The contribution of client embeddedness to an employee’s employment
experience
Gerrit (Gerry) GJM Treuren, University of South Australia
Beni Halvorsen, RMIT University
Purpose
Treuren and Frankish (2014) demonstrated that client embeddedness - a recently proposed
component of Job Embeddedness (Mitchell et al 2001) based on the relationship between employees
and the beneficiaries of their work - can mitigate the impact of an employee’s adverse experiences on
their turnover intention.
This paper and presentation will extend knowledge of the properties of client embeddedness
into two ways. First, this paper and presentation will examine whether client embeddedness
contributes to an employee’s experience of their work as measured by satisfaction, affective
commitment and employee engagement. Second, this paper and presentation examines whether the
strength of the client embeddedness-employee outcome relationship is affected by adverse
employment experiences such as psychological contract breach.
Specifically, this paper will test the following hypotheses:
H1: Client embeddedness positively improves as employee experience of work (such as job
satisfaction, affective commitment and employee engagement)
H2: The impact of client embeddedness on employee outcomes is moderated by psychological
contract breach, such that employees experiencing higher levels of psychological contract breach
report poorer employee experiences.
Method
Data were obtained from personal care, allied health professionals, hospitality and administrative
employees of a large multi-site aged care organisation. Two waves of data were collected eight
months apart, giving a two-wave sample of 121. Established scales for the various measures were
used. Data were analysed using OLS regression.
Results and key findings
Table 1 reports on the standard descriptive statistics.
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Insert Table 1 here
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Hypothesis 1 was tested by regressing the various dependent variables at Time 2 on client
embeddedness in Time 1. Table 2 reports on these regressions. Client embeddedness predicted job
satisfaction, affective commitment and employee engagement, and explained between 6 and 15% of
variance. Hypothesis 1 is supported.
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Insert Table 2 here
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Hypothesis 2 was tested using moderated regression. The three outcome measures at Time 2
were regressed on client embeddedness measured at Time 1, with psychological contract breach at
Time 1 as the moderator. These regressions are reported in Table 2. As can be seen, psychological
contract breach moderates the negative effect of client for only one employee outcome - job
satisfaction. Figure 1 depicts this interaction. The role of client embeddedness was unexpected.
Hypothesis 2 was partially supported – satisfaction is lower during times of breach. Satisfaction is
unrelated to client embeddedness during high psychological contract breach (b = 0.11, t(118) = 1.24,
p > .05). Satisfaction is positively related to client embeddedness during low psychological contract
breach (b = 0.28, t(118) = 2.55, p < .05). Client embeddedness only buffers the breach during low
levels of breach.
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Insert Figure 1 here
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Research implications/ limitations
This paper finds that client embeddedness is positively associated with satisfaction, affective
commitment and employee engagement, and directly contributes to an employee’s positive experience
of employment. However, during times of high psychological contract breach, client embeddedness
has no impact on employee satisfaction. Client embeddedness appears to have most effect as a buffer
during low levels of breach. This is counter-intuitive. The presentation and subsequent paper will
present some explanations for this finding.
These findings increase our understanding of the determinants of employee employment
experience (Zhang, Fried, & Griffeth 2012), and the properties of client embeddedness (Treuren and
Frankish 2014). However, these findings are necessarily tentative due to small sample size, use of a
single organisation, two wave rather than longitudinal data, and the exclusive use of self-report
perceptual data.
Practical and social implications
These findings point to additional ways of increasing employee intrinsic motivation, leading to
increased client satisfaction as well as employee quality of work life through recruitment and
development practices aimed at the responsible cultivation of employee-client relationships. These
findings are especially salient in industries such as aged care and disabilities services that are moving
towards consumer-directed care (for example, MyAgedCare 2015), that experience difficulties in
recruitment and retention (ACSA 2015).
ACSA (Aged & Community Services Australia) (2015). The aged care workforce in Australia,
Retrieved June 20, 2015, from http://www.agedcare.org.au/news/copy_of_2014-news/acsaposition-paper-the-aged-care-workforce-in-australia
Mitchell, TR., Holtom, B., Lee, TW., Sablynski, C., & Erez, M. (2001). Why people stay: Using job
embeddedness to predict voluntary turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 44(6), 11021121.
MyAgedCare. (2015, May 2015). Home care packages Retrieved June 20, 2015, from
http://www.myagedcare.gov.au/aged-care-services/home-care-packages
Jiang, K., Dong, L., McKay, PF., Lee, TW., & Mitchell, TR. (2012). When and how is job
embeddedness predictive of turnover? A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 97(5), 1077-1096.
Treuren, GJM., & Frankish, E. (2014). Pay dissatisfaction and intention to leave: The moderating role
of personal care worker client embeddedness. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 25(1),
5-21.
Zhang, M., Fried, DD., & Griffeth, RW. (2012). A review of job embeddedness: Conceptual,
measurement issues, and directions for future research. Human Resource Management
Review, 22(3), 220-231.
TABLE 1
Descriptive statistics
Wave 1
1. Client embeddedness
2. Psychological contract breach
Wave 2
3. Job Satisfaction
4. Affective commitment
5. Employee engagement
M
SD
1
2
4.06
2.87
0.55
0.78
(.84)
.16
(.89)
4.13
3.51
3.81
0.62
0.73
0.59
.24**
.34**
.38**
-.53**
-.49**
-.42**
3
4
5
(.84)
.70**
.73**
(.83)
.76**
(.87)
Notes: *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001; Cronbach alpha score is reported on the diagonal; All items are
measured on a five point scale (1– lowest, 5 – highest)
TABLE 2
Regression results
Job satisfaction
H1
0.24**
CE
PCB
CE x PCB
H2
0.17*
-0.48***
-0.17*
Affective commitment
Employee engagement
H1
0.34***
H1
0.38***
H2
.27***
.43***
-.06
H2
0.33***
-0.36***
-0.03
R2
.06
.34
.12
.31
.15
.28
F
7.05**
19.45**
15.45***
17.45***
20.59***
15.16***
Notes: Table reports standardised co-efficients; *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001; CE – Client embeddedness;
PCB – Psychological contract breach
FIGURE 1
Psychological contract breach as a moderator of the relationship
between client embeddedness and satisfaction
5
4.5
Satisfaction
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
Low PCB
High PCB
1.5
1
Low CE
High CE