Exploration of the effect of workers´ influence network on their absence behavior using agent-based modeling and simulation

Workers´ absence behavior is not only determined by individuals´ personal characteristics or situations, but also strongly affected by workgroup-level properties, such as social norms. This is because workers gather the how-to-behave information not only from formal rules, but also by interacting with their peers to obtain group and organizational approval. Despite the increasing attention being paid to the social control of workers´ absence behavior in organizations, to date relatively little work has been done studying the impact of workers´ influence networks, in which the social control takes place, on absence behavior. In this paper, we apply agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) to study the impact of workers´ influence networks on absence behavior. Our simulation results suggest that small social networks of workers could be more effective than big networks in reducing absenteeism when the social control is active.