Relationships Matter: How Workplace Social Capital affects Absenteeism of Public Sector Employees

Signe Pihl-Thingvad; Vera Winter; Michelle Hansen; Jurgen Willems

doi:10.1080/14719037.2022.2142652

Relationships Matter: How Workplace Social Capital affects Absenteeism of Public Sector Employees

Signe Pihl-Thingvad, Vera Winter^*, Michelle Hansen, Jurgen Willems

^*Corresponding author for this work

Institute for Public Management and Governance

Publication: Scientific journal › Journal article › peer-review

Abstract

Although absenteeism is a key concern in most western societies, research on reducing absenteeism in public sector organizations is scarce, particularly regarding the impact of organizational relationships. By building on the concept of workplace social capital (WSC) and using a large longitudinal cohort of Danish municipal employees, this study shows that three types of WSC (bridging, direct-leader-linking, and top-level-linking WSC) reduce absenteeism, while there is no significant effect of bonding WSC. Our empirical results further suggest that the relationships with the immediate leader and the top management (direct-leader-linking and top-level-linking WSC) are most important for employees’ absenteeism.

Original language	English
Journal	Public Management Review
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2142652
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 2022

Keywords

work social capital
absenteeism
public administration
Employees
Denmark

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10.1080/14719037.2022.2142652Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

7 Citations
1 Journal article

Public managers’ role in creating workplace social capital (WSC) and its effect on employees’ well-being and health: a protocol of a longitudinal cohort study (PUMA-WSC)
Pihl-Thingvad, S., Hansen, S., Winter, V., Hansen, M. & Willems, J., 2020, In: BMJ Open. 10, e0390, p. 1 - 8
Publication: Scientific journal › Journal article › peer-review

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title = "Relationships Matter: How Workplace Social Capital affects Absenteeism of Public Sector Employees",

abstract = "Although absenteeism is a key concern in most western societies, research on reducing absenteeism in public sector organizations is scarce, particularly regarding the impact of organizational relationships. By building on the concept of workplace social capital (WSC) and using a large longitudinal cohort of Danish municipal employees, this study shows that three types of WSC (bridging, direct-leader-linking, and top-level-linking WSC) reduce absenteeism, while there is no significant effect of bonding WSC. Our empirical results further suggest that the relationships with the immediate leader and the top management (direct-leader-linking and top-level-linking WSC) are most important for employees{\textquoteright} absenteeism.",

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AU - Pihl-Thingvad, Signe

AU - Winter, Vera

AU - Hansen, Michelle

AU - Willems, Jurgen

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Although absenteeism is a key concern in most western societies, research on reducing absenteeism in public sector organizations is scarce, particularly regarding the impact of organizational relationships. By building on the concept of workplace social capital (WSC) and using a large longitudinal cohort of Danish municipal employees, this study shows that three types of WSC (bridging, direct-leader-linking, and top-level-linking WSC) reduce absenteeism, while there is no significant effect of bonding WSC. Our empirical results further suggest that the relationships with the immediate leader and the top management (direct-leader-linking and top-level-linking WSC) are most important for employees’ absenteeism.

AB - Although absenteeism is a key concern in most western societies, research on reducing absenteeism in public sector organizations is scarce, particularly regarding the impact of organizational relationships. By building on the concept of workplace social capital (WSC) and using a large longitudinal cohort of Danish municipal employees, this study shows that three types of WSC (bridging, direct-leader-linking, and top-level-linking WSC) reduce absenteeism, while there is no significant effect of bonding WSC. Our empirical results further suggest that the relationships with the immediate leader and the top management (direct-leader-linking and top-level-linking WSC) are most important for employees’ absenteeism.

KW - work social capital

KW - absenteeism

KW - public administration

KW - Employees

KW - Denmark

U2 - 10.1080/14719037.2022.2142652

DO - 10.1080/14719037.2022.2142652

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1471-9037

JO - Public Management Review

JF - Public Management Review

ER -

Relationships Matter: How Workplace Social Capital affects Absenteeism of Public Sector Employees

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Keywords

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Public managers’ role in creating workplace social capital (WSC) and its effect on employees’ well-being and health: a protocol of a longitudinal cohort study (PUMA-WSC)

Cite this