Better off Alone? Linking Organizational Politics, Embeddedness, and Withdrawal Behavior

Abstract

Many organizations seek to embed their employees by fostering strong bonds between the employees and their work. Although this typically helps organizations retain employees, identity theory suggests that job embeddedness may amplify strain that results from impediments to employee's perceived role fulfillment and self-identity. We propose that embedded employees have high work identity salience that may be threatened when managers put their own interests before that of the organization or other employees (i.e., perception of organizational politics). Using data from a sample of 382 South Korean employees who provided data over 1 year, we found that embedded employees, when faced with organizational politics, reported more job search behavior, and in turn, a greater likelihood of turnover behavior. However, this finding did not extend to a nonrole-inhibiting stressor (i.e., workload), such that it seems unlikely this finding applies broadly across stressors.