ABSENTEEISM ESTIMATES BY EMPLOYEES AND MANAGERS - DIVERGENT PERSPECTIVES AND SELF-SERVING PERCEPTIONS

The social cognition literature and a deviance model of absenteeism were used to generate a series of predictions about employees' and managers' estimates of levels of absenteeism. Employees revealed a clear self-serving pattern in comparing their own absenteeism with occupational norms and their own work group's absence, and they underestimated their own actual absenteeism. Managers estimated lower occupational norms and lower work-group absence than did their subordinates. Managers also saw their own work groups as having lower absenteeism than the company average, an estimate that also appeared to be self-serving. These results suggest how people make sense of absence in a social context.