The relationship between organizational culture and withdrawal intentions and behavior

Purpose – The goal of the present study is to examine the influence of five dimensions of organizational culture (i.e. job challenge, communication, trust, innovation and social cohesiveness) on employees’ withdrawal intentions and behavior. Specifically, three forms of employees’ withdrawal intentions (i.e. from the occupation, job, and organization), and one form of employees’ withdrawal behavior (i.e. self‐reported absenteeism) are examined. Design/methodology/approach – The paper investigates these relationships among social workers in the Israeli health care system through a structured questionnaire. Regression analyses were employed to test the research hypotheses. Findings – The findings of this study indicate that an organizational culture that provides challenging jobs, diminishes employees’ absenteeism, and withdrawal intentions from the occupation, job, and the organization. The results also show that other dimensions of organizational culture were not significantly correlated with the dependent variables, with the exception of the relationship between a culture of innovation and employees’ withdrawal intentions from the job. Originality/value – This study contributes to a better understanding of the influence of organizational contexts (e.g. culture) on the development of multiple withdrawal intentions and behaviors among social service employees in the health care sector.