Social comparison and absenteeism: Explaining the impact of referent norms on employee absenteeism

Drawing from social identity and social influence theory, we propose that the absence-related norms of an individual's work-based referent others will have a significant effect on the likelihood of excessive absence behavior. We then develop and test a model of the social mechanisms potentially underlying the relationship between referent absence norms and the likelihood of excessive absence behavior. Our findings indicate that referent group norms significantly explain excessive absence behavior, even when taking into account the absence norms associated with the formal organizational units within which these referent groups are often nested. They also indicate that permissive referent group norms are likely to have a greater impact on the probability of target excessive absence when the target has a more conformist disposition, and that the association between reference group norms and the probability of excessive absenteeism is mediated by targets' perceptions of the net subjective expected utility of absenteeism.