Gender differences in the relationship between presenteeism and extra‐role behaviors

Abstract

The relationship between presenteeism, or working despite ill-health, and extra-role behavior can be negative, positive, or null. Our research examines the role of gender in influencing this relationship. We build on the self-regulatory perspective on resource allocation in the context of presenteeism, which emphasizes the role of internal and external pressure on resources. We hypothesize that sick men will direct their resources toward protecting their performance rather than their health, thereby demonstrating citizenship. In contrast, sick women focus their resources on protecting their health, thereby not engaging in extra-role behaviors. We tested our hypotheses in three studies. The results of Study 1, based on employees' (N = 78) and their supervisors' (N = 17) data, showed that sick men appeared to protect their performance by engaging in extra-role behaviors. The findings of Study 2 (N = 280) demonstrated that citizenship pressure was not related to the extra-role behaviors of sick men. Yet it was associated with the performance of sick women, who, unlike men, appeared to preserve health and engaged in extra-role behaviors only when they felt pressured to do so. The results of the experimental Study 3 (N = 195) showed that, as predicted, women tended to protect health more than men and that when health protection motive was high (low), presenteeism was negatively (positively) related to extra-role behavior.

Sick and working: Current challenges and emerging directions for future presenteeism research

“…Similarly, addressing the current debate on the role of gender (e.g., Luksyte et al, 2023;Patton & Johns, 2007) in determining presenteeism and its consequences, we argue for more heterogenous sampling, that is, understanding health impairment process and its effect on attendance motivation/decision making from the perspective of women's physiological changes and work. Here, we take the leaf from Grandey et al (2020) and urge researchers to consider physiological transitions of menstruation, maternity, and menopause, as health events that are correlates of resource depletion and how women manage to overcome resource depletion directly or indirectly impacting on their attendance motivation, presenteeism propensity, and its outcomes.…”

“…In the next paper,Luksyte et al (2023) adopt self-regulation theory to examine how gender differences in resource allocation and outcome expectations explain the relationship between presenteeism and another positive outcome, namely, extra-role behavior. The authors used a programmatic series of studies with demographically, functionally, and culturally diverse samples.…”

How followers’ perception of followership prototype–traits fit impacts their job performance: a moderated polynomial regression analysis

“…Society has different expectations for different gender, which will impact males’ and females’ responses to identical external events ( Eagly and Karau, 2002 ; Luksyte et al, 2022 ). We posit that gender difference may act as critical boundary condition which impacts follower’s behavioral responses to followership prototype–traits fit.…”

“…In comparison, female followers are expected to be mild, inclusive, and relationship-oriented ( Eagly and Karau, 2002 ; Eagly et al, 2020 ). This social role expectation leads female followers to prioritize getting along with others and obtaining social support during the followership ( Luksyte et al, 2022 ). As a result, female followers tend to allocate more resources toward building relationships with other members of their organization than initiating changes that could challenge authority or lead to interpersonal conflicts ( Luksyte et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Specifically, men are expected to be confident, ambitious, and achievement-oriented, while women are expected to be gentle, inclusive, and relationship-oriented ( Eagly and Karau, 2002 ; Eagly et al, 2020 ). Such differentiated social expectations will lead to different probabilities of female and male followers’ engagement in taking charge to react upon followership prototype–traits fit ( Luksyte et al, 2022 ). Therefore, this study proposed the research model illustrated in Figure 1 and explained below.…”