Job characteristics, job attitudes and employee withdrawal behaviour: 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 between-person designs, this study focused on the impact of within-person changes in job characteristics on job attitudes and withdrawal behaviour, using the challenge-hindrance 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.