Down and out: An investigation of the relationship between mood and employee withdrawal behavior

A relatively new and promising area of research is the effect of mood in th e workplace. In art effort to extend existing literature on the subject, we examined the impact of two mood dimensions (positive affect and negative a ffect) on employees' withdrawal behavior-specifically, on their absenteeism and turnover from an organization. A longitudinal study of 129 employees o f a division of an electronics firm revealed that positive affect reduced a bsenteeism, while negative affect increased absenteeism and turnover. Job s atisfaction moderated the, relationship between positive affect and absente eism. These results point to the importance of considering both job attitud es and emotions in efforts to pc-edict and manage employee withdrawal behav ior. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.