Absenteeism in Israeli schoolteachers: An organizational ethics perspective

Zehava Rosenblatt, Orly Shapira-Lishchinsky, Arie Shirom

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Two studies are presented with the purpose of investigating teacher absences in Israel from the perspectives of organizational normative behavior (Study 1) and organizational ethical climate (Study 2). Study 1 posits that absence may represent shirking behavior, and tested this hypothesis by investigating temporal absence trends of the entire public teacher population in Israel around weekends, holidays, and days of heavy workload. Results provide evidence which supports our theoretical expectations. Study 2 proposes that teachers' work absences are associated with the school's ethical climate. Using a sample of high-school teachers, our results supported this hypothesis, particularly for low-seniority and non-tenured teachers. We suggest that the normative behavior and ethical climate perspectives offer new vistas for advancing our understanding of absence behavior in organizations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)247-259
Number of pages13
JournalHuman Resource Management Review
Volume20
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2010

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors wish to acknowledge with thanks the financial and administrative support provided by the Bureau of the Chief Scientist, Israeli Ministry of Education . We also thank Ilan Rosiner for his statistical help, and Ayalla Cohen, the head of the Statistics Lab at the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology and her consulting team.

Keywords

  • Ethical climate
  • Israel
  • Organizational ethics
  • Schoolteachers
  • Stress
  • Work absence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Applied Psychology
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

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