EMPLOYEE WITHDRAWAL BEHAVIOR: EXPANDING THE CONCEPT (TURNOVER, ABSENTEEISM)

The research on the topic of employee withdrawal behavior has produced over one thousand articles in the organizational behavior literature over the past 20 years. The majority of these articles focus on the behaviors of absenteeism and turnover as indicative of the withdrawal concept. Recent studies, however, have advocated a widening of the scope of the concept of withdrawal to include other behaviors which might be driven by the same factors which would compel an individual to be absent from the organizational setting.;Results indicated that the DBI measure correlated highly with various measures which have been examined as "antecedents" of absenteeism and turnover. Individuals who reported high levels of organizational commitment, and who stated that they intended to remain with the organization, demonstrated significantly fewer dysfunctional behaviors than those who had lower commitment and intent-to-remain scores.;Discussion centered on (1) the significance of the findings on previous models of withdrawal, (2) the utility of a DBI-type measure, and (3) future research suggestions.;The present investigation attempted to develop a measure of employee withdrawal behavior, based upon a definition of withdrawal which includes any behavior which could indicate a significant personal retreat, detachment, or removal from an organization. A field study was conducted in which sales managers and sales persons from a marketing division of a large corporation participated in the construction of a measure of withdrawal entitled the Dysfunctional Behavior Index (DBI). Managers used the DBI to assess the number of dysfunctional behaviors exhibited by 121 employees over a six-month period.