Remedy‐seeking responses to wrongful dismissal: Comparing the similarity‐attraction and similarity‐betrayal paradigms

Abstract

Purpose

This study's purpose is to investigate the antecedents of an employee's remedy‐seeking behavioral intentions in response to wrongful dismissal.

Design/methodology/approach

Hypotheses generated by two paradigms are tested, the similarity‐attraction and the similarity‐betrayal paradigms, using Tobit regression and data from a scenario‐based survey of employees.

Findings

Consistent with the similarity‐attraction paradigm, the management team's racial and deep‐level similarity to the employee both were negatively related to the employee's propensity to consult a lawyer. Consistent with the similarity‐betrayal paradigm, the employee's propensity to consult a lawyer increased with the supervisor's deep‐level similarity to the employee; among men, the propensity to complain to regulatory agencies increased with the management team's gender similarity and the propensity to not seek a remedy declined with the supervisor's gender similarity.

Research limitations/implications

Limitations of the study include the use a single‐source, cross‐sectional, convenience sample; the small size and heterogeneity of the non‐white sub‐sample; and the limited number of control variables. Future research should explore whether the findings are robust when tested using alternative types of data; alternative wrongful dismissal scenarios; a more extensive set of controls for organizational, job, and personal characteristics; and larger, more diverse sub‐samples of non‐whites.

Practical implications

Organizations should manage dismissals in a manner that encourages employees to favor internal remedy‐seeking over external remedy‐seeking options.

Originality/value

This study is the first to investigate the antecedents of a wrongfully dismissed employee's propensity to engage in internal as well as external remedy‐seeking and to explore the effects of management's similarity to the employee on the employee's remedy‐seeking actions.

Citation

Gramm, C.L., Schnell, J.F. and Weatherly, E.W. (2006), "Remedy‐seeking responses to wrongful dismissal: Comparing the similarity‐attraction and similarity‐betrayal paradigms", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 266-290. https://doi.org/10.1108/10444060610749455