Tag Archives: job embeddedness

Have innovative ideas that need implementing? Increase job embeddedness of mid- to late- career stage employees.

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Topic: Performance
Publication: Human Resource Management (NOV-DEC, 2010)
Article: The impact of job embeddedness on innovation-related behaviors
Authors: T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman
Reviewed By: Rebecca Eckart

In recent years, organizations have faced increased pressures to continually be innovative in order to survive in a competitive marketplace. New work by Ng and Feldman (2010) suggests that job embeddedness could be a potential strategy to bolster innovative behaviors by employees. Job embeddedness attempts to explain how employee fit (organization-employee match), links (personal relationships at work), and sacrifice (loss of rewards and benefits if turnover) keep employees with their current organizations even when other opportunities are available. Research consistently shows that highly embedded employees are increasingly motivated to perform well in their jobs because they feel committed and invested in the success of the organization. But are highly embedded employees also more likely to engage in innovative-related behaviors and is this consistent across all employees?

In short, the answer is yes. Highly embedded employees are more apt to engage in innovation-related behaviors. However, while they are not more likely to generate innovative ideas, they are more inclined to spread the innovative ideas throughout the organization and actually implement the ideas. But wait; before you run to implement new policies, the current article also suggests that this trend is not consistent across all employees. In fact, those highly embedded employees in their mid- to late-career stages are significantly more likely to spread and implement innovative ideas than those early in their career.


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Decreasing Turnover in your Organization

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Topic: Turnover
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (AUG 2010)
Article: Will they stay or will they go? The role of job embeddedness in predicting turnover in individualistic and collectivistic cultures.
Authors: A. Ramesh, M. J. Gelfand
Reviewed By: Rachel Marsh

Recent research has linked turnover with employee embeddedness.  Employee embededness is the extent to which an employee feels connected to the organization.  Employees who feel higher levels of embeddedness are less likely to leave their jobs willingly.  They also experience higher levels of job satisfaction, have more job commitment, and are less likely to search for alternative jobs. 

The current study examines how culture affects employee embeddedness by comparing employees in an individualistic culture (in which one’s individual needs are valued over the groups’ needs, e.g., United States, Western Europe) versus a collectivistic culture (in which the group’s needs are valued over the individual’s needs, e.g., India, China).  These researchers found that employees in the United States had higher levels of embeddedness when they perceived high person-job fit (e.g., when they believed their job is a match to their individual skills).  Employees in India had higher levels of embeddedness when they felt (a) a person-organization fit – they believed they fit in with the organization and its values and mission, (b) an organizational link (the extent to which a person believes they have personal associations in the organization), and (c) community links  - connections within the community where the job is located.

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Do “Shocks” Lead to Positive Workplace Outcomes?

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Topic:Performance, Job Attitudes
Publication: Journal of Vocational Behavior (FEB 2010)
Article: The buffering effects of job embeddedness on negative shocks
Authors: J.P. Burton, B.C. Holtom, C.J. Sablynski, T.R. Mitchell, and T.W. Lee
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

It’s probably safe to say that negative workplace events are inevitable.  Sooner or later, every employee will experience them.  The problem is that after experiencing such events, many employees engage in or think about engaging in withdrawal behaviors (e.g., turnover, absenteeism, lateness) or lash out via counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs).  But, this is not true for all employees!  In fact, some employees respond to unpleasant events in ways that benefit the organization.  So who are these employees?

In a recent study, Burton et al. (2010) aimed to show that how embedded an employee is within his/her job and organization helps determine how he/she will respond to unpleasant events (or “shocks” as the authors refer to them).  More formally, the authors explored what is called job embeddedness, which refers to the extent to which employees feel attached or linked to their organization and/or its members (i.e., “I fit in well in my organization” and “it would be a great personal sacrifice for me to leave”).

To be clear, “shocks” represent any event that encourages employees to think about leaving the organization and can be either positive (e.g., my significant other got a promotion and I have to move) or negative (e.g., I unfairly got passed over for that promotion). However, Burton et al. focused only on negative shocks.

The authors collected survey data from 623 employees working for a large financial institution.  Their findings suggest that employees who are highly embedded within their organization react quite differently to shocks than those who are not.

Instead of engaging in the typical responses to shocks (e.g., withdrawal behaviors and CWBs), highly embedded employees deal with shocks by maintaining their performance on the job and engaging in more organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).  That is, job embeddedness serves are a shield against shocks.

These findings clearly demonstrate the importance of enhancing employees’ job embeddedness. Building a strong link between an employee and their organization is partly up to the employee, but can certainly be facilitated by the organization by providing increased employee supports, measuring and monitoring job embeddedness, promoting fair personnel practices, stamping out illegitimate organizational politics, etc.

Burton, J.P., Holtom, B.C., Sablynski, C.J., Mitchell, T.R., & Lee, T.W. (2010). The buffering effects of job embeddedness on negative shocks. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76(1), 42-51.

Beware the Turnover Bug: It’s Contagious!

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Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Motivation, Turnover
Publication: Academy of Management Journal (JUN 2009)
Article: Turnover contagion: How coworkers’ job embeddedness and job search behaviors influence quitting.
Author: W. Felps, T.R. Mitchell, D.R. Hekman, T.W. Lee, B.C. Holtman, W.S. Harman
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

There is a HUGE body of research literature on the predictors and causes of employee turnover (better grab two cups of coffee before reading all of these articles!). Most of the research has investigated either individual-level explanations (e.g., low job satisfaction) or economic and organizational-level explanations (e.g., unemployment rates and demand for jobs in certain industries) of employee turnover.

But, what about the social context that employees work in? Do the behaviors and attitudes of coworkers influence employees’ decisions to quit their jobs?

In a recent study, Felps and colleagues (2009) hypothesized that employees’ decisions to quit ARE influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of their coworkers. They tested this hypothesis by surveying employees working in two diverse organizations (a regional bank and a national hospitality company).

In both samples, Felps et al. found that coworkers’ job embeddedness (how well employees feel that they fit in with their job and the community) predicted voluntary turnover 18 months later.  That is, employees whose coworkers reported low levels of job embeddedness were more likely to quit their job.

Felps and colleagues also found that low coworker job embeddedness leads to increased job search behaviors, which then leads to turnover. In other words, employees whose coworkers report low job embeddedness, tend to engage in more job search behaviors (updating résumé, going on a job interview, etc.) themselves – which then makes them more likely to quit their current jobs.

All in all, these results suggest that employees look to their coworkers as sources of information when deciding whether to quit their jobs (or think about quitting).  In fact, the authors likened this phenomenon to a “contagious disease” which can spread throughout work units and entire organizations. Managers and organizational leaders must be aware that employee turnover can quickly grow from a minor “flu bug” to the bubonic plague!

Felps, W., Mitchell, T.R., Hekman, D.R., Lee, T.W., Holtom, B.C., & Harman, W.S. (2009). Turnover contagion: How coworkers’ job embeddedness and job search behaviors influence quitting. Academy of Management Journal, 52(3), 545-561.