Presenteeism pressure: The development of a scale and a nomological network

Abstract

The social context of the workplace influences attendance decisions. Regardless of personal and job factors, employees may choose to engage in sickness presenteeism behaviour (i.e., working when unwell) because of perceived pressure from the organization. Using Social Information Processing Theory, we introduce the construct of presenteeism pressure to capture this perception that an organization normalizes and expects employees to engage in presenteeism. Through a scale development study of working adults (N = 219), we create and refine the 11‐item Presenteeism Pressure Scale. Next, we provide evidence of convergent and discriminant validity of the scale in an independent sample of working adults (N = 248). We then concurrently examine presenteeism pressure's place in a nomological network of constructs within the presenteeism and broader organizational literature, in another sample (N = 764). Finally, we increase the rigour of our validation efforts by conducting an additional two‐wave study (N = 350) and expanding the nomological network of presenteeism pressure to include relevant work outcomes. Our results position presenteeism pressure as a unique and promising contributor to the understanding of presenteeism behaviours and work behaviours more generally. We conclude with suggestions for integrating presenteeism pressure into existing theory and better‐informed organizational attendance procedures.