DEVELOPING AND TESTING A TAXONOMY OF LATENESS BEHAVIOR

Compared with other physical withdrawal behaviors such as employee turnover and absenteeism, employee lateness has been theoretically neglected. Three categories of lateness behavior (increasing chronic, stable periodic, and unavoidable) were defined on the basis of pattern, frequency, and duration of incidents. Hypothesized antecedents of each lateness category were tested using 2 samples, 353 hospital employees and 402 bank employees. Support was found for the idea that each category exhibits differential relationships to other work behaviors and specific antecedents. Additional empirical results showed that the ''never late'' subgroup from each sample was significantly different from the lateness subgroups on various antecedents and work behaviors. Results and limitations of the study are further discussed.