RD - Week 4 Assignment 9/24/12



RD - Week 4 Assignment 9/24/12

Introduction

Across the globe, absenteeism is a fast budding problem; and a costly dilemma for managers (Lyons, 1972). To come up with a solution to reduce it is a major challenge. For any organization, coping with absenteeism in the workplace is a nuisance. Tactfulness and proper comprehension of the problem causing absenteeism are required for handling such situations. Attendance or presenteeism at workplace and its contrary absenteeism are intricate multi-dimensional issues concerning the communication and restrained interaction among workplace, employee, and employer, economic, social and societal aspects. The absence phenomenon is classified by Rushmore and Youngblood (1979) in to broad categories, that is, microclimate and macroclimate factors. Personality, career and organization are categorized as microclimate factors while medical, economic, and ethnic and social- cultural are classified as macroclimate factors.

This study is proposed to find a relationship between absenteeism and personality traits. The degree to which traits from the big five model of personality can be applied for predicting absenteeism in the workplace is investigated by Furnham, & Bramwell, (2006). According to their study, “Personality Factors Predict Absenteeism in the Workplace” extraversion predicts work absence positively in the workplace, through regression analysis.

Research Question

Do Extraverts have higher absenteeism rate in the workplace?

Hypotheses

Extraverted employees exhibit higher rates of absenteeism (H1)

Extraversion is not related to workplace absenteeism (Ha)

Hypothesis testing is an important area of decision theory. The test of hypothesis is used to test the validity of a claim about the value of a population parameter. In our case, evaluation will involve a one sample test as the claim involves the mean of a single population.

Types of errors that can occur

From a hypothesis test, two types of errors can result.

Type I error:

When a null hypothesis is rejected by researcher when it is ...