Restoring balance? Status inconsistency, absenteeism, and HRM practices

Abstract

Although it is commonly assumed that perceptions of equity at work have a significant impact on employee absenteeism, our understanding of the equity-absence relationship is limited in that (1) little is known about equity concepts other than procedural and distributive justice; and (2) for the most part, research has overlooked variables likely to mediate and moderate the impact of equity on absenteeism. Drawing from the effort-reward imbalance model (ERI;Siegrist, 1996), our study advances past research by investigating the association between status inconsistency (a situation in which there is a mismatch between, for example, a person's education and his/her income) and absenteeism, and the variables likely to account for this association. Results from a sample of 416 customer-care employees show that stress mediates the relationship between status inconsistency and absenteeism, and that HRM practices attenuate this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further reveal that HRM practices moderate the indirect effect of status inconsistency on absenteeism via stress.

Physical and mental health inequalities between native and immigrant Swedes

“…Varying results across studies may be due to challenges in operationalizing status inconsistency. In our study, status inconsistency was “objective” and dichotomous while others have been in favour of a subjective and continuous operationalization (Biron and De Reuver, ). Research demonstrates a relationship between the experience of workplace injustice and health (Okechukwu et al., ).…”

All employees are equal, but some are more equal than others: dominance, agreeableness, and status inconsistency among men and women

“…Although status inconsistency, and particularly status detraction, is associated with negative outcomes for both employees and organizations (e.g., Biron & de Reuver, 2012;Creed & Saporta, 2004), the mechanisms that lead to its development are not entirely clear.…”

“…Subjective status inconsistency, similarly to objective status inconsistency, was assessed on the basis of two return statuses, namely, income and job rank and three input statuses, namely education, career experience, and performance . Employees were asked to rank each return status in comparison to three input statuses, for a total of 6 items: 'Compared with prior research (e.g., Bacharach et al, 1993;Biron & de Reuver, 2012;Blocker & Riedesel, 1978) suggesting that a continuous operationalization better captures the nature of status inconsistency than a dichotomic operationalization.…”

“…The negative effects of objective and subjective status detraction are known and include heightened levels of stress (Bacharach et al, 1993), absenteeism (Biron & de Reuver, 2012) and turnover (Creed & Saporta, 2004). The effects of status enhancement have also been studied, albeit to a lesser extent, with some evidence suggesting that status enhancement is expected to push individuals to work hard and diligently (e.g., Wisman, 2009).…”

Understanding employees' professional development

“…We adapted 18 items from past published studies to measure HC-HRM (Biron & De Reuver, 2012;Dorenbosch, de Reuver, & Sanders, 2006;Sanders et al, 2008). The 18 items had good reliabilities, with a Cronbach's  of .81 in wave 2 and .85 in wave 3 of data collection.…”