A meta‐analysis of the interrelationships between employee lateness, absenteeism, and turnover: Implications for models of withdrawal behavior

• Date: 01 July 2012
• Author: Malissa A. Clark,Christopher M. Berry,Ariel M. Lelchook
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.778
• Published date: 01 July 2012

A meta-analysis of the interrelationships between

employee lateness, absenteeism, and turnover:

Implications for models of withdrawal behavior

CHRISTOPHER M. BERRY

1

*, ARIEL M. LELCHOOK

2

AND MALISSA A. CLARK

3

1

Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.A.

2

Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.

3

Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, U.S.A.

Summary 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 beha-

viors; (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 cor-

relations 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 with-

drawal 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.

Keywords: lateness; absenteeism; turnover; withdrawal from work; meta-analysis

Voluntary employee lateness, absenteeism, and turnover are often referred to as “withdrawal behaviors”because

they each represent some physical removal from the workplace (e.g., Hulin, 1991; Johns, 2001; Koslowsky,

2000).

1

Withdrawal behaviors are costly to organizations. Employee lateness has been estimated to cost US busi-

nesses more than $3bn each year (DeLonzor, 2005), employee absenteeism has been estimated to cost businesses

as much as 15 per cent of payroll (Navarro & Bass, 2006), and the cost of replacing employees has been

estimated between 50 and 200 per cent of those employees’first year salaries (Fitz-enz, 1997; Hale, 1998). Sagie,

Birati, and Tziner (2002) considered the costs of all withdrawal behaviors to a leading, medium-sized Israeli com-

pany and estimated the total cost to be approximately 16.5 per cent of the company’s before-tax income. Other stud-

ies have documented the negative effects of withdrawal behaviors on teammates’morale and work motivation

(e.g., Jamal, 1984; Koslowsky, Sagie, Krausz, & Singer, 1997). Clearly, there is value in understanding withdrawal

*Correspondence to: Christopher M. Berry, Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 4235 TAMU, College Station, Texas 77843,

U.S.A. E-mail: cmberry@tamu.edu

1

Other things such as leaving work early (Iverson & Deery, 2001), psychological withdrawal (Koslowsky, 2009), and retirement (Hanisch &

Hulin, 1990) have been put forward as manifestations of withdrawal. This study’s focus on lateness, absenteeism, and turnover does not imply

that we do not believe that these other variables are manifestations of withdrawal. Rather, lateness, absenteeism, and turnover are by far the

most studied withdrawal behaviors (Koslowsky, 2009; Krausz, Koslowsky, & Eiser, 1998), so we focus on these in our review of models of

employee withdrawal.

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 19 July 2010

Revised 24 June 2011, Accepted 09 July 2011

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 33, 678–699 (2012)

Published online 22 August 2011 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.778

behaviors, and this study contributes to this understanding by meta-analyzing the relationships between voluntary

lateness, absenteeism, and turnover.

Two general perspectives have been taken to explaining the link between withdrawal behaviors (Koslowsky,

2009). One perspective views voluntary lateness, absenteeism, and turnover as manifestations of an overall with-

drawal from work construct, arguing that each behavior is a way that employees withdraw from work in response

to unfavorable work attitudes such as job dissatisfaction and lack of organizational commitment (e.g., Hulin,

1991; Rosse & Hulin, 1985; Rosse & Hulin, 1984). On the basis of this withdrawal construct perspective, some have

argued that an understanding of the withdrawal behaviors and their antecedents would be increased by focusing on

aggregate measures that combine the withdrawal behaviors (e.g., Hanisch, Hulin, & Roznowski, 1998). In particular,

on the basis of the compatibility principle (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), some have made the case th at broad measures

such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment will best predict similarly broad criteria such as aggregate

measures of a withdrawal construct (e.g., Harrison, Newman, & Roth, 2006). Additionally, such aggregate measures

would not suffer as much from criterion deficiency (e.g., Gupta & Jenkins, 1991).

However, the second perspective views each of the withdrawal behaviors as unique and driven by specific ante-

cedents and therefore not reflective of an overall withdrawal construct (e.g., Price & Mueller, 1981; Steers &

Mowday, 1981). Further, Mobley (1982) noted that emplo yees do not always e ngage in withdraw al behaviors

to avoid work (as is implied by the term “withdrawal”) but, instead, are often motivated to engage in these beha-

viors because of alternatives and attractions such as the pleasure of sleeping in or going to a ballgame. On the

basis of this uniqueness perspective, some have made the case that studying lateness, absenteeism, and turnover

separately will lead to a greater understanding of each of the withdrawal behaviors (e.g., Blau, 1998; Johns,

1998). From this perspective, referring to lateness, absenteeism, and turnover as withdrawal behaviors is more of

a handy umbrella term for the behaviors than an indication of them being reflective of an overall withdrawal

construct.

Quantifying the magnitude of the relationships between measures of the withdrawal behaviors can provide

resolution to this debate. If lateness, absenteeism, and turnover are each manifestations of an overall withdrawal

construct, measures of the three behaviors should have appreciable interrelationships. There is not a consensus re-

garding how highly intercorrelated measures should be before aggregation can be justified or before the measures

can be declared reflective of a common construct. However, it is instructive to examine how others have concep-

tualized these behavioral measures on the basis of their intercorrelations. For instance, Berry, Ones, and Sackett

(2007) concluded that interpersonal deviance and organizational deviance were correlated factors in an overall de-

viance construct based in part on an intercorrelation of .62. LePine, Erez, and Johnson (2002) concluded that altru-

ism, civic virtue, conscientiousness, courtesy, and sportsmanship were all correlated factors in an overall

organizational citizenship behavior construct based in part on an average intercorrelation of .67. On the other hand,

Dalal (2005) concluded that organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior were separate

constructs based in part on an intercorrelation of .32. Thus, there is generally a precedent for expecting strong rela-

tionships (e.g., .50+; Cohen, 1992) between behaviors, instead of small or moderate relationships (e.g., .30 or

lower), if those behaviors are to be considered manifestations of a common construct. Therefore, although it is

not always the case that measures must be highly intercorrelated to justify aggregating them into an overall index

(Bollen & Lennox, 1991; Paunonen & Gardner, 1991), relatively low intercorrelations between withdrawal beha-

viors would call into question the appropriateness of an aggregate withdrawal construct including the three with-

drawal behaviors.

Moderate-to-strong lateness–absenteeism and absenteeism–turnover correlations have been cited as evidence in

favor of the withdrawal construct perspective (Harrison et al., 2006; Koslowsky et al., 1997; Mitra, Jenkins, &

Gupta, 1992). In particular, the combined results of two meta-analyses provide estimates of the relationships

between lateness, absenteeism, and turnover. Mitra et al. (1992) meta-analyzed the relationship between absenteeism

and turnover (mean corrected correlation of .33, k= 33). Koslowsky et al. (1997) meta-analyzed the relationship

between lateness and absenteeism (mean corrected correlation of .40, k= 25) and between lateness and turnover

(mean corrected correlation of .07, k= 6).

WITHDRAWAL BEHAVIORS: A META-ANALYSIS 679

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 33, 678–699 (2012)

DOI: 10.1002/job