Phases of growth and decline are part of every organizational life and are, therefore, constantly represented in the management literature. Companies anticipating or facing downturns often react with restructuring activities in order to reverse the declining business situation in the long term....

Purpose: This paper seeks to analyse to what extent absolute wage levels, relative wages compared with colleagues, and the position in a firm's hierarchy affect workers' absenteeism behaviour. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses personnel data of a large German company from January 1999...