Job characteristics, identification at work, and employee withdrawal behavior: A latent change score approach

Employee withdrawal is a critical issue for organisations
and has been the topic of extensive research.
Although much turnover research used betweenperson
designs, this study focused on the impact of
within-person changes in job characteristics on job attitudes
and withdrawal behaviour, using the challengehindrance
stressor as our main theoretical framework.
The focus was on the job characteristics workload
(a challenge stressor), emotional demands (a hindrance
stressor) and autonomy (a job resource) and on positive
(dedication) and negative (organisational cynicism) job
attitudes as process variables. Latent change score
modelling based on data of 1530 Dutch employees
collected in three waves across 2 years showed that
changes in workload, emotional demands and autonomy
resulted in changes in organisational cynicism,
which, in turn, related to changes in turnover intentions,
but not absenteeism. Changes in autonomy were
related to changes in dedication, which, in turn, were
associated with changes in turnover intentions, but not absenteeism. This study highlights the importance of
investigating within-person changes in job characteristics
in explaining changes in job attitudes and
employee withdrawal behaviour. From a practical
perspective, this study shows how job design affects
dedication and organisational cynicism and hence can
contribute to combat employee withdrawal behaviour.