The Interaction Between Job Embeddedness and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) in Predicting Employee Altruism and Deviance

Abstract

Drawing upon conservation of resources and social bonding theories, the present study examined the associations between job embeddedness and employee work behaviors (altruism and organizational deviance) by exploring the moderating role of leader-member exchange (LMX) in these associations. Using a cross-sectional research design, data were collected from a sample of 637 employees in Turkey. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping. The findings indicated that job embeddedness was positively related to employee altruism while negatively related to organizational deviance. This study also provided support for the moderating role of LMX in job embeddedness-altruism and job embeddedness-organizational deviance relationships. More specifically, job embeddedness had a stronger positive relationship with altruism and a stronger negative relationship with organizational deviance when LMX quality was high. These findings substantiate the pivotal role of focusing on both job embeddedness and the treatment by supervisors in the organization to inculcate desirable workplace behaviors and employee performance motivation. The implications are discussed as well as limitations, and directions for future research are provided.