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Purpose -Does leadership style affect absenteeism in a company? The purpose of this paper is to contrast the effects of two leadership styles -transformational and passive avoidant -on absenteeism, both legitimate and illegitimate, as mediated by job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach -A self-report questionnaire was completed by a sample of 120 employees of a national mail delivery company. Hierarchical regressions were used to analyze the data. Findings -It was found that transformational leadership decreases illegitimate absenteeism, while passive avoidant leadership increases it. In regard to legitimate absenteeism, transformational leadership is shown to have no effect, while passive avoidant leadership is shown to be negatively related to it. Together, the findings regarding passive avoidant leaders suggest their subordinates tend to come to work when ill (presenteeism), but stay away from work when well (illegitimate absenteeism). Practical implications -For managers trying to reduce the costs of absenteeism, this suggests that leadership style can make a difference. Managers who give subordinates very little attention, or attention only when they have done something wrong -the passive avoidant style -are likely to experience the higher costs of both absenteeism and presenteeism. Adopting the transformational style may help to reduce these costs. Originality/value -The paper helps to extend the current work on leadership; it examines the passive avoidant style, which remains understudied to date; and it enriches our understanding of the relationship between leadership style and absenteeism as an outcome variable by moving beyond a uni-dimensional conceptualization of absenteeism. Finally, it serves as a basis for future research by providing evidence for a somewhat counter-intuitive finding that, under passive avoidant leaders, workers appear to come to work when sick, but stay away from work when well.

The authors postulated a model in which children's perceptions of their parents' job insecurity indirectly affect their grade performance through the effects of beliefs in an unjust world and negative mood. A total of 127 undergraduate students (55 male, 72 female) completed questionnaires on their perceptions of their parents' job insecurity and their own beliefs in an unjust world and negative mood. The parents reported on their own job insecurity. In addition, students provided their course grades from the previous semester 3 months after completing the questionnaires. Support for the proposed model was provided using LISREL 8.

PurposePrior research has demonstrated the positive effects of high involvement work systems on various outcomes but none to date has conducted a comparative test of alternative, plausible models of these systems. This paper aims to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachA test of five high involvement work system models was conducted. The models were tested using employee perceptions of the presence and effectiveness of the organizational practices included in these systems, whereas a majority of prior studies have measured high involvement work practices based on managers' perceptions only. Measures of eight high involvement work practices (i.e. employment security, selective hiring, extensive training, contingent compensation, teams and decentralized decision making, information sharing, reduced status distinctions, transformational leadership) were used to compare the fit of these five models using confirmatory factor analysis. 317 non‐management employees from five Canadian organizations participated. Participants rated both the extent to which they perceived their organizations to have implemented each of the practices and the perceived effectiveness of these practices. Participants' work attitudes (i.e. affective commitment, continuance commitment, job satisfaction) were used to assess the concurrent validity of the tested models.FindingsFor both the perceived presence and effectiveness models, confirmatory factor analyses suggested the superiority of a second‐order model, demonstrating concurrent validity with participants' positive (i.e. affective commitment, job satisfaction) and negative (i.e. continuance commitment) attitudes.Originality/valueThis is the first study to conduct a comparative test of five alternative models of high involvement work systems and one of the few studies to address employee perception of these practices.