Organisational embeddedness as a moderator on the organisational support, trust and workplace deviance relationships
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-03-2019-0025 |
| Pages | 1-17 |
| Published date | 15 November 2019 |
| Date | 15 November 2019 |
| Author | Riann Singh |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Organisational embeddedness as
a moderator on the organisational
support, trust and workplace
deviance relationships
Riann Singh
Department of Management Studies,
The University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
Abstract
Purpose –Emerging research calls for the exploration of the potential negative side of organisational
embeddedness. It is important to assess such negative aspects to fully understand the power of
embeddedness, and how to address the potential undesirable effects on employees and organisations. The
purpose of this paper is to answer this call by assessing the extent to which organisational embeddedness can
negatively influence the perceived organisational support-workplace deviance and the organisational trust–
deviance relationships.
Design/methodology/approach –A sample of 969 employees across the financial services sector in the
Caribbean nation of Trinidad is used, with a two-wave research design. Multiple hierarchical regression
analysis is used to test the research relationships.
Findings –The findings support the propositions that organisational support and trust each negatively
predicts workplace deviance and organisational embeddedness moderates each of these relationships in an
undesirable way, such that, higher embeddedness weakens the desirable relationships between support, trust
and deviance.
Originality/value –This study addresses a clear gap since limited studies explore the potential negative
impact of organisational embeddedness on various work perceptions and behaviours. Embeddedness is
largely considered a predictor of various desirable employee and organisational outcomes.
Keywords Caribbean, Trinidad, Workplace deviance, Perceived organizational support,
Organizational trust, Organizational embeddedness
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Job embeddedness describes the “web”of organisational and community “connections”that
tie employees to their job (Mitchell et al., 2001). The organisational or on-the-job dimensions
that tie employees to their job are collectively known as organisational embeddedness. The
community or off-the-job dimensions are known as community embeddedness. Research
supports job embeddedness as the most valid negative predictor of voluntary turnover
(Mitchell et al., 2001;Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2008; Lee et al., 2004; Allen, 2006; Singh, 2016,
2017). Research also supports embeddedness as a positive predictor of various desirable
organisational and employee outcomes, including organisational citizenship behaviours,
employee engagement and performance (Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2008; Lee et al., 2004).
Organisational embeddedness, however, is a comparatively stronger predictor of desirable
outcomes than community embeddednessin smaller countries (Mitchell et al., 2001; Lee et al.,
2004). Singh (2017) suggests employees do not necessarily relocate or change “communities”
upon changingjobs in small countries. Embeddednessis therefore considered a boon by most
organisations and existing research supports this idea (Mitchell et al.,2001).
Less research has explored the potential negative side of embeddedness and its association
with other work perceptions and behaviours. Sekiguchi et al. (2008) and Marasi et al. (2016) are
among the few studies exploring the possible negative aspects of embeddedness. Sekiguchi
et al. (2008) support the idea that embeddedness indirectly reduces desirable leader-member
Evidence-based HRM: a Global
Forum for Empirical Scholarship
Vol. 8 No. 1, 2020
pp. 1-17
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2049-3983
DOI 10.1108/EBHRM-03-2019-0025
Received 13 March 2019
Revised 9 June 2019
28 August 2019
Accepted 11 October 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2049-3983.htm
1
Organisational
embeddedness
as a moderator
exchanges, organisational-based self-esteem and employee performance. Marasi et al. (2016)
suggest job embeddedness moderates the relationship between organisational trust and deviant
work behaviours. Emerging research calls for the further exploration of such negative aspects
to fully understand the power of embeddedness, how to maximise its positive impact and how
to address the potential undesirable effects on employees and organisations (Allen et al., 2016;
Greene et al., 2018; Singh, 2018). The current study answers this call by assessing the extent to
which embeddedness influences the perceived organisational support-workplace deviance and
the organisational trust–deviance relationships. It therefore extends the work of Marasi et al.
(2016) by suggesting perceived organisational support and trust can each predict workplace
deviance, and embeddedness can adversely affect both relationships. This study recognises
perceived organisational support, like organisational trust, is grounded in social exchanges and
hence, argues organisational support can also predicts workplace deviance. This study also
zooms in on the role of organisational embeddedness, recognising organisational support,
organisational trust and workplace deviance are all on-the-job perceptions and behaviours; a
point not addressed by Marasi et al. (2016) in their job embeddedness study. Such a focus on
organisational embeddedness is also justifiable within smaller countries, where community
embeddedness is less valid since relocation is not predominant in such contexts.
Indeed, employees develop perceptions about the support structure provided to them by
their employers (Eisenberger et al., 1986). They form expectations about whether their
organisation’sfuture actions will be favourableand advantageous, or at least not detrimental
to their interests (Robinson, 1996). These ideas captured in perceived organisational support
and organisational trust, respectively,when positive, can reduce destructivework behaviours
inherent in workplace deviance (Robinson and Bennett, 1995). However, embeddedness is not
always a positiveinfluence in this context.When employees are tied to theirorganisation over
time, their embeddedness can feel like “stuckness”. Frustration builds when employees feel
constrained.Frustrations can then weakenthe relationships between perceivedorganisational
support, organisational trust and deviance over time.
The primary contribution of this paper is the idea that embeddedness is not always
associated with positive employee and organisational outcomes. This study asserts
embeddedness weakens the desirable impact of perceived organisational support and trust
on workplace deviance. This study is also conducted in the context of a developing
Caribbean nation, which presents an alternative perspective from the typical developed
country context. Community embeddedness is not investigated in this study. The focus is
organisational perceptions and behaviours within a small Caribbean country sample and
not off-the-job or community factors.
In this study, social exchange (Blau, 1964), embeddedness (Mitchell et al., 2001) and
reactance theories (Brehm, 1966) are used. Perceived organisational support and organisational
trust are concepts grounded in social exchanges. Social exchange theory is used to assess the
relationships between these concepts and workplace deviance. Embeddedness and reactance
theories are used to assess the potential negative impact of organisational embeddedness. The
research relationships tested in this study are summarised in the model shown in Figure 1.
Theory and hypotheses
Perceived organisational support and organisational trust
Employees develop ideas about the extent to which their contributions are valued
(Eisenberger et al., 1986). They also develop ideas about whether the organisation cares
about and supports their own well-being (Allen et al., 2003). These ideas are described as
employee perceptions of the organisational support received from their organisation of
employment (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Employees develop these perceptions based on
whether they feel supportive work practices are used by their organisation to recognise their
value, and further provides opportunities for their development (Allen et al., 2003).
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EBHRM
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