Does status inconsistency make employees ill? Status inconsistency, absenteeism and HRM practices

The focus of the current study is to gain insight in the effect of perceived status inconsistency. Perceived status inconsistency is a situation in which there is a mismatch between the status employees assume they should acquire and the status they really obtain. Drawing from the effort-reward imbalance model (ERI; Siegrist, 1996), our study advances past research by investigating the association between status inconsistency and employee absenteeism, and the variables work stress and HRM practices, likely to account for this association. Results from a sample of 442 customer-care employees show that stress mediates the relationship between status inconsistency and absenteeism, and that commitment oriented HRM practices attenuate this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further reveal that commitment oriented HRM practices moderate the indirect effect of status inconsistency on absenteeism via stress.