrated negative linkages between work challenge appraisals and employees' involuntary absenteeism (Spencer and Steers, 1980). Employees with relatively low work challenge perceptions, by contrast, may try to avoid their work whenever possible (Johns and Hajj, 2015), and they are more likely to experience mental health issues due to boredom and work monotony (Kass et al., 2001), thus promoting absenteeism. ...
Many employees in today’s organizations are involved in more than one team at the same time. Building on the challenge‐hindrance stressor framework, this study investigates potential benefits and disadvantages of such multiple team membership (MTM) for individual employees. Furthermore, we extend this framework with insights from the job demands‐resources model to propose that, depending on an employee’s organizational tenure, individual MTM will differentially shape his or her perceptions of work challenge and role ambiguity, subsequently influencing the employee’s job performance and absenteeism. We tested our conceptual model using time‐lagged multi‐source data from a large organization of applied research (N = 1211). Our results demonstrate that, for employees with relatively low organizational tenure, MTM was negatively associated with perceived work challenge and positively associated with perceived role ambiguity, which in turn associated with lower job performance and higher absenteeism. For employees with higher organizational tenure, by contrast, MTM associated positively with their work challenge perceptions and subsequent performance outcomes, whereas MTM was unrelated to perceived role ambiguity as well as absenteeism. These findings identify relevant psychological mechanisms and a key contingency factor that explain when and why MTM may have positive or negative individual‐level consequences.
... Nevertheless, no effort has been made to explicitly investigate the age/absenteeism relationship between white and blue collar employees, considering their different work and career motives. This seems to be particularly relevant for voluntary short-term absenteeism behaviour, which is assumed to be driven by motivational rather than health impairments (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). ...
... While the latter is referring to absenteeism for longer time periods (i.e., more than 3 days), which is often caused by serious health-issued for which a medical certificate is needed, the former is measuring short absenteeism periods (i.e., less than 3 days). This means that short-term absenteeism behaviours are more under the motivational control of the employees (Hackett, 1990;Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). In consequence, as we are interested in how motivational team processes are affected by team age structures, we focus on average team short-term absenteeism behaviours as outcome variables in this study. ...
... Particularly, absenteeism researchers found mixed and even contradictory results for the relationship between chronological age and absenteeism (Harrison & Martocchio, 1998;Martocchio, 1989). While some researchers (Badura et al., 2014;Bierla, Huver, & Richard, 2013) find a positive relationship between chronological age and absenteeism, several researchers show negative relationships (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Kristensen et al., 2006;Nielsen, 2008) or even no relationship (Hackett, 1990). Meta-analyses on this issue did not clarify this question, suggesting that the type of absenteeism (e.g., in terms of frequency versus duration; short-term versus longterm absenteeism; absenteeism versus presenteeism) might affect the chronological age/absenteeism relationship (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Martocchio, 1989). ...
Organizations in the twenty-first century face the challenges of an increasingly ageing workforce, which have an effect on organizational health and productivity. As chronological age has shown to be an insufficient indicator of employees’ health and, in particular, absenteeism, we apply the subjective age concept (i.e., how old an employee feels) at the team-level to explain the average chronological age/average short-term absenteeism relationship. We develop a theoretical framework for underlying processes, combining the subjective age research with the socioemotional selectivity theory and team contagion processes. We test our predictions in a time-lagged team-level sample of 1,015 teams with 12,926 employees to find a significant interactive effect of average chronological age and average subjective age on average short-term absenteeism in teams. The relationship is negative and significant when average subjective age is low. Under high-average subjective age, the relationship is non-significant. Furthermore, this interactive effect (average chronological age/average subjective age) is moderated by job type (white versus blue collar) in the form of a three-way interaction, indicating that the effect is only significant among white collar teams. We hope to enrich the theoretical debate on age and absenteeism and provide organizations with a new perspective on ageing work teams.
... The first one is measured by the number of times an individual has been absent during a specific period, irrespective of the length of each of those absences, while involuntary absenteeism is measured by the total length of time an individual has been absent over a specified period, regardless of the number of absence spells [18]. Despite this distinction, recent studies [19] demonstrated that the two absenteeism measures (duration and frequency) showed similar reliabilities and their association with each other approximates unity. Thus, the voluntary distinction seems to be unsupported. ...
... Thus, the voluntary distinction seems to be unsupported. Therefore, based on their results, Johns and Al Hajj [19] suggested that researchers measure absenteeism in terms of both frequency and duration without making attributions about their relative voluntary attributes. ...
... Al Hajj [19] study, absenteeism was measured in terms of both duration (number of days a worker has been absent during one year) and frequency (number of absence spells during one year). A period of one year was chosen because it increases stability in the absence measures [38]. ...
Purpose
Anxiety-related problems at work are a serious problem in the occupational context, as they come along with sick leave and problems in work participation. The aim of this study is to analyse workplace phobic anxiety in nonclinical context using the Job Demands-Resources model.
Methods
The study involved a sample of 739 workers from a retail company, mostly with permanent contracts. Structural equation modelling analyses were performed using AMOS software.
Results
Both the health impairment and motivational variables in the JD-R model were significantly related to workplace phobic anxiety and subsequently to absenteeism, specifically, exhaustion mediated between perceived job demands and workplace phobic anxiety and work engagement mediated between perceived job resources and workplace phobic anxiety. Moreover, workplace phobic anxiety was significantly positively related to absenteeism.
Conclusions
Results suggest that workplace phobic anxiety is a specific concept and an important issue in organizations for both workers' health and the organizational costs linked to absenteeism. Supervisors and occupational physicians should be aware of workplace phobic anxiety, especially when workers are on sick leave often or for long periods.
... Self-reported absenteeism was measured using the following question: 'Over the last 12 months, how many days of work did you miss?' The meta-analysis by Johns and Miraglia (2015) showed that the data on self-reported absenteeism are fairly representative of the real pattern of absences when the period covered is 12 months, as was the case in this study. This approach was also used in a study by Harrison and Shaffer (1994), as well as one by Johns and Al Hajj (2016). Considering the abnormal distribution of absenteeism, this variable was recoded using logarithmic transformation (Log 10) in order to adjust its pre-analysis distribution (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). ...
... Since demographic variables (gender, age, and education) can influence the relationship between the variables under study (e.g., Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Liu & Ngo, 2017), analyses were conducted to determine their level of association. Based on the recommendations by Carlson and Wu (2012), the demographic variables were ultimately not retained due to the absence or marginal nature of their relationships (i.e. ...
This paper investigates the interrelationships among organizational learning (OL) facilitators, OL itself, and three organizational outcomes: employee intention to leave the organization, absenteeism, and perceived organizational performance. It also investigates how OL mediates the relationship between OL facilitators and organizational outcomes. 145 employees (113 women) working in a French-Canadian community hospital completed a survey covering all the studied variables. Bootstrap regression analyses were used to test various hypotheses. Results support the idea that environmental components (culture, leadership, support, and strategic management of learning) can facilitate OL. They also show that OL mediates the relationships between certain of its facilitators and employee intention to leave the organization as well as perceived organizational performance. The research supports the view that it is possible to reduce employee turnover intentions and foster performance in a healthcare context by establishing an environment conducive of OL.
... Both frequency and duration can therefore be viewed as behavioral indicators of well-being . However, there is little empirical support for the voluntariness distinction between absence frequency and duration (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). Therefore, in line with the recommendation by Johns & Al Hajj (2016), both absence frequency (the number of sick leaves) and duration (time lost due to sick leave) are measured and no further assumptions about voluntariness are made. ...
... However, there is little empirical support for the voluntariness distinction between absence frequency and duration (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). Therefore, in line with the recommendation by Johns & Al Hajj (2016), both absence frequency (the number of sick leaves) and duration (time lost due to sick leave) are measured and no further assumptions about voluntariness are made. ...
We examined the effects of a (mis)match between learning opportunities and individuals’ mastery goal orientation (GO; approach and avoidance) on well-being (i.e., job satisfaction, task enjoyment, need for recovery, and absenteeism). Data from a sample of 212 employees of an organization that provides guardianship for youngsters were collected and analyzed by means of polynomial regression and surface plot analysis. Our results indicate that a person's mastery GO enhances the positive effects of perceived learning opportunities. Hence, to foster employee well-being, organizations should not only provide ample learning opportunities but also foster a mastery GO. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... In defining a proxy for voluntary absence, the literature has often distinguished between two absence metrics: time lost and frequency. Time lost refers to the total number of days an individual is absent from work over a certain period of time, whereas frequency refers to the number of inceptions of absence over the same time frame, irrespective of the duration of those inceptions (Johns and Hajj 2016). Previously, it has been suggested that a frequency measure is the best proxy variable for voluntary absence (Chadwick-Jones, Brown, and Nicholson 1973;Hammer and Landau 1981), but more recent studies have concluded that time lost and frequency are equally reliable, that they approximate unity, and that there is very little evidence for frequency being a better proxy for voluntary absence than time lost (Johns and Hajj 2016). ...
... Time lost refers to the total number of days an individual is absent from work over a certain period of time, whereas frequency refers to the number of inceptions of absence over the same time frame, irrespective of the duration of those inceptions (Johns and Hajj 2016). Previously, it has been suggested that a frequency measure is the best proxy variable for voluntary absence (Chadwick-Jones, Brown, and Nicholson 1973;Hammer and Landau 1981), but more recent studies have concluded that time lost and frequency are equally reliable, that they approximate unity, and that there is very little evidence for frequency being a better proxy for voluntary absence than time lost (Johns and Hajj 2016). ...
... We sought an aggregation time period that would be short enough to be relevant to job satisfaction, but long enough to overcome issues of extreme discreteness, skew, and kurtosis that arise with short-term absenteeism data (Harrison & Martocchio, 1998). 3 The company recorded the total number of work hours employees missed each month, which we converted to the number of days employees missed by dividing by eight and rounding to the nearest integer (see Johns & Hajj, 2016 for a comparison of time loss and frequency measures). ...
... Our data were skewed to the right and overdispersed, which violates assumptions of normality associated with OLS (Harrison & Hulin, 1989). To address this, we analyzed the data with a negative binomial distribution, which is the most suitable nonlinear modeling approach for analyzing overdispersed count data (Coxe, West, & Aiken, 2009;Harrison & Hulin, 1989;Johns & Hajj, 2016). 4 We standardized all continuous variables and followed the guidelines from Aiken and West (1991) for creating interaction terms and testing simple slopes at 1 SD above and below the mean of the moderator variable (guilt proneness). ...
We propose that the relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism depends partly on guilt proneness. Drawing on withdrawal and process models of absenteeism, we argue that job satisfaction predicts absences for employees who are low (but not high) in guilt proneness because low guilt-prone people's behaviors are governed more by fulfilling their own egoistic desires than by fulfilling others' normative expectations. We find support for this prediction in a sample of customer service agents working for a major telecommunications company and a sample of working adults employed in a range of industries. In each study, we use measures of employees' guilt proneness and job satisfaction to predict their subsequent workplace absences. In Study 2, we extend our hypothesis tests to 2 traits that are conceptually comparable to guilt proneness (i.e., moral identity and agreeableness), showing that these traits similarly moderate the relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism. We discuss the implications of these findings for extant models of absenteeism and research on moral affectivity in the workplace. (PsycINFO Database Record
... organization; Rotundo & Sackett, 2002), but also undesirable behaviors such as presenteeism (attending work while being psychologically or physically unavailable for work; Miraglia & Johns, 2016), absenteeism (failure to report for work ;Johns & Al Hajj, 2016), and counterproductive work behaviors (volitional acts that violate the legitimate interests of, or do harm to, an organization or its stakeholders; Sackett & DeVore, 2002). ...
This study aims to identify profiles of employees characterized by different configurations of performance, presenteeism, absenteeism, and counterproductive work behaviors and their generalizability within two distinct samples of workers. To assess the construct validity of the profiles, this research then investigates their association with two correlates related to the work recovery process (Sample 1: Sleeping difficulties and psychological detachment) and two other correlates related to employees’ psychological well-being at work (Sample 2: Job satisfaction and work engagement). Finally, this study also considers the role played by employees’ perceptions of colleagues, supervisor, and organizational support as well as emotional dissonance as predictors of profile membership (Sample 1). Latent profile analyses led to the identification of five profiles corresponding to a an Involved, Average (Maladaptive), Deviant-Presenteeism, Withdrawn (Presenteeism), and Problematic configuration of workplace behaviors. Low emotional dissonance and high perceived supervisor support, but not organizational or colleagues support, were generally associated with a higher likelihood of membership into the most desirable profiles, which also tended to display more desirable work recovery processes, and higher levels of job satisfaction and work engagement.
... Nicholson, 1977). Such WABs are rarely considered simultaneously, despite ample evidence on the behaviors' importance for organizations and individuals (Baker-McClearn et al., 2010;Dwyer & Ganster, 1991;Johns, 2011;Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Lu et al., 2014;Reinwald & Kunze, 2020). ...
Workplace attendance behaviors (WAB), i.e., absenteeism and presenteeism, are important to both organizations and individuals. Yet, despite growing knowledge on their formation, and ongoing calls for its exploration, research on how the legitimacy of WAB impacts attendance decisions is missing. We contribute by providing researchers with the Workplace Attendance Behavior Legitimacy Scale (WABLS), a reliable, valid, and economical measure validated in English and German, across five samples. WABLS includes 12 items that measure the personal norms of attending work via three dimensions that emerged across Studies 1A, 1B and 2, namely the respective legitimacies of working in the state of ill-health (sickness presenteeism), working despite a lack of motivation (motivational presenteeism), and not working due to a lack of motivation (motivational absenteeism). We find that WABLS exhibits good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, discriminant and criterion-related validity, and longitudinal and cross-lingual measurement invariance (Study 3). We discuss theoretical implications for attendance legitimacy as well as opportunities for the future use of WABLS.
... De literatuur maakt een methodologisch onderscheid tussen verzuimfrequentie en verzuimduur (Schaufeli et al., 2009;Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). De verzuimduur is het totaal aantal dagen dat een werknemer gedurende een bepaalde periode afwezig is. ...
Perceived economic skills obsolescence and development opportunities at work: the relationships with absenteeism and work engagement Technological developments continuously change the demand for skills in the workplace and the labour market. If workers do not adjust their skill set to the changing job requirements, their current skill set will lose its value for the labour market. This is referred to as economic skills obsolescence.
It is therefore crucial that workers are given opportunities to develop new skills. In this article we examine the relationship between perceived economic skills obsolescence and development opportunities at work, and to what extent both are related to absenteeism. We used data from 2,731 workers (age 18-66 years) of a Dutch telecom company, of which 1,444
respondents completed the survey. We show that workers particularly perceive their technical, ICT and problem-solving skills as obsolete. We also show that perceived economic skills obsolescence is related to higher absence frequencies, and that work engagement mediates this relationship. Moreover, we show that more development opportunities at work are related to lower absence frequencies, directly as well as indirectly through higher
work engagement. Development opportunities at work are thus valuable resources for workers to meet the ever-changing demand for skills and prevent absenteeism. This study offers valuable insights to organizations and HR-professionals, especially for those industries facing rapid technological
developments.
Keywords: skills obsolescence, development opportunities, absenteeism, work engagement
... Figure 1B summarizes our propositions. Of course, we acknowledge that interpreting absence duration/frequency as indicators for involuntary/voluntary absence is subject to controversy (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). Nonetheless, we decided to employ this approach here, since the two absence indicators are not yet well studied in relation with presenteeism. ...
Presenteeism is problematic since it relates to lower health and productivity. Prior research examined many work and attitudinal variables relating to presenteeism at the individual level. Here, we conceptualize presenteeism as multilevel phenomenon also shaped by the overall attendance behavior (absenteeism and presenteeism) at the work unit. We surveyed employees at a manufacturing plant on presenteeism, health-related lost productive time (HLPT) and absenteeism ( N = 911, 22 units) and collected preceding (past 12–7 and 6 months) objective absence data aggregating it at unit level. Considering the individual-level antecedents only higher physical demands predicted higher absence duration. Presenteeism related positively to physical demands, a burdensome social environment, and organizational identification and negatively to ease of replacement, and core self-evaluations. These relationships were similar for HLPT as outcome. Regarding unit-level factors, preceding unit-level absence frequency (but not duration) negatively related to presenteeism. The negative relationship between core self-evaluations and individual presenteeism decreased under a stronger presenteeism context supporting the hypothesized cross-level effect of unit-level presenteeism context strength. Moreover, individual and unit-level presenteeism correlated, as expected, more strongly with health complaints than absenteeism. Our study demonstrates the value of a contextual, multilevel approach for understanding antecedents and consequences of attendance behavior.
... Schaufeli et al., 2009). Similarly, the meta-analysis by Johns and Hajj (2016) observed that the two measures of absence (i.e., frequency and duration) "are not empirically discriminable" (p. 463). ...
Workforces are aging rapidly and older workers are typically assumed to take more sickness absence. However, the relationship between age and sickness absence is not well understood, as research has yielded mixed findings and has neglected broader societal factors that cascade to shape the age-sickness absence relationship. To advance the literature, we adopted a resource-based perspective and investigated the relationship between employee age and sickness absence as mediated by two countervailing mechanisms: physical health issues and work engagement. We also highlighted two country-level boundary conditions (health expenditure per capita and labor force participation rate) for these mechanisms. We tested our hypotheses with two archival datasets. In Study 1, using a sample of 28,553 employees from 35 European countries, we tested a multilevel model and found that age was positively related to the number of physical health issues, which in turn was positively associated with sickness absence. Country-level health expenditure per capita was found to mitigate this relationship. We also found that age was positively related to work engagement, which was negatively related to sickness absence, and country-level labor force participation rate strengthened this relationship. In Study 2, using a multi-wave dataset (N = 304) from the Health and Retirement Study in the United States, we found further support for the two hypothesized mechanisms (physical health issues and work engagement) between age and sickness absence. Our findings have cross-national implications for understanding and managing sickness absence by helping workers stay healthier and be more engaged in the context of population aging.
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... This perspective does not believe in establishing a certain threshold or in using rigid criteria to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary absences, considering absenteeism as based on both individual and contextual factors. In addition, recent research showed that the two types of measurements (duration vs. frequency) have similar reliabilities, with an association between them close to unit adding the fact that meta-analytic studies have demonstrated that regardless of the type of absences measured, hindrance stressors have a positive association with absenteeism and withdrawal behaviors [24,27,33,38]. By virtue of this and following other authors [24], our measurement of absenteeism (methods section) does not distinguish between these two types, as it refers to the total number of sick leave days. ...
Economic stress has been recognized as a major threat to the well-being and performance of workers, especially during times of global economic crisis. An interesting and relatively unexplored research topic concerns the associations between economic stress and employee job outcomes such as innovative behaviors, indispensable for business survival. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between economic stress, absenteeism and innovation. We considered both a direct and a mediation hypothesis and hypothesized that economic stress can have a negative
influence on innovation directly and indirectly through increased absenteeism. A cross-sectional study was performed during 2018 and 2019 in an Italian food factory. A sample of 578 employees completed the Stress Questionnaire, the Janssen’s nine-item scale and a single-item regarding absenteeism. All relationships are supported by empirical data. As expected, the results indicated that economic stress is negatively related to innovation and positively related to absenteeism, which, in turn, plays a mediating role in the relationship between economic stress and innovative behavior. Herewith, those employees with higher levels of economic stress show higher levels of absenteeism contributing at the same time to a decrease in innovative behaviors. These findings show the importance of economic stress in understanding individual work outcomes and highlight the need to promote adequate intervention programs.
... Therefore, presenteeism stemming from the attitude -"feeling guilty for taking a day off" or the perspective -"considering a relationship with supervisor (e.g., social tie, connection, and guanxi)" is more evident among workers in Chinese societies than those in Western societies . Previous studies have also showed much evidence that frequent presenteeism among employees may incur seven times or more losses for the company than frequent absenteeism (Ayyagari et al., 2011;Côté et al., 2021;Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). Furthermore, the study of Johns (2011) explained that presenteeism is a warning sign for and may be regarded as a prerequisite of the turnover intention. ...
The purpose of this study is to elucidate the relationships between leader–member exchange (LMX), perceived organizational support (POS), presenteeism, and turnover intention as well as to test the mediating effect of presenteeism and the moderated mediating effect of POS. A total of 566 questionnaires were returned in technology industry to examine the quality of the dyadic relationships between the workers perceived LMX, supervisor-subordinate guanxi and presenteeism in the first questionnaire survey. And we examined second questionnaire survey that their turnover intentions by self-assessed after a month in the first time retuned. After excluding matching and invalid questionnaires, 365 valid questionnaires were collected. In this study, LMX indirectly affected turnover intention through presenteeism. Studies have asserted that high-quality LMX and strong POS effectively reduced workers’ turnover intentions. In addition, when POS increased, the negative relationship between LMX and turnover intention and the positive relationship between presenteeism and turnover intention increased and decreased, respectively. However, POS failed to moderate the positive relationship between LMX and presenteeism. Further, presenteeism was determined to mediate the relationship between LMX and turnover intentions. Notably, LMX only indirectly affected turnover intention through presenteeism in workers with low POS. The findings of this study can serve as a reference for formulating human resource management policies. In summary, this study provides evidence of the important role played by turnover intentions in determining an LMX, supervisor-subordinate guanxi and presenteeism. High-quality exchange relationships entail leader–member relationships and organization proxy (e.g., supervisor)–worker relationships. When workers’ perceptions of organizational support are weak, and the organization lacks a robust support policy, workers’ presenteeism to reciprocate to their supervisors or organization cannot be regulated, increasing presenteeism behavior in the organization and workers’ turnover intentions.
... Each appearance in court requires a full working day or a half of it, and this time off work is often registered as a leave of absence or unpaid leave. Among other causes are life circumstances that prevent students from going to school or university (Birioukov, 2016), poor health as a parameter of "involuntary behaviour" within absenteeism (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016), situations of "alternative social costs" of work when family and friends are enjoying their free time accompanied by absence from work. ...
... On a very general level, one can differentiate between two types of contextual performance: behaviours which aim primarily at the smooth functioning of the organization as it is at the present moment, and proactive behaviours which aim at changing and improving work procedures and organizational processes (Di- Marco et al., 2018). The 'stabilizing' contextual performance behaviours include organizational citizenship behaviour with its five components altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, courtesy, and sportsmanship, some aspects of organizational spontaneity (e.g., helping co-workers, protecting the organization and of prosocial organizational behaviour (Koopmans et al., 2017;Johns and Al-Hajj, 2016). The more pro-active behaviours include personal initiative (Frese, Kring, Soose, & Zempel, 2016), voice (Van Dyne & LePine, 2018), taking charge (Morrison & Phelps, 2009). ...
Knowledge is the result of collective work. As an important component of human capital and intangible assets of the company, when properly processed, knowledge transfer can foster work performance. For a decade, enterprise social media affordances have been studied based on surveys of different platforms users, not allowing to submit the users to the same conditions, therefore, ignoring the effects of platform design on enterprise social media. To address this gap, this empirical research studies the effect of enterprise social media affordances on employee performance from the perspective of knowledge transfer, using a single platform. The analysis of survey data collected from 317 Malagasy employees using the company’s own intranet has shown that association, visibility, persistence and editability affordances of ESM foster knowledge acquisition and knowledge provision, which in turn promote employee performance. Findings show that the relationship between ESM affordances and work performance are essentially mediated by knowledge provision. This study provides the key variables for a sustainable performance of the co-creation of value in the knowledge transfer process of the technological innovation process, and the levers for action on these variables. These variables are identified from the intersection of the technological (ESM affordances), social (knowledge provision and knowledge acquisition) and organizational (task performance and contextual performance) dimensions of the knowledge transfer process.
... This type of conflict encourages employee absenteeism and also resignation from their post within the company [26,27]. Absenteeism, or not attending work when expected, could be defined as time lost on days a person had been away from work [30,31] due to reasons such as illness, family responsibilities, personal issues, or other reasons. Such work absenteeism is even more pronounced for employees who are married and with children [32]. ...
Among the main causes of absenteeism are health problems, emotional problems, and inadequate work-family policies (WFP). This paper analyses the impact of the existence and accessibility of WFP on work absenteeism, by considering the mediating role of the well-being, which includes emotional as well as physical or health problems, that is generated by these policies. We differentiate between the existence of the WFP and its accessibility, as the mere existence of the WFP in an organisation is not enough. Additionally, workers must be able to access these policies easily and without retaliation of any kind. The model includes the hierarchy and the gender as moderating variables. To test the proposed hypotheses, a structural equation model based on the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach is applied to a sample of employees in the service sector in Spain. On the one hand, the findings show that the existence of WFP has no direct effect on absenteeism; however, accessibility to these policies does have a direct effect on absenteeism. On the other hand, both the existence and accessibility of WFP have positive direct effects on emotional well-being. In addition, emotional well-being is positively related to physical well-being which, in turn, promotes a reduction in absenteeism. Finally, significant differences in the relationship between the existence of WFP and emotional well-being confirm the special difficulty of female managers in reconciling family life and work life.
... Finally, the absenteeism levels were impossible to distinguish across profiles, with the exception of being higher in the Moderately Intrinsically Motivated profile than in the Value-Reward Self-Driven one. This is consistent with the idea that many factors out of employees' control (e.g., sickness, traffic, childcare) might play a role in absenteeism (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016), thus leading to weaker associations with work motivation (Nicholson, 2007). ...
The present study examines how the different forms of behavioural regulation proposed by self‐determination theory combine within different profiles of workers and the extent to which these configurations are replicated among four samples of workers from distinct occupational groups (managers, nurses, physiotherapists, and hospital employees). In addition, this research investigates the role of workload (as a job demand), as well as perceived organizational, supervisor, and colleagues support (as job resources) in the prediction of profile membership. Finally, this research also documents the relation between motivation profiles and a series of adaptive (work performance) and maladaptive (presenteeism, turnover intentions, and absenteeism) work outcomes. Latent profile analyses revealed six similar motivation profiles among the four samples (n = 291 managers, 249 hospital employees, 237 nurses, and 373 physiotherapists). The results also showed the highest levels of presenteeism and turnover intentions, and the lowest levels of work performance to be associated with the Externally Driven profile. Moreover, workload predicted a higher likelihood of membership into the Self‐Driven Introjected and Externally Driven profiles relative to the Moderately Intrinsically Motivated , Highly Intrinsically Motivated , and Self‐Driven Hedonist profiles. Finally, perceived colleagues support predicted a decreased likelihood of membership into the Externally Driven profile relative to the five other profiles, whereas higher levels of perceived organizational support predicted an increased likelihood of membership into the Self‐Driven Introjected , Highly Intrinsically Motivated , and Value‐Reward Self‐Driven profiles relative to the Externally Driven and Self‐Driven Hedonist ones.
Practitioner points
• Employees’ profiles characterized by low levels of self‐determined work motivation were associated with the worst outcomes.
• By decreasing employees’ workload or by helping to make it more manageable, organizations may increase employees’ likelihood of displaying more desirable, and self‐determined, motivational profiles.
• By improving colleagues support, organizations may also be able to increase employees’ likelihood of displaying more desirable, and self‐determined, motivational profiles.
... Previously, it was assumed that a frequency measure, rather than time lost, could be a proxy variable for voluntary absence (Chadwick-Jones et al., 1973). However, a recent study concludes that time lost and frequency are equally reliable in representing voluntary absence (Johns & Hajj, 2016). However, as can be seen below, a principal turnover may be argued to influence both voluntary and involuntary absence. ...
This study investigates the effect of top management turnover in public organizations on employee absenteeism, examining school principal turnover in public primary schools. While previous research has focused on the impact of principal turnover on school performance, we analyze how principal turnover influences employee absence. A longitudinal study of 481 employees is conducted. Findings indicate that managerial turnover at schools does indeed influence absence. Absence is particularly high after a new top manager has taken office, and especially for employees where the gap between resignation of one manager and another taking office is short. Findings also show that the absence effect of a new top manager diminishes over time.
... The effects of absence on productivity are widely considered, and even if overtime is used to cover for absent employees, productivity is reduced (Pauly, Nicholson, Xu, Polsky, & Danzon, 2002 Bakker, Demerouti, De Boer, and Schaufeli (2001), in applying the job demands-resources model to individual absence, hypothesize that job demands, which most affect health, will predict the duration of absences, while resources, which affect motivation, will predict the frequency of absences. However, this association of the different measures or dimensions of absenteeism with degrees of voluntarism has been questioned on empirical and theoretical grounds (Darr & Johns, 2008;Johns & Hajj, 2016). Johns and Hajj (p. ...
Actions such as work restructuring and wage and employment freezes taken by organizations in response to recessions are widely assumed to decrease employees' job security and detrimentally affect perceptions of management's trustworthiness. We assess whether these effects occur and if, in turn, they affect workplace absenteeism. Using data from Britain's Workplace Employee Relations Survey 2011, we show that the effects on stress-based absence are limited and not as predicted, but the effects on withdrawal-based absence are strong and as predicted. Reductions in well-being or job security's effect on well-being did not affect absence, and while the reduction of trust perceptions' effect was to increase anxiety, anxiety did not increase but reduced absenteeism. The effects on withdrawal absence differ: those of recession-ary action through job security reduce absenteeism, while those through trust perceptions increase it, both as predicted. The two effects involving trust perceptions are less pronounced when recessionary actions are accompanied by voluntary lay-offs, but not by compulsory layoffs. The implications for management are that they should be more conscious of the effects on absence when planning recessionary actions, and more generally their effects on presenteeism.
... To assess absence from work, time lost (e.g., the total amount of days absent from work 202 due to sickness) and frequency (e.g., spells of absence due to sickness) measures are commonly 203 used (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). For example, an absence of five days in the last year (time lost 204 score of 5) could be associated with a frequency ranging from 1 (5 days in a row absent) to 5 205 (5 single cases of absence). ...
There is a broad consensus that associations exist between leadership behaviour and employee health. However, much less is known about potential mediating processes underlying links between specific leader behaviours, for instance presenteeism (i.e., working while being ill), and indicators of employee health, such as sick leave. Integrating theories of social information processing, social learning, and the allostatic load hypothesis, we propose that employee presenteeism mediates the positive association between leader presenteeism and employee sick leave. This hypothesis was tested with a multilevel mediation model using three-wave longitudinal data from 74 leaders and their 412 team members across a time period of 22 month. As hypothesized, leader presenteeism had a positive effect on employee presenteeism which, in turn, had a positive effect on employee sick leave, controlling for baseline measures of employee
presenteeism and sick leave, as well as employee general health status, shared workload and job autonomy, and demographic characteristics. Additionally, leader presenteeism had a positive indirect effect on employee sick leave through employee presenteeism. These results contribute to the occupational health psychology literature by suggesting that leader health-related behaviour can have consequences for employee health-related behaviour and employee health.
... Arnold (2016) therefore argues that the amount of presenteeism days is more relevant for the economic consequences of presenteeism. Furthermore-with regard to sickness absence- Johns and Al Hajj (2016) indicate that frequency "is not likely a typical metric that people use to think about their attendance behavior" (p. 459), recommending the total amount instead of spells of presenteeism as default format. ...
This position paper brings together recent and emerging developments in the field of presenteeism. A critical synthesis of the evidence is needed due to persisting conceptual and methodological challenges as well as the increased volume of research in the field.This paper integrates emerging evidence and critical thinking into three areas: (1) concept, (2) measurement and methodological issues, and (3) the context of presenteeism. First, due to the variety of existing definitions, competing understandings, as well as the notion of positive presenteeism, it is important to reconsider the notion of presenteeism. Second, it is important to reflect on the measurement of the act of presenteeism and the productivity loss associated with that.Third, following the call to investigate presenteeism in specific contexts, it is important to explain the social, occupational, cross-cultural aspects, as well as the contemporary workplace changes. Based on this critical synthesis, we conclude by identifying recommendations for future research on presenteeism.
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/HCHM6CPYGMXBYJRJUA7H/full?target=10.1080/1359432X.2019.1704734
... In the field of drug and substance use prevention, the effects of interventions on the weekly sum of alcoholic drinks and cigarettes consumed have been examined (Layland, Calhoun, Russell, & Maggs, 2018;Muench et al., 2017). Organizational psychologists have examined days of absenteeism (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016;Schaumberg & Flynn, 2017). Further examples are counts of wrongly-answered items on a test (Macdonald, Germine, Anderson, Christodoulou, & McGrath, 2017), counts of traffic violations (Precht, Keinath, & Krems, 2017), and counts of risky sexual behavior (Hittner, Owens, & Swickert, 2016;Schrimshaw, Antebi-Gruszka, & Downing, 2016). ...
Researchers often use regressions with a logarithmic link function to evaluate the effects of a treatment on a count variable. In order to judge the average effectiveness of the treatment on the original count scale, they compute average treatment effects, which are defined as the average difference between the expected outcomes under treatment and under control. Current practice is to evaluate the expected differences at every observation and use the sample mean of these differences as a point estimate of the average effect. The standard error for this average effect estimate is based on the implicit assumption that covariate values are fixed, i.e., do not vary across different samples. In this paper, we present a new way of analytically computing average effects based on regressions with log link using stochastic covariates and develop new formulas to obtain standard errors for the average effect. In a simulation study, we evaluate the statistical performance of our new estimator and compare it with the traditional approach. Our findings suggest that the new approach gives unbiased effect estimates and standard errors and outperforms the traditional approach when strong interaction and/or a skewed covariate is present.
... So, when referring to speed or intensity in monotonous or repetitive tasks, older workers may show a decline in performance or have more accidents and work-related diseases [25]. However, when referring to having experience, consolidated skills and social networks (which are developed over time), it can be seen that older workers achieve better performance than their younger coworkers [26]. Therefore, in this study, we want to explore the predictive power of OWI on task performance in workers over age 40. ...
Older Worker Identity consists of the internalization of negative beliefs and attitudes towards aged employees by these same people. This research aims to explore the moderator role both of subjective age and self-efficacy in the relationship between older worker identity and job performance. The study was conducted with a panel design, including a sample of +40 Spanish workers (n = 200), with two waves (4-months interval). The findings supported the moderator role of subjective age in the relationship, while it failed to support the moderator role of self-efficacy. These findings underline that workers who actively manage their subjective age perceptions could age successfully at work. The implications of this study for counseling practices are discussed.
... Under the perspective, it is believed that all human resource and behaviour-related workforce can be quantified (Cascio, 1991), for example it can be manifested in a monetary unit. More specifically, a significant number of scholars in human resource management field also believe that measuring absenteeism loss is thus imperative for every organization (Byrnes, 1982;Fleten & Johnsen, 2006;Johns & Hajj, 2016;Wijaya, 2000). Without this activity, it is impossible for organizations to control employee absenteeism. ...
This paper presents a quantitative method for counting loss resulting from absenteeism. Employing this method, organizations can estimate hour and financial loss due to absenteeism. Organizations can also estimate both organizational and group absenteeism ratios/rates. This method enables practitioners to obtain more detailed and rigid information for absenteeism management policy. The method consists of eight steps. The analysis was done on a hypothetical case.
... Third, we investigate the frequencies of absenteeism and presenteeism behaviors, whereas the exact duration of those episodes might offer additional insight. However, studies show that the frequency of absenteeism and time lost due to absenteeism are equally reliable measures (Johns & Al Hajj, 2016). Fourth, this study is cross-sectional; hence, reverse causality cannot be investigated. ...
Background:
The concept of presenteeism, that is, employees coming to work despite being sick, has recently received more attention in the literature. Presenteeism not only threatens employees' health but also substantially drains productivity and drives considerable costs. When they are sick, employees have the choice of whether to go to work or to stay at home. Therefore, determinants of (sickness) absenteeism and presenteeism should be examined simultaneously. Nursing homes are faced with a particularly high prevalence of both absenteeism and presenteeism and are therefore a relevant object of investigation.
Purpose:
The aim of our study is to analyze the effect of job demands and job resources on absenteeism, presenteeism, and the tendency to choose one behavior (being absent or being present in times of sickness) rather than the other over the last 12 months. To do so, we identify the determinants of absenteeism and/or presenteeism behavior based on theory and existing research about absenteeism, presenteeism, and job demands and job resources. After our empirical analysis, we provide explanations for our findings and offer practical suggestions for how to decrease the frequencies of absenteeism and presenteeism.
Methodology:
In this study, a sample of 212 nurses from German nursing homes was used for an ordinal logistic regression analysis.
Results:
Our results show that role overload significantly increases the frequencies of both absenteeism and presenteeism. A good team climate decreases absenteeism and increases the tendency to choose presenteeism rather than absenteeism, whereas strategic training and development opportunities decrease presenteeism and increase the tendency to choose absenteeism rather than presenteeism.
... Appelbaum et al., 2005). In addition, a formal ethical climate, reflected by school regulations and rules, may be used as a guideline for teachers to make decisions about whether they accept teachers' absenteeism, including their own (Johns and Hajj, 2016). ...
The goal of this study was to explore the mediating role of ‘absenteeism acceptance’ between different leadership styles and school ethical climate (SEC) on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and voluntary absence among Israeli teachers. 304 teachers were randomly selected from 304 different mainstream and special-education schools. The model was analyzed using AMOS 18.0 software. We found that ‘absenteeism acceptance’ partially mediated the relationship between transactional leadership, SEC and OCB, and also found that SEC and transactional leadership positively predict OCB. The theoretical contribution of this study is rooted in its integrative approach. While most previous studies focused on a single leadership style, this study focused on the role of ‘absenteeism acceptance’ as a mediator between ethical aspects such as: SEC; leadership styles; and teachers’ behaviors like voluntary absence and OCB. The practical contribution may include developing school principals’ training programs, focusing on transactional leadership and SEC in order to increase teachers’ OCB in schools.
This study analyses sickness absence in selected European countries. We suggested and applied three sick‑leave measures: global sickness absence rate, frequency rate, and absolute crude absence rate. To calculate the rates, open access data from Eurostat, the OECD, and the WHO were used. On the one hand, assessing sickness absence is a challenge in spite of accessible numbers of people and days of absence in public and employer registers. Simultaneously, a detailed understanding of sickness benefits and sick‑pay schemes is needed to elucidate cross‑country differences in sick‑leave rates. The long‑term dynamic trajectory (1970–2020) and regional differentiation effects on absenteeism among countries were considered. Using correlation coefficients and one‑way analysis of variance, a robustness check was performed, and the limitations of the proposed approach to measuring absenteeism were presented. The results evidence that the aforementioned indices present a unique and valid approximation to evaluate and monitor the state of sick absence and inequality in national policies.
This study employed a longitudinal model to investigate the reciprocal relationships between interpersonal citizenship behavior (OCB-I) and absenteeism at the team level. The research utilized four waves of data from a sample comprising over 5,000 employees in 168 teams within a large Canadian public organization. Drawing upon the focus theory of normative conduct and the collective identity perspective, our findings indicated that a positive change in OCB-I, which encompasses helping behaviors, led to a subsequent decrease in team absenteeism. In addition, emphasizing the identity perspective and allocation of time perspective, our study demonstrated that increased absenteeism within a given period was associated with a subsequent reduction in team OCB-I.
We analyze the impact of outsourcing on the well‐being of internal call center employees in the U.S. telecommunications industry. Our findings draw on mixed‐methods data. The qualitative findings suggest that internal employees experienced escalating job demands connected to errors by third‐party call center vendors and their employees due to additional work and intensified customer frustrations. SEM results show sequential mediation between the time internal employees spent correcting vendor errors, customer mistreatment of employees, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and absenteeism. Employee autonomy over customer‐related decisions appeared to help workers manage these job demands and their effects on well‐being.
Depuis plus de trois quarts de siècle, des milliers de recherches en psychologie du travail et des organisations ont jeté un éclairage sur cinq aspects de l’absentéisme : sa nature, sa mesure, ses effets, ses causes et les moyens de le réguler. Le corpus de connaissances dégagé des textes analysés a inspiré la formulation de cinq prémisses, soit une par aspect. Celles-ci constituent les fondements d’un modèle original d’analyse de l’absentéisme qui encadre la démarche d’intervention proposée dans ce texte. En plus d’être basée sur des résultats de recherche, l’approche sous-tendant ce modèle et cette démarche conçoit l’absentéisme comme un phénomène contingent, donc variable selon les contextes et les individus, et aux causes multiples.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the last 50 years of empirical research on leaders' influence on employee absenteeism. Furthermore, the aim is to direct future management research by identifying what is still undiscovered regarding areas such as leadership concepts, measurements of absenteeism, methodology and country-specific contexts of the studies.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a qualitative review which is suitable as the literature on leadership and employee absenteeism is still emergent and characterized by heterogeneity in terms of operationalization of absenteeism and leadership concepts, respectively, as well as types of analyses.
Findings
This review identifies different aspects of leadership affecting employee absence, i.e. leadership behaviours (i.e. task, relational, change, passive), leadership styles, leaders' social modelling and attitudes, and leaders' management of health and absence. Furthermore, a number of gaps in extant research are identified as well as a research agenda is provided.
Originality/value
This review is the first of its kind and hence contributes more profound insights into leaders' influence on employee absenteeism. Leaders as a factor explaining employee absenteeism have only played a minor role, in large theoretical contributions, and the exact behaviour and style is not elaborated much in the literature. Thus, this paper provides practical and theoretical considerations over the role of leaders in shaping employee absenteeism.
Considering the urgency of addressing grand challenges that affect human health and achieving the ambitious health targets set by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the role of business in improving health has become critical. Yet our systematic review of the business-health literature reveals that business research focuses primarily on occupational health and safety, healthcare organizations, and health regulations. To embrace the health externalities generated by business activities, we propose that future research should investigate the conditions under which business (i) articulates and participates in health challenges, (ii) engages in multilevel actions towards tackling health challenges, and (iii) improves health outcomes and its impact on the health of external stakeholders including customers and local communities. We also urge business scholars to engage with the public health research community to increase impact.
The experience of justice is a dynamic phenomenon that changes over time, yet few studies have directly examined justice change. In this paper we integrate theories of self-regulation and group engagement to derive predictions about the consequences of justice change. We posit that justice change is an important factor because, as suggested by self-regulation theory, people are particularly sensitive to change. Also consistent with self-regulation, we posit that experiencing justice change will influence behavior via separate approach and avoidance systems. Across three multi-wave and multi-source field studies, we found that justice change predicts employees’ engagement in work via perceived insider status along an approach path, whereas it predicts employees’ withdrawal from work via exhaustion along an avoidance path, after controlling for the effects of static justice level. Moreover, these approach and avoidance effects are bounded by employees’ perception of their employment situation, consistent with a regulatory fit pattern. As expected, employees’ perceptions of employment opportunity, which correspond to gains, strengthen the effects along the approach path. Meanwhile, their perceptions of threat of job continuity, which correspond to losses, strengthen the effects along the avoidance path. Importantly, our set of studies highlight the unique influence of justice change incremental to static justice level.
Both researchers and practitioners agree that having highly engaged employees results in individuals and organizations reaping various positive consequences related to performance and absenteeism. However, available research syntheses date from the early years of this line of research, thus cover only a small fraction (under 10%) of the available studies. The present meta-analysis updates the results of work engagement and its three facets (vigour, dedication, and absorption) on task performance and includes a substantial number of studies on absenteeism with separate analyses of longitudinal studies. A total of 179 unique correlations representing an overall sample size of N = 139,182 was examined, confirming and enhancing a positive association between work engagement and task performance (ρ = .483) and a negative association between work engagement and absenteeism (ρ = −.171). The three facets of engagement had similar effects on performance, but only vigour and dedication correlated significantly negatively with absenteeism. Work engagement is linked positively to future task performance and negatively to future absenteeism. The influence of several methodical moderators is examined. Finally, we discuss how these findings can inform research and practice in order to contribute to a more effective and healthy work environment for employees.
Safety alerts are announcements made by health regulators warning patients and doctors about new drug-related side effects. However, not all safety alerts are equally effective. We provide evidence that the day of the week on which the safety alerts are announced explains differences in safety alert impact. Specifically, we show that safety alerts announced on Fridays are less broadly diffused: they are shared 34% less on social media, mentioned in 23% to 66% fewer news articles, and are 12% to 51% less likely to receive any news coverage at all. As a consequence of this, we propose Friday alerts are less effective in reducing drug-related side effects. We find that moving a Friday alert to any other weekday would reduce all drug-related side effects by 9% to 12%, serious drug-related complications by 6% to 15%, and drug-related deaths by 22% to 36%. This problem is particularly important because Friday was the most frequent weekday for safety alert announcements from 1999 to 2016. We show that this greater prevalence of Friday alerts might not be random: firms that lobbied the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past are 49% to 56% more likely to have safety alerts announced on Fridays.
This paper was accepted by Stefan Scholtes, healthcare management.
This paper investigates the effect of performance evaluation of leadership quality on leader sickness absence. While previous research has focused on how evaluation of leadership impacts employee sickness absence, we analyse how superiors’ and subordinates’ evaluations of leadership quality, as well as leaders’ self-evaluations, influence public leaders’ own absence. A longitudinal study of 335 Danish municipal leaders, 94 superiors, and 4,449 subordinates is conducted. Findings indicate that superiors’ evaluation of leadership quality compared to the leaders’ self-evaluation is important for public sector leaders’ absenteeism. Furthermore, findings show that leaders who are over-estimators have a higher absence frequency compared to under-estimators.
Few studies to date have directly addressed the effects of justice change. This paper integrates the self-regulation theories and the approach- avoidance motivation model to examine the the consequences of justice change. We argue that justice change is an important factor beyond justice level because it helps to regulate employees’ approach and avoidance behavior in the workplace. Our two studies reveal that justice change affect employee’s engagement (e.g. work engagement) via approach path (e.g. psychological identification); whereas affect employee’s disengagement (e.g. CWB, absence) through avoidance path (e.g. emotional exhaustion). In addition, employees with higher approach motivation (e.g. employability) are more attentive to justice change information in the approach path; whereas employees with higher avoidance motivation (e.g. insecurity) are more attentive to justice change information in the avoidance path. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.
This study investigates the relationship between sickness absence and shift work. It is hypothesized that the effect of shift work is linked to sickness absence by two mediators: perceived health and work-family conflict (WFC). Shift work was hypothesized to have an adverse effect on health, as well as making work-family balance harder to obtain, both in turn resulting in higher sickness absence. The study distinguishes between self-declared (short-term) and doctor declared (long-term) sickness absence. A survey was conducted covering all employees in a Norwegian hospital working more than 30 % of a full position (N=5272) in January 2012, yielding 1864 valid responses (% response = 36). Survey data was coupled with register data on days of sickness absence in 2014. A model with perceived health and WFC as mediating variables between shift work and sickness absence was tested. The findings indicate no direct effect of shift work on sickness absence, but indirect effects both through WFC and perceived health.
Workplace bullying is a major problem that affects the well-being and productivity of employees. Some previous studies have found that workplace bullying is associated with absenteeism, which is a major contributor to lost workplace productivity. However, a comprehensive understanding of how different workplace bullying experiences are associated with absenteeism is currently lacking. In particular no previous studies have examined potential mediators of these relationships. The present article aimed to provide new insights into the relationship between workplace bullying and absenteeism. In a 12-month prospective study of 500 Australian employees, we identified 5 distinct subtypes of workplace bullying experiences using a person-centred approach. These bullying subtypes were found to be associated with absenteeism via health impairment and lower work engagement. The findings can be used to inform HR strategies to prevent and manage workplace bullying.
The present study investigates the degree to which dimensions of the 5-factor model of personality (often termed the Big Five) are related to absence. On the basis of previous descriptions of the Big Five traits and drawing from prior research, the authors hypothesized that neuroticism and extraversion would positively predict absence and conscientiousness would negatively predict absence. Also, they hypothesized that absence history (absence proneness), measured by the absence that occurred the year prior to the study, would partly mediate the relationship between the personality characteristics and subsequent absenteeism. Data were collected from a sample of 89 university employees. Results suggest that extraversion and conscientiousness predicted absenteeism and that part, but not all, of the relationship between these traits and absence was mediated through absence history.
The relation of objective work conditions (work underload, repetitive or varied work) and subjective monotony to job satisfaction, psychological distress, and sickness absence was examined in 1,278 male and female workers. Subjective monotony was moderately related to the objective work conditions. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the effects on all outcomes were partially mediated by subjective monotony and were also directly related to repetitive work and work underload. Job satisfaction and psychological distress were mainly related to subjective monotony, whereas sickness absence was equally related to the work conditions and subjective monotony. The highest impact was observed for short-cycle repetitive work. Testing sex interactions revealed that sickness absence was related to the work conditions in women but not in men. The findings highlight the significance of noting the actual work conditions in predicting employee outcomes.
A meta-analysis that combined 33 correlations from 17 studies found a corrected average correlation of .330 between absence and turnover. The type of absence measure did not moderate the covariation between absence and turnover, but industry type and study duration did act as moderators. The results are discussed in the context of the “withdrawal” approach to understanding employee behaviors.
Data on organizational commitment, job satisfaction, lateness behavior, unauthorized absence behavior, voluntary employee turnover, and biographical and situational information were obtained for 406 employees of an engineering plant in England. Results suggest the need for examination of the impact of behavior on affect. It is concluded that the generalized notion of "withdrawal" is misleading and that a redirection of research in this area both through methodological improvements and theoretical innovation is needed. (57 ref)
Presents a discussion of classical test theory, including test construction, administration, and use. The author covers basic statistical concepts in measurement, reliability, and validity; principles of sound test construction and item analysis; test administration and scoring; various procedures for transforming raw test data into scaled scores; and some future prospects in test design. Although basic testing concepts are discussed in the context of the popular multiple-choice group test of cognitive ability, the procedures and principles discussed are generic and applicable to most tests used in psychological and educational practice. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
This special issue is focused on how null results can meaningfully advance science and practice. This editorial describes some of the unique aspects of creating a special issue devoted to null results, offers opinions regarding why and under what conditions null results should be valued, and offers recommendations for key stakeholders (i.e., editors, reviewers, and authors) in the publication enterprise with respect to submitting and evaluating research with null findings. This editorial also provides summaries of the papers included in this special issue with emphasis on how they serve as example for what constitutes meaningful null results.
Purpose: This study explores the mediating role of psychological empowerment on authentic leadership, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), and a variety of withdrawal behaviors among teachers, using the psychological model of perceptions-attitudes-behaviors. Research Design: A total of 366 teachers from 23 randomly selected Israeli schools participated in the study. The research combined self-reports and school records taken at regular time intervals regarding three withdrawal behaviors: lateness, absenteeism, and intent to leave. The model for the hierarchical data (teachers within schools) that included latent as well as manifest variables was analyzed using the Mplus statistical package applying to multilevel analysis. Findings: "Impact," a dimension of psychological empowerment, was found to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and OCB, whereas "self-determination, meaning, and competence," the other dimension of psychological empowerment, was found to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and absence frequency. No mediating relationship was found for psychological empowerment on authentic leadership and the other withdrawal behaviors of lateness and intent to leave. Research Implications: The present study improves the Ajzen and Fishbein model. While most previous withdrawal behavior studies focused on a single dimension of withdrawal behaviors and did not consider OCB, the present study presents an integrative framework, focusing on the mediating role of psychological empowerment as a consistent link between authentic leadership and a spectrum of teachers' withdrawal behaviors and OCB. Practical Implications: These findings should encourage principals to promote high standards of authentic leadership to empower their teachers, increase OCB, and reduce absenteeism among teachers.
Publication bias is the systematic suppression of research findings due to small magnitude, statistical insignificance, or contradiction of prior findings or theory. We review possible reasons why publication bias may exist in strategy research and examine empirical evidence regarding the influence of publication bias in the field. Overall, we conclude that publication bias affects many, but not all, topics in strategic management research. Correlation inflation due to publication bias ranged in magnitude from .00, indicating no bias, to .19, representing considerable bias. These results suggest that caution should be exercised when interpreting scientific conclusions regarding certain determinants of firm performance, while greater confidence may be expressed in others. We discuss how publication bias can be addressed both philosophically and empirically in the domain of strategy.
Somatic symptom burden, or the experience of physical symptomatology without a medical explanation, is related to functional disability and poor quality of life. The consequences of somatic symptom burden extend beyond the individual and affect society, as manifested in higher medical utilization and lower job productivity. Using self-determination theory, we posited that employees' perceptions of managerial support for basic psychological needs may be associated with lower levels of somatic symptom burden among employees, in part because such contexts promote autonomous self-regulation (a type of motivation) at work. Also, we posited that somatic symptom burden among employees would explain some of the relations of managerial need support and autonomous self-regulation at work to indices of work-related functioning, namely emotional exhaustion, turnover intention and absenteeism. Results from 287 Norwegian employees confirmed these hypotheses. These findings not only identify a theoretical mechanism that may explain (in part) the origin of somatic symptoms, but also offer a model by which social-contextual and motivational factors affect important work-related outcomes. These findings also bespeak the importance of developing workplace interventions that provide support for satisfaction of the basic psychological needs.
We review ten years (2001-2011) of management research using count-based dependent variables in ten leading management journals. We find that approximately 1 out of 4 of papers use the most basic Poisson regression model in their studies. However, due to potential concerns of overdispersion, alternative regression models may have been more appropriate. Furthermore, in many of these papers the overdispersion may have been caused by excess zeros in the data, suggesting that an alternative zero-inflated model may have been a better fit for the data. To illustrate the potential differences among the model specifications, we provide a comparison of the different models using previously published data. Additionally, we simulate data using different parameters. Finally, we offer a simplified decision-tree guideline to improve future count-based research.
Because of a variety of access limitations, self-reported absenteeism from work is often employed in research concerning health, organizational behavior, and economics, and it is ubiquitous in large scale population surveys in these domains. Several well established cognitive and social-motivational biases suggest that self-reports of absence will exhibit convergent validity with records-based measures but that people will tend to underreport the behavior. We used meta-analysis to summarize the reliability, validity, and accuracy of absence self-reports. The results suggested that self-reports of absenteeism offer adequate test-retest reliability and that they exhibit reasonably good rank order convergence with organizational records. However, people have a decided tendency to underreport their absenteeism, although such underreporting has decreased over time. Also, self-reports were more accurate when sickness absence rather than absence for any reason was probed. It is concluded that self-reported absenteeism might serve as a valid measure in some correlational research designs. However, when accurate knowledge of absolute absenteeism levels is essential, the tendency to underreport could result in flawed policy decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
We meta-analyzed the correlations between voluntary employee lateness, absenteeism, and turnover to (i) provide the most comprehensive estimates to date of the interrelationships between these withdrawal behaviors; (ii) test the viability of a withdrawal construct; and (iii) evaluate the evidence for competing models of the relationships between withdrawal behaviors (i.e., alternate forms, compensatory forms, independent forms, progression of withdrawal, and spillover model). Corrected correlations were .26 between lateness and absenteeism, .25 between absenteeism and turnover, and .01 between lateness and turnover. These correlations were even smaller in recent studies that had been carried out since the previous meta-analyses of these relationships 15–20 years ago. The small-to-moderate intercorrelations are not supportive of a withdrawal construct that includes lateness, absenteeism, and turnover. These intercorrelations also rule out many of the competing models of the relationships between withdrawal behaviors, as many of the models assume all relationships will be positive, null, or negative. On the basis of path analyses using meta-analytic data, the progression of withdrawal model garnered the most support. This suggests that lateness may moderately predict absenteeism and absenteeism may moderately predict turnover. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We use a time-based system to help organize, summarize, and analyze research on employee absenteeism published in the last 20 years (1977-1996). Although what is known about some mid-term (4-12 month) origins of absence-taking has been greatly clarified and expanded, less is known about long-term (> 12 months) and short-term (I day-3 months) origins, or about how causes in different time frames relate to each other. Poor performance and “neglectful” behaviors serve as reliable offshoots of absenteeism. The long- and short-term etiology of the latter behaviors is unclear, but their shared variance in the mid-term reflects negative job attitudes. Outcomes of absenteeism have received much less research attention. Although mid-term consequences such as reduced performance, turnover, and organizational expense are well-established, little is known about short- and long-term effects of absence-taking on individuals and their social environments. We conclude with suggestions for more explicit consideration of time frames, causal lags, and aggregation periods in the next decades of absenteeism research.
Correlations between absenteeism and work attitudes such as job satisfaction have often been found to be disappointingly weak. As prior work reveals, this might be due to ignoring interactive effects of attitudes with different attitude targets (e.g. job involvement and organizational commitment). Drawing on basic principles in personality research and insights about the situational variability of job satisfaction judgments, we proposed that similar interactions should be present also for attitudes with the same target. More specifically, it was predicted that job involvement affects absenteeism more if job satisfaction is low as this indicates a situation with weak constraints. Both attitudes were assessed in a sample of 436 employees working in a large civil service organization, and two indexes of absence data (frequency and time lost) were drawn from personnel records covering a 12-month period following the survey. Whereas simple correlations were not significant, a moderated regression documented that the hypothesized interaction was significant for both indicators of absence behaviour. As a range of controls (e.g. age, gender, job level) were accounted for, these findings lend strong support to the importance of this new, specific form of attitude interaction. Thus, we encourage researchers not only to consider interactions of attitudes with a different focus (e.g. job vs. organization) but also interactions between job involvement and job satisfaction as this will yield new insights into the complex function of attitudes in influencing absenteeism.
The purpose of this study was to test the effects of an Absenteeism Feedback Intervention (AFI) on employee absenteeism. Three hundred and seventy-one employees working in 14 experimental and 13 control groups in a medium sized hospital participated in the study. Employees working in the experimental groups received absenteeism feedback at three time periods that provided them with information about their own number of absent days and episodes (sequential days counted as a single absence episode) as well as the average of their work and occupational group. Comparisons of absent days and episodes between the AFI and control groups indicate some support for the effectiveness of the intervention. In particular, there was a reduction in absent days and episodes for employees with higher than average absenteeism during the previous year but who were not extreme offenders. The research and practical implications of the AFI for reducing employee absenteeism are discussed. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Although absenteeism has been identified in theoretical models as a key long-term consequence of emotional labor, few studies have empirically examined this link. In this article, we investigate the relationship between surface acting and absenteeism and the moderating role of surface acting self-efficacy. Drawing on resource perspectives, we argue and show that when valued resources are threatened or lost as a result of surface acting, employees will actively strive to prevent further resource loss by withdrawing from work. We propose, however, that surface acting self-efficacy can help buffer the resource depleting effects of surface acting leading to withdrawal. Using data from two sources, collected at two points in time, we surveyed 121 nurses and linked these data to absenteeism data collected 12 months postsurvey. Results showed direct effects of surface acting on absenteeism; in addition, higher surface acting self-efficacy minimized the detrimental effects of surface acting on absenteeism. We also found support for the mediating role of affective commitment in explaining this interaction effect. These results suggest that the effects of surface acting on absenteeism are less detrimental for employees with high surface acting self-efficacy as these individuals are less negatively affected by the drain on the motivational resources that keep them feeling attached to their workplace and, in turn, keep them at work. This study extends our understanding of emotional labor processes and provides insights into the active process whereby employees are driven by the motivation to conserve resources and prevent further losses.
The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse has received the 2004 Outstanding Book Award from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association. An increasingly significant body of management literature is applying discursive forms of analysis to a range of organizational issues. This emerging arena of research is not only important in providing new insights into processes of organizing, it has also informed and influenced the broader fields of organizational and management studies. The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse is the definitive text for those with research and teaching interests in the field of organizational discourse. It provides an important overview of the domains of study, methodologies and perspectives used in research on organizational discourse. It shows how discourse analysis has moved beyond its roots in literary theory to become an important approach in the study of organizations. The editors of the Handbook, all renowned authors and experts in this field, have provided an invaluable resource on the application, importance and relevance of discourse to organizational issues for use by tutors and researchers working in the field, as well as providing important reference material for newcomers to this area. Each chapter, written by a leading author on their subject, covers an overview of the existing literature and also frames the future of the field in ways which challenge existing preconceptions. The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse is indispensable to the teaching, study and research of organizational discourse and will enable readers to develop a level of understanding of organizations commensurate with the most recent, state of the art, theoretical developments in the broader field of organization studies. © David Grant, Cynthia Hardy, Cliff Oswick and Linda L. Putnam 2004.
Building upon recent conceptualizations of different foci of job satisfaction and theories of social-contextual influence, we develop and test an integrative cross-level model of the individual relationships between both "externally focused satisfaction" (referring to job conditions) and "internally focused satisfaction" (referring to the work unit) and absenteeism. For both of these foci, we hypothesize differential three-way interactive effects of work-unit absenteeism patterns as characterized by their mean and dispersion levels, as well as individual satisfaction levels on subsequent individual absenteeism. Based on two German multi-level samples, our analyses demonstrate that the negative relationship between externally focused satisfaction and individual absenteeism is strongest in the presence of high mean and dispersion levels of work-unit absenteeism, whereas this relationship is weaker when either the mean or dispersion levels of work-unit absenteeism, or both, are low. In contrast, the negative relationship between internally focused satisfaction and individual absenteeism is strongest under conditions of low mean and dispersion levels of work-unit absenteeism, whereas this relationship is weaker when either the mean or dispersion levels of work-unit absenteeism, or both, are high. The present findings suggest that simultaneously improving individual internally focused satisfaction and reducing work-unit absenteeism is the most promising approach to reducing individual absenteeism.
The attitudinal and behavioral effects of being promoted and being rejected for promotion were examined in a quasi experiment conducted at an international bank in Hong Kong. Promoted tellers who had more internal locuses of control (LOC) maintained improved attitudes across 3- and 18-month posttest intervals. Attitudes returned to baseline levels by the second posttest among externaI-LOC individuals who had been promoted. There was no change in attitudes among people passed over for promotion. Absenteeism and job performance both decreased among promotees. The implications for the administration of promotions are considered.
Although considerable research has examined various antecedents of employee absence, relatively little research has examined the effects of organizational absence control initiatives on different types of absence, or how differences in employee perceptions of these initiatives may influence employee absences. Through the lens of organizational justice, the authors address this gap in the literature by tracking absenteeism in two manufacturing plants that implemented, at different times, absence control initiatives designed to increase the salience of absence outcomes via explicit rewards and punishments. Results showed that the policy changes had the intended effect of reducing casual absence, but also the unintended effect of increasing Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) absence. The results for disability-based absence were mixed. Individual employee perceptions of both the salience of absence outcomes and the fairness of the absence policies showed differential effects on casual and FMLA absence. These perceptions interacted such that employees who perceived the policies to be more salient and unfair had the highest instances of FMLA absence. Implications for absence and justice research and practice are discussed.
This paper proposes a conceptualization based upon concepts of the need-oriented individual and the goal-oriented organization linked together by contract to explain the conflicting findings on absences of personnel. Findings from a number of studies of absence behavior are explained by hypotheses that may be derived from the formulation. The conceptualization is then stated in formal terms and selected additional propositions are formulated.
The results of meta-analytic (MA) and validity generalization (VG) studies continue to be impressive. In contrast to earlier findings that capped the variance accounted for in job performance at roughly 16%, many recent studies suggest that a single predictor variable can account for between 16 and 36% of the variance in some aspect of job performance. This article argues that this “enhancement” in variance accounted for is often attributable not to improvements in science but to a dumbing down of the standards for the values of statistics used in correction equations. With rare exceptions, applied researchers have suspended judgment about what is and is not an acceptable threshold for criterion reliability in their quest for higher validities. We demonstrate a statistical dysfunction that is a direct result of using low criterion reliabilities in corrections for attenuation. Corrections typically applied to a single predictor in a VG study are instead applied to multiple predictors. A multiple correlation analysis is then conducted on corrected validity coefficients. It is shown that the corrections often used in single predictor studies yield a squared multiple correlation that appears suspect. Basically, the multiple predictor study exposes the tenuous statistical foundation of using abjectly low criterion reliabilities in single predictor VG studies. Recommendations for restoring scientific integrity to the meta-analyses that permeate industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology are offered.
In awareness of the increasing relevance of self‐control for goal achievement and its adverse effects on psychological strain in different occupational contexts, we tested lagged mediational effects of self‐control demands ( SCD s) on emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, anxiety, and sum of days absent. The present analyses draw on two G erman longitudinal samples ( N TOTAL = 399) and a measure of absenteeism. We used structural equation modelling and cross‐lagged panel analyses to test our hypotheses. In line with theoretical arguments of action regulation theory, SCD s were found to mediate the longitudinal relationship between workload and exhaustion, anxiety, and sum of days absent at a later point in time, after controlling for other relevant job characteristics (workload, emotional dissonance, and job resources, such as job control and social support). Implications of the present results are discussed against the background of potential protective resources.
Practitioner Points
The present results indicate that job characteristics, which cause employees to engage in self‐control, exert adverse effects on psychological well‐being and absenteeism in the long run.
HR managers as well as HR consultants should consider the double‐sided nature of competency models and job specifications that include requirements on volitional self‐regulation of thoughts, emotions, and behaviour (examples for commonly used behavioural anchors are given in the text).
Our findings call for HR systems that provide assistance (such as self‐management or self‐control training programmes, emotional and social support) in facing self‐control demands and exerting goal‐directed regulation of behaviour.
The effects on absenteeism shed light on long‐term organizational costs that are associated with high demands on self‐control and high workload.
Presenteeism or attending work while ill is a growing organizational problem. This study examined the association between job demands, presenteeism, and absenteeism. We tested a moderated mediation model of the effects of job demands on absenteeism with the key objective of exploring the mediation effects of presenteeism and the moderating effects of organizational justice on this relationship. Based on a sample of emergency services call centre workers ( N = 227), the research revealed that high job demands were associated with presenteeism, which in turn predicted longer absence spells. Furthermore, employee perceptions of distributive justice acted as an important mechanism through which presenteeism mediated the relationship between job demands and absenteeism.
Practitioner points
Organizations should be aware that work overload and strict attendance management practices can stimulate presenteeism.
Managers should recognize that presenteeism can subsequently lead to longer spells of absence.
Employee perceptions of fair outcomes minimize the deleterious effects of presenteeism on absenteeism.
Résumé
Une recension par procédure méta‐analytique est entreprise afin d'examiner la relation entre le phénomène d'absence au travail et le sexe de l'employé. Au départ, le cumul des résultats est accompli à partir de 32 groupes de données respectant les critères statistiques exigés par une telle procédure. Après correction de divers artifices statistiques, la méta‐analyse générale, incluant 29 groupes de données, indique qu'il existe une relation positive entre le sexe et l'absence (r c = 0,235), l'employe de sexe féminin étant plus sujet à présenter un comportement d'absence. De plus, ces résultats révèlent que les désaccords inter‐études sont principalement attribuables à l'impact de l'effet combiné de l'erreur d'échantillonnage et de la variation des fidélités des indices d'absence rapportés.
Abstract
The results of a meta‐analytic literature review of the relationship between employee gender and absence levels is reported in this article. The literature search uncovered thirty‐two (32) pertinent data sets which contained sufficient statistics to be included in the meta‐analytic calculations. Following correction for the various methodological and statistical artifacts, the meta‐analytic means indicates that, based on 29 data sets, a positive relationship (rc=0.235) between employee gender and absence rate does exist, women being more absent than men. Moreover, the analysis of distributional artifacts indicate that most of the inter‐study results variance may be attributed to sampling error and to the variations in the reported reliability indices reported in the various studies.
Teacher absenteeism is a serious problem for school systems. Using an existing model of attendance behavior as a guide, attitudinal, demographic and absenteeism data from 265 secondary teachers were examined. Canonical correlation analysis revealed that absenteeism among teachers was significantly related to distance to work, gender, job involvement, and overall job satisfaction.
Although the impact of social influence on employee absenteeism is well established, almost nothing is known about the dynamic, temporal accrual of this influence. Latent growth modeling was used to trace absenteeism trajectories over 4 years for employees who differed in years of organizational tenure. As expected, higher-tenure employees exhibited flat trajectories while those with lower tenure (1–3 years) gradually increased their absenteeism to conform to the dominant norm of the organization. However, as predicted by theories of identification and social exchange, perceptions of social context moderated the latter effect. The more positive an employee's perceptions of top management, the lower his or her rate of increase in absenteeism. The more positive an employee's perceptions of work colleagues, the higher his or her rate of increase in absenteeism. Perceptions of supervisors were unrelated to the rate of change. The study clarifies how employees learn and adapt to organizational absence cultures.
This article examines the organisational and cultural factors, both formal and informal, which lead to the inappropriate non-use of sick leave or 'presenteeism'. A two-stage research process supplies the empirical data for this paper. Preliminary quantitative research was gathered from 200 questionnaires sent to staff at two centres; however, the results from this stage were inconclusive. The article therefore focuses on the findings from qualitative data, gathered through the use of in-depth interviews and focus groups with 30 workers at a single site in the public sector. Taking further the study by McKevitt et al. (1997), we consider whether presenteeism results in subsequently higher rates of sick leave. By understanding the fears associated with taking sick leave, we suggest that sick leave can be understood as a 'risk-taking' activity rather than a health-promoting one. In addition, informal discussions with management suggest that managers do not appreciate that policies designed to reduce sick leave may ultimately increase it. We suggest that a tendency to construct ideal models of the social and working environment may result in unintended and negative consequences for both employers and employees. Finally, we address briefly the social representation of sickness and the sick role. It is not usual for people to resist the sick role, and we consider not only the factors which contribute to reluctance to take sick leave, but also the attitudes of fellow workers to those who resist.
This article examines the statistical correction for attenuation and the controversies surrounding the procedure. Although originally developed for test construction purposes, the correction for attenuation is also used in meta-analysis and assessments of validity generalization. Since Spearman's classic article in 1904, correct use and interpretation of the correction for attenuation has been debated. The logic of the double and single correction formulae is discussed as well as the correction producing validity coefficients greater than 1.00. Three types of misapplications and misinterpretations of the correction in published literature are presented. The article concludes with arguments pertaining to the use of the correction formula, and it attempts to sharpen the focus of issues that have led to differences of opinion about its meaning and purpose.
Results are presented of a computer simulation study of the Spearman correction for attenuation using a design originally suggested by Spearman (1904). Two parallel measures were generated for each of two variables with predetermined distribution shapes, correlations between true scores, and population reliability coefficients. The resulting data consisted of error scores, observed scores, sample reliability coefficients, and sample validity coefficients. The correction for attenuation was performed, and means, variances, and relative frequency distributions of both the uncorrected and corrected validity coefficients were analyzed for normal and non-normal distributions. For varying sample sizes and for all population distributions, the means of the corrected sample correlations were very close to the correlation between true scores, provided that the population reliability coefficients were fairly high. The variability of the corrected sample correlations was substantial, even for larger sample sizes. For lower reliability values, there was pronounced overcorrection, combined with extreme variability, especially for smaller sample sizes. Under these conditions, corrections exceeding 1.00 were frequent. The correction for attenuation appears to be useful only if the reliability coefficients of both measures are relatively high and sample size is relatively large. The properties of the correction for attenuation appear to be independent of the shape of the population distribution of test scores, at least for distributions commonly encountered in psychological and educational research.
Meta-analysis was used to cumulate reliabilities of personality scale scores. A total of 848 coefficients of stability and 1,359 internal consistency reliabilities across the Big Five factors of personality were examined. The frequency-weighted mean coefficients of stability were .75 (SD = .10, K = 221), .76 (SD = .12, K = 176), .71 (SD = .13, K = 139), .69 (SD = .14, K = 119), and .72 (SD = .13, K = 193) for Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, respectively. The corresponding internal consistency reliabilities were .78 (SD = .11, K = 370), .78 (SD = .09, K = 307), .73 (SD = .12, K = 251), .75 (SD = .11, K = 123), and .78 (SD = .10, K = 307). Sample-size-weighted means also were computed. The dimension of personality being rated does not appear to strongly moderate either the internal consistency or the testretest reliabilities. Implications for personality assessment are discussed.
Because tests are not reliable, it is important to explore score reliability in virtually all studies. The present article proposes and illustrates a new method-reliability generalization-that can be used in a meta-analysis application similar to validity generalization. Reliability generalization characterizes (a) the typical reliability of scores for a given test across studies, (b) the amount of variability in reliability coefficients for given measures, and (c) the sources of variability in reliability coefficients across studies. The use of reliability generalization is illustrated here by analyzing 87 reliability coefficients reported for the two scales of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI).