Interestingly, research indicates that individuals who feel a sense of connection to their community are less inclined to leave their job voluntarily (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Erez, 2001). This finding is not entirely intuitive, because connections to the community could, arguably, have provided the support that is necessary to withstand the trauma of departure. Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, and Erez (2001) developed a concept, called job emdeddedness, which describes the networks that encourage individuals to remain at their organization (for a review of this literature, see Ng & Feldman, 2010).
Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, and Erez (2001) introduced the concept of job emdeddedness to explain the reasons that individuals stay at an organization. These authors argued that individuals to remain at the organization partly because they feel connected to a social web.
In particular, Mitchell et al. (2001) argued that three key facet affect the extent to which individuals feel embedded in this web. The first factor reflects the extent to which individuals feel linked to other people or activities, referred to as links. The number of teams or committees on which the individuals work, the number of colleagues with whom they interact, and the number of years in their position all determine the level of linkages.
The second factor reflects the level of congruence, or fit, between their jobs and other facets of their life. The extent to which their job utilizes their skills and talents, the degree to which their values and preferences match the culture and climate of their organization, and whether or not they feel valued all determine the level of fit.
The third factor corresponds to the extent to which links could be severed--the sacrifices they would incur if they left the organization. The benefits, opportunities, provisions, autonomy, pay, and security of this job relative to other positions shapes this assessment of sacrifices.
For each of these three factors-links, fit, and sacrifice--Mitchell et al. (2001) developed a community variant as well. These factors, hence, represented the extent to which individuals feel embedded in their community. Links to the community reflect whether individuals are married, whether they own their home, and whether their family lives in the community. Fit to the community corresponds to whether individuals like and connect with the community in which they live. Finally, sacrifice if individuals left the community related to whether individual felt they were respected as well as safe and, therefore, leaving the community would be difficult.
Job embeddedness evolved from the unfolding model of turnover, promulgated by Lee and Mitchell (1994), which characterizes the reasons that individuals leave organizations. In particular, according to Lee and Mitchell (1994), several alternative pathways, each corresponding to a separate trajectory, characterize the decision to leave. For example, leaving can follow a precipitous event, called a shock, such as a pregnancy, unpleasant boss, or unexpected job offer. Alternatively, leaving can follow a gradual accumulation of dissatisfaction. In addition, sometimes leaving can follow a rational analysis of costs and benefits or could represent an immediate emotional response or script. This unfolding model of turnover highlighted how factors outside the job context can affect retention.
Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, and Erez (2001) showed that job embeddedness was negatively related to intention to leave and subsequent turnover. More importantly, these relationships remained significant, but small in effect, after other factors such as commitment and job satisfaction were controlled.
Lee, Mitchell, Sablynski, Burton, and Holtom (2004) examined the role of job embeddedness on other workplace outcomes. They supported the hypothesis that embeddedness to the community should reduce turnover and absenteeism, after controlling job attitudes. That is, if individuals feel embedded to the community, they might feel that changing jobs could be costly: they would might to relinquish their role in this community, especially if future relocation is necessary. In contrast, embeddedness to the job was related to discretionary behaviors outside the role and job performance, even after controlling job attitudes.
Job embeddedness might also increase the likelihood that individuals will respond adaptively to adverse events at work. Indeed, as Burton, Holtom, Sablynski, Mitchell, and Lee (2010) showed, in response to negative events at work, many employees withdraw effort and support. However, when job embeddedness is elevated, employees do not withdraw effort and support in the aftermath of these events, but instead engage in more organizational citizenship behavior and perform more productively.
Specifically, in a study conducted by Burton, Holtom, Sablynski, Mitchell, and Lee (2010), participants completed a questionnaire that first assessed their level of job embeddedness. Next, the questionnaire assessed whether or not participants had experienced various negative events, such as unexpected criticisms of their performance, unsuccessful application to be promoted, or a disappointing bonus. Furthermore, participants specified whether they contemplated leaving after these events unfolded. Finally, supervisors rated the job performance of these individuals as well as the extent to which they engage in organizational citizenship behavior, such as the degree to which they assist colleagues.
In general, if job embeddedness was limited, musings about leaving after adverse events were inversely related to job performance and organizational citizenship behavior. In contrast, if job embeddedness was elevated, musings about leaving after adverse events were positively related to job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (Burton, Holtom, Sablynski, Mitchell, & Lee, 2010).
To explain this finding, Burton, Holtom, Sablynski, Mitchell, and Lee (2010) argued that individuals who feel embedded in the job might initially question whether they should remain loyal. Because they feel embedded, they usually decide to stay, and thus feel the need to justify their choice, as implied by the forced compliance model (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959), a variant of cognitive dissonance. As a consequence, they will attempt to avoid any negative events--such adversities would merely underscore the drawbacks of their decision and aggravate a sense of dissonance. To avoid these negative events, they might attempt to enhance their performance. They might also escalate their commitment to the organization, as a means to show to themselves their decision was rational (see escalation of commitment), which can in turn increase the salience of positive features of this organization (see spreading of alternatives).
As Ng and Feldman (2010) showed, job embeddedness can actually provoke some complications. In particular, if people feel embedded in their job, they are often disinclined or unable to develop a diverse network of colleagues in other organizations. That is, their social capital declines. Because of this decline, their exposure to knowledge and information and motivation to extend this expertise can dissipate can as well, compromising human capital.
This possibility was verified by Ng and Feldman (2010). In this study, participants completed a series of scales that gauge job embeddedness, such as "I feel tied to the organization", social capital development, such as "I spend a lot of time and effort at work networking with others", and human capital development, such as "How often did you attend a training course?" Job embeddedness at one time was inversely related to social capital and human capital development in the future.
While conducting a meta-analysis, Jiang, Liu, McKay, Lee, and Mitchell (2012) uncovered several factors that moderate the relationship between job embeddedness and turnover. Specifically, this meta-analysis, derived from 65 independent samples, uncovered some important patterns of results. First, the negative relationship between on-the-job embeddedness and turnover was more pronounced in the public sector relative to private organizations. Arguably, the public sector tends to provide more security to employees. From the perspective of attraction-selection-attrition theory (Schneider, 1987), the public sector, therefore, attracts people who value safety and security. On-the-job embeddedness confers this security and, therefore, is perceived as especially beneficial to these individuals.
Second, the negative relationship between off-the-job embeddedness and turnover was more pronounced in collectivist nations compared to individualistic nations. That is, in collectivist nations, many of which are located in Asia, people are more likely to define themselves by their relationships and communities. Consequently, they value the strong relationships and sense of belonging that off-the-job embeddedness can facilitate.
Allen (2006) discovered that socialization tactics can affect embeddedness to the organization. In particular, affect embeddedness to the organization was enhanced when newcomers received some form of collective learning experience, such as training in groups, which facilitates social interactions and associations.
Furthermore, if individuals are informed of the sequence of phases that newcomers as they become increasingly accepted into the organization, embeddedness to the organization also rises. They become more aware of which phases they have to complete, amplifying the sacrifice they would experience if they left. Finally, positive social support also promotes embeddedness to the organization.
To assess job embeddedness, Mitchell et al. (2001) developed a scale that comprises 40 items. The scale comprises six subscales: organization links (e.g., "How many coworkers are highly dependent on you")& organization fit (e.g., "My coworkers are similar to me")& organization sacrifice (e.g., "I would sacrifice a lot if I left this job")& community links (e.g., "How many family members live nearby")& community fit (e.g., "The area where I live offers the leisure activities that I like")& community sacrifice (e.g., "People respect me a lot in my community"). Cronbach's values are .68, .87, .86, .58, .86, and .70 respectively. Response options differ across items. Hence, responses are standardized and then aggregated.
Subsequently, Crossley, Bennett, Jex, and Burnfield (2007) have developed a measure of global job connectedness, in which Cronbach's is .80. Items were derived from the definitions of job embeddedness and clear examples that has been presented in the literature, using the deductive item-generation strategy (Hinkin, 1995).
Laio, Chuang, and Joshi (2008) recommended that future research should examine whether deep-level similarity is a predictor of job embeddedness. Deep-level similarity refers to the extent to which individuals feel they share similar personality traits, qualities, attitudes, values, knowledge, skills, and interests with other members of their workgroup, organization, or collective. This form of similarity might manifest a strong sense of job connectedness. Indeed, both deep-level similarity and job connectedness reduce turnover.
As Yao, Lee, Mitchell, Burton, and Sablynski (2004) highlight, job embeddedness clearly overlaps with a diversity of factors, such as social networks embeddedness, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, person-job fit, and so forth. As Crossley, Bennett, Jex, and Burnfield (2007) highlight, few of these other constructs underscore the role of connections to the community as well.
Individuals can be embedded in other social institutions, in addition to their job or community overall. They can be members of political parties, religious congregations, interest groups, neighborhood committees, unions, sporting clubs, and so forth. This social embeddedness increases the likelihood that individuals will engage in collective action to redress grievances and injustices, as Klandermans, van der Toorn, and van Stekelenburg (2008) showed.
Specifically, Klandermans, van der Toorn, and van Stekelenburg (2008) conducted three studies, examining whether recent immigrants in Netherlands or New York engage in collective action. In each study, participants answered questions that assess whether they would engage in collective action, epitomized by activities like petitions, hanging political posters on walls, attending rallies or demonstrations, boycotting a product, and so forth.
Next, they answered questions on whether or not they feel grievances against the nation. That is, they specified the extent to which they, or their ethnic constituencies, are the target of distributive injustice or procedural injustice. A typical question is "The government does not respect people of my ethnic background living (here)". They also received questions on the extent to which they feel a sense of connection with their ethnic group and with the country to where they shifted. The degree to which they feel various emotions like anger and fear were also assessed.
Finally, some of the questions concerned whether they are members of political parties, religious congregations, interest groups, neighborhood committees, unions, sporting clubs, and so forth, to gauge social embeddedness. Other questions assessed whether they feel a sense of efficacy or ability to engage effectively in political activity.
As hypothesized, individuals who felt they, or their groups, were the victim of injustice were more likely to engage in collective action. However, this sense of injustice translated to collective action only if social embeddedness was elevated and a dual identity or connection with both the ethnic group and the host nation had been formed. Furthermore, a sense of efficacy also increased participation in collective action, particularly when social embeddedness was elevated.
Presumably, when individuals experience a sense of dual identity with both their ethnic group and the host nation, injustices seem particularly salient. That is, individuals experience a sense of relative deprivation. They feel they have not received the resources or respect they deserve. Alternatively, they feel disadvantaged relative to other groups or their own past. If they had not identified with their ethnic group, they would not be as concerned with these injustices. If they had not identified with their host nation, they might not value the resources or respect this nation could offer.
Nevertheless, despite these grievances, individuals may abstain from collective action unless they feel these activities will be effective. If individuals feel embedded within civil society, they become more confident these activities will be effective. They might feel as though they can access all the skills, qualities, and resources of these networks (see also self expansion). They will thus participate, provided they also feel they can offer some assistance themselves. This sense of efficacy, coupled with grievances, also increases the likelihood of anger rather than fear--an emotion that represents approach instead of avoidance and thus fosters action. Anger was indeed associated with collective action.
Interestingly, individuals were more likely to engage in action if they felt they were the victims of procedural rather than distributive justice: personal treatment was more important than personal outcomes. However, they were also more likely to engage in collective action if they felt their ethnic group was the victim of distributive instead of procedural justice. Perhaps, when they contemplate their group, their attention is oriented to more tangible matters instead of procedural issues.
A theory called organizational-political embeddedness assumes that organizations are embedded within a socio-political landscape, somewhat similar to how individuals are embedded within an organization or community. However, when organizations are especially dependent upon other stakeholders, they become more inclined to report misleading or deceptive information about their financial performance, called financial malfeasance.
For example, Prechel and Morris (2010) highlight how neoliberal policies, enacted between 1986 and 2000, in America, increased the dependence of companies on institutional investors as well as incentives and opportunities to engage in financial malfeasance. To illustrate, during the 1980s, institutional investors like mutual funds, pension funds, hedge funds, and endowments all burgeoned. These investors demanded that companies increase their profits and price-earnings ratios, the ratio of the value of a share divided by the earnings or dividend of one share.
If companies did not fulfill these demands, a series of consequences could unfold. First, the investors could withhold future investment or disinvest. Credit might thus become more expensive. The value of companies might decline. Consequently, managers might not receive the income from stock options they anticipated. Alternatively, these managers might be replaced.
Hence, companies recognized they needed to satisfy the needs of these investors. Nevertheless, managers often felt they could not fulfill the demands of these investors. Hence, rather than pursue legitimate means to satisfy these institutional investors, they would often engage in financial malfeasance instead. In particular, by implementing a variety of mechanisms. they attempted to misrepresent their financial status. In other words, the dependence on investors elicits incentives to mislead other stakeholders and inflate corporate balance sheets.
These changes coincided with many other opportunities to engage in financial malfeasance. Shareholders and employees could contribute to political parties, for example. Consequently, managers of companies began to compel governments to change tax laws and to relax accounting rules, enabling organizations to misrepresent their performance and circumvent regulators. To illustrate, transfer of capital within corporations now attracts negligible tax. Most corporations, therefore, now assume a multi-layered network of subsidiaries. Because transfers between subsidiaries are often not taxed, such transactions circumvent the surveillance of regulatory agencies. For example, companies might transfer money from an entity on the stock exchange to an entity that is not on the stock exchange. The performance and stability of the first entity, therefore, might be overrated.
Many other changes curbed the rights of shareholders. One act, for example, reduced the capacity of investors to utilize the security laws as a means to initiate lawsuits against corporate managers, accountants, lawyers, and advisors. These individuals, thus, could often pose speculative, and often misleading, statements about their corporate finances, with impunity. A variety of other advances, such as the proliferation of derivatives and off-balance sheet entities, evoked additional opportunities for financial malfeasance.
Prechel and Morris (2010) undertook a study, demonstrating that indices that represent this dependence, incentives, and opportunities did increase the likelihood of corporate malfeasance. In this study, financial restatements, in which companies retract previous accounts of their corporate finances, was assumed to represent an indicator of financial malfeasance.
Limited dividends, as measured by price to earnings ratio, was positively associated with this index of financial malfeasance. When dividends diminish, companies are concerned they have not fulfilled the needs of shareholders, promoting misleading and deceptive reports. Mergers and acquisitions were also positively associated with this index of financial malfeasance: These changes often reduce cash flow, prompting the concern that shareholders will be disappointed with their returns, and thus eliciting misleading reports.
Corporations that correspond to a multilayer subsidiary form, as well as subsidiaries themselves, were especially likely to engage in financial malfeasance. These forms enable companies to misrepresent their balance sheets, because capital can be strategically distributed to conceal problems. Furthermore, companies that often contribute to political parties or associations are also more likely to demonstrate financial malfeasance. These companies are able to prompt changes that curb surveillance of their financial activities.
The notion of environmental embeddedness is similar to the concept of a sense of community. When people experience a sense of community, they experience a feeling of belonging. They feel the needs of members will be fulfilled by their commitment to each other and the community. They believe that members of this community matter to one another.
The quality of public spaces is a key determinant of this sense of community. As Francis, Giles-Corti, Wood, and Knuiman (2012) showed, if individuals frequently utilize shops and open spaces in their region, they are more likely to experience this sense of community. Use rather than merely the number of public spaces seems to foster this sense of community. These public spaces provide opportunities for people to see or even meet other people casually, and these minimal interactions might promote a sense of community. Some researchers argue that shops with greenery are especially effective, because they also diminish stress.
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Last Update: 6/6/2016