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This study focuses on the relationship between informal relationships, work ethics and (short‐time) absenteeism. According to self‐categorisation theory, which elaborates on the social identity theory, hypotheses were formulated for the relationship between consensus in work ethics within teams, informal relationships (cohesiveness) and short‐term absenteeism. The hypotheses were tested within two Dutch organisations: study 1 concerns a housing corporation (n=53, eight teams), and study 2 concerns a nursing home (n=97, nine teams). As expected, consensus in work ethics and cohesiveness within a team were positively related. Results from multi‐level analyses showed as expected, a negative relationship between cohesiveness within a team and short‐term absenteeism of employees. Furthermore, an interaction‐effect was found in the first study, but not in the second: the more cohesive the team, the stronger the relationships between work ethics and short‐term absenteeism. Findings are discussed in terms of recommendations for further research and practical implications.

In any given year, it has been estimated that over 300 million work days are lost in Britain due to employee absenteeism. This figure amounts to about 13.5 days lost per employee. Daily absenteeism among blue‐collar workers in many industries runs as high as 17 per cent of the work force with rates often much higher on Mondays and Fridays. These estimates include absenteeism due to illness, as well as other reasons. High rates of absenteeism have been cited as contributing to industrial slumps in some areas of Britain. Productivity losses, loss of good will, extra labour costs to replace the absent employee, overtime costs, and sick pay are all costs associated with absenteeism. Clearly, employee absenteeism is a major area of concern for personnel managers.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and distributive justice on employee perceptions of absence legitimacy. This paper also examined the moderating effects of turnover intentions on the relevant relationships.

The authors used convenience sampling to collect data from 298 employees working in private and public sector organizations in the manufacturing and service sectors in Ghana. Drawing on institutional theory, this study investigates the effects of employee perceptions of the legitimacy of absenteeism on their attitudes toward their job and pay. Structural equation modeling was used to test the direct and moderation effects.

Job satisfaction and perceived distributive justice were found to be significantly related to the absence of legitimacy. Additionally, turnover intentions moderated the relationship between job satisfaction and absence legitimacy; however, unexpectedly, this was associated only marginally with distributive justice.

The main limitation of this study was that it was cross-sectional, but the analysis did not show a common method bias. This study was conducted in a developing country where valid and accurate absence data are non-existent. The hypotheses were supported. When employees felt a sense of inequity and were dissatisfied with their jobs, they were likely to perceive absenteeism as legitimate behavior. These relationships were more pronounced when employees intended to leave their organizations.

From a practical standpoint, as employees are likely to engage in absenteeism as a means to reduce their perceptions of imbalance and because absenteeism is a costly behavior, it would be in the employer’s best interest to mitigate these high costs. It behooves employers to comprehend the factors that lead to the legitimization of absences. Doing so, they would be able to implement attendance management systems and strategies that would delegitimize some of these factors, thus improving attendance and potentially increasing productivity and job satisfaction and reducing turnover intentions.

This study contributes to absenteeism research because, unlike most studies in the area, it examined employee cognitions of the behavior. Such cognitions should provide insights into how employee perceptions of the legitimacy of absences would affect attitudinal variables such as job satisfaction, feelings of equity and turnover intentions. Moreover, even though the study was conducted in Ghana, absence legitimacy can be investigated in different settings at different levels of analysis. This is because it is free from contamination such as, dissimilar absence reporting systems within and across organizations and nations that affect the validity and accuracy of absence data.

Absenteeism is a costly behavior that occurs around the world. However, in spite of the growth in cross‐cultural research in organizational research and in global businesses, very few studies have examined absenteeism from a cross‐cultural perspective. This study examined the effect of national culture on absenteeism using a sample of 17,842 respondents from 24 countries. Based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, we postulated that uncertainty avoidance, power distance, individualism, and masculinity will be negatively related to absenteeism. Similarly, based on the GLOBE cultural dimensions, we proposed that there will be positive relationships between societal collectivism and assertiveness, and absenteeism. However, we hypothesized that in‐group collectivism and gender egalitarianism will have negative relationships with absenteeism. To test our cross‐level hypotheses, we used Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Our results indicated that with the exception of uncertainty avoidance and assertiveness, all our hypothesized relationships were supported. Consistent findings were obtained for the common elements of both the Hofstede and GLOBE cultural dimensions, demonstrating convergence of our findings. We offer theoretical and practical implications of our study and suggest future research directions in the culture‐absenteeism link

The effect of variable pay schemes on workplace absenteeism is estimated using two cross-sections of private sector British establishments. Establishments that explicitly link pay with individual performance are found to have significantly lower absence rates. The effect is stronger for establishments that offer variable pay schemes to a greater share of their non-managerial workforce. Matched employer–employee data suggest that the effect is robust to a number of sensitivity tests. Establishments that tie a greater proportion of employees’ earnings to variable pay schemes experience lower absence rates. Quintile regressions suggest that the effect is greater among establishments with a higher than average (‘sustainable’) absence rate. Finally, panel data suggest that a feedback mechanism is present; high absenteeism in the past is correlated with a greater future incidence of individual variable pay schemes, which, in turn, is correlated with lower current absence rates.

Prior to widespread social insurance, European governments experimented with a variety of programs to protect workers from income loss due to illness. This paper examines the consequences for worker absenteeism of making sickness insurance coverage voluntary or compulsory. Medical benefits appear to have reduced absenteeism for all workers. The effect of paid sick leave depended on insurance fund membership status. Better-paid workers found it easier to take time off in compulsory than in voluntary funds. Distinctive information problems plagued voluntary systems, and eventually were resolved by rejecting the voluntary ideal and forcing all workers into a single risk pool.

This study sought to test two competing sets of hypotheses derived from two different theoretical perspectives regarding (1) the effects of leader–follower similarity and dissimilarity in psychological resilience on the follower's absenteeism in times of organizational crisis and (2) the moderating effect of relational demography (gender and age similarity) in these relationships.

Polynomial regression and response surface analysis were performed using data from 510 followers and 149 supervisors in a financial firm in Canada.

The results overall support the similarity–attraction perspective, but not the resource complementarity perspective. Dissimilarity in resilience was predictive of followers' absenteeism, and similarity in surface-level conditions (gender and age) attenuates the relational burdens triggered by resilience discrepancy.

The findings reiterate the importance of developing employees' resilience, while shedding light on the importance for managers of being aware of their potential misalignment with subordinates resilience.

The results (1) suggest that it is the actual (di)similarity with the leader, rather than leader's degree of resilience, that shapes followers' absenteeism and (2) add nuance to the resilience literature.

This study aims to examine the role of mental health disorders (anxiety and depression) underlying the relationship between bullying and absenteeism. Moreover, the author tested the potentially moderating role that job autonomy, supervisor and colleagues’ support may play in the relationship between bullying and mental health disorders.

A moderated mediation analysis was conducted with a sample of French workers, controlling for their individual characteristics and their working conditions. The sample comprised 22,661 employees. This sample is representative of the French working population.

The results showed that the positive relationship between workplace bullying and absenteeism was partially mediated by anxiety and depression. In addition, job autonomy and supervisor support appear to be moderators of bullying effects. Regarding the moderating role of colleagues support, the study’s results are more nuanced.

Many studies show that exposure to workplace bullying increases the risk of developing mental health problems and sickness absence. This study extends previous studies by proposing a more comprehensive understanding of how and when bullying results in absenteeism. In particular, this study identified some moderators that can mitigate the harmful effects of workplace bullying on mental health and absenteeism. This study contributes to the literature on this subject by showing that organizations can reduce the potentially negative effects of workplace bullying. Organizational resources can help make individuals capable of coping with aggression. They thus contribute to their resilience.

Proposes a role for demographic variables in the study of absenteeism and turnover. After distinguishing demographic variables and theoretical variables, reviews inappropriate and appropriate uses of demographic variables in current research on absenteeism and turnover. Advances the argument that there are two inappropriate uses of these variables in current research, as variables in causal models and as measures. Also argues that these variables can appropriately be used in the construction of models and in the management of organizations. Demographic variables are assigned a considerably restricted but important role in the study of absenteeism and turnover. Examines absenteeism and turnover, because they are important social processes in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate Greenberg's perspective on the connection between injustice and stress in order to clarify the role of organisational justice, burnout and organisational commitment in the understanding of absenteeism.

The study was carried out among 457 workers of a large healthcare establishment in the Canadian public healthcare sector. The model was tested using structural equation methods.

The results reveal that procedural and interactional justices have an indirect effect on exhaustion through distributive injustice. Moreover, it was found that distributive injustice is indirectly linked to short‐term absences through exhaustion. By contrast, the relationship between distributive injustice and long‐term absence can be explained by two mediating variables, namely, exhaustion and psychosomatic complaints.

In spite of the non‐longitudinal nature of this study, the results suggest that the stress model and the medical model best explain the relationship between organisational injustice and absenteeism, while the withdrawal model via organisational commitment is not associated in this study with absenteeism.

Healthcare managers should consider the possibility of better involving employees in the decision‐making process in order to increase their perception of procedural and interactional justice, and indirectly reduce exhaustion and absenteeism through a greater perception of distributive justice.

For the healthcare sector, the need to reduce absenteeism is particularly urgent because of budget restrictions and the shortage of labour around the world.

This is one of the first studies to provide a complete model that analyses the stress process in terms of how organisational justice affects short‐ and long‐term absences, in a bid to understand the specific process and factors that lead to shorter and longer episodes of absence.