Perceptions of Organizational Ethics as Predictors of Work Absence: A Test of Alternative Absence Measures

Abstract

The study examined the distinction between two traditional work absence measures: frequency, reflecting voluntary absence, and duration, reflecting non-voluntary absence. The two measures were compared in a test of the relationship between work absence and employees' perceptions of organizational ethics. Questionnaires and archive data were collected from 1,016 teachers in Israel. Organizational ethics was represented by three variables: ethical climate (caring and formal), organizational justice (distributive and procedural), and teacher's tendency to misbehave. Results showed that four ethical constructs (caring climate, formal climate, tendency to misbehave, and procedural justice) were related to absence frequency, while only one (caring climate) was related to absence duration. The findings add to previous research on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary absence measures, and the superior sensitivity of frequency over duration as a measure of voluntary absence. In practice, the results may encourage principals and managers to create ethical workplaces to minimize absence frequency.

Role of Organizational Ethics in Sustainable Development: A Conceptual Framework

“…The pursuit of ethical business objectives can be observed through corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy and performance. CSR is defined by the European Commission as "a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in [28]. In the context of CSR, the concept of stakeholders is the central focus [86].…”

“…Organizational ethics affects ethical decisionmaking and outcomes [28]. Thus, it can play a role in influencing how well the organizations operate to meet the needs and interests of their stakeholders without harming others in society.…”

CEO Ethical Leadership, Ethical Climate, Climate Strength, and Collective Organizational Citizenship Behavior

“…This conceptualization of ethical climate is captured in the rules and law and code dimensions. Second, a number of studies have shown positive relationships between rules and law and code dimensions and work outcomes (e.g., Elçi and Alpkan 2009;Cullen et al 2003;Shapira-Lishchinsky and Rosenblatt 2009;Tsai and Huang 2008). Indeed, Leung (2008) categorized rules and law and code dimensions as higher levels of ethical climate than the other dimensions and suggested that extrarole behaviors are more often found in higher levels of ethical climate than in lower levels of ethical climate.…”

To Go or Not To Go: The Relationship between Commuting and Withdrawal Behavior

“…Also operationalization of withdrawal by using company reports or behavioral frequencies or a combination of those methods can be employed as a superior method, instead of using a self report measure. Self report method is chosen because of its high correlation with record based data (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Rosenblatt, 2008), to provide anonymity as advised by Fox, Spector and Miles (2001). As stated in Johns (2003), organizations rarely keep adequate records for withdrawal and access to these records are often not permitted.…”