OP - 9.5: Satisfaction at Work

Question 1

How do Blau and Boal separate absenteeism? Name the types.

Answer 1

Into 4 types:

1. Medical
2. Career-enhancing
3. Normative
4. Calculative

Question 2

Describe B&B’s ‘medical absenteeism’

Answer 2

• response to infrequent and uncontrollable events (e.g. illness, injury, family demands like sick child).
• Results in random absences with no pattern

Question 3

Describe B&B’s ‘career-enhancing absenteeism’

Answer 3

• allows employee to further other career goals.
• Little more difficult to detect, although they may peak just before quitting a job or transferring within company

Question 4

Describe B&B’s ‘normative absenteeism’

Answer 4

• habitual response to norms of organisation regarding absence.
• ‘Excused absence’, as some organisations allow people to take personal days off.
• Pattern will begin to show, and therefore both frequency and timing of the absence may be predicted

Question 5

Describe B&B’s ‘calculative absenteeism’

Answer 5

• employees use allotted number of unexcused and excused absence days as permitted by the company.
• Seen in employees with v. low commitment.
• Frequency and total number of days off are usually greatest for this type of absence

Question 6

Define ‘job involvement’ in B&B’s model

Answer 6

extent to which individual identifies with their job

Question 7

Define ‘organisational commitment’ in B&B’s model

Answer 7

employee identifies with an organisation and its goals. Wish to maintain membership in the group

Question 8

What 4 types of employees are in B&B’s absenteeism model? What do they mean?

Answer 8

1. Institutional stars: high organisational commitment, high job involvement
2. Lone wolves: low organisational commitment, high job involvement
3. Corporate citizens: high organisational commitment, low job involvement
4. Apathetic employees: low organisational commitment, low job involvement