JOB EMBEDDEDNESS. I am not making words up.

While I am waiting for my book to arrive, I decided to write a little post sharing some insights after talking to one of my friends. I asked her a few work related questions: her motivations, dream job definition and etc. What I heard was some precisely sharp and thought provoking answers that inspired me to google-scholar some papers...

So I began with questioning her motivations at work. Shelly confirmed that salary and work experience per se are on top of the list for her. Later on, when wondering about the reasons why people sleepwalk through their careers, she contemplated that being disconnected to the group one works with and the organisation itself should be the number one. Her idea of why people do not change anything about it was lack of self-confidence.

Once she mentioned the latter, I immediately realized that I can illustrate this well. I do not feel confident enough (yet) to even apply for my dream job. I am constantly on the process to improve myself - to reach the bar I raised for myself. I only hope that it is an ending process. Obviously I am going to advance and challenge myself all the time, I just want to learn to be fully happy about myself at any stage of this development. Uhh, enough of this deep digging mind flow! Now back to business:

Since I had some other ideas why people would stay at the jobs that they are not happy with (feeling obligated to the company; being attached; being comfortable with the environement; not fancying a hassle of looking for a new job and many many more), I decided to look for some scholarly explanations. Traditional theories state that attachment to colleagues and the workplace is the key to explain the issue. However, there is a parallel explanation called job embededness (introduced by Mitchell et al. (2001)).

Monika getting confused

Job embeddedness is a totallity of influences keeping an employee at work. The term can be explained by connecting two existing ideas:
The embedded figures test:

Embedded figures are immersed in their background. They are attached to it and are hard to separate. They become part of the surroundings.

pg.7; here

Kurt Lewin's field theory:

[the] theory asserts that people have a perceptual life space in which the aspects of their lives are represented and connected. These connections can be few or many, as well as close or distant. 

  

pg. 7; here

There are many ways to be embedded and the strength of each influence can be different. By the way, the influences don't necessarily correlate to each other.  
The crucial aspects of job embeddedness are:
1. Links: the magnitute to which employees are linked to colleagues and activities; 
2. Fit: the range to which the job fits into the holistic life of the person;
3. Sacrifice: the comfort of breaking the links - what can be given up if leaving the job. 

The authors describe each of the influences meticulously and clearly. I will try to pass it to you a bit more concisely as these aspects are essential in explaining why we stay at work or quit it. 

Links

These are all formal and informal relationships between the employee, colleagues, community and the company. In other words, links are social, psychological, and financial strings attaching the person to his or her work. For example, my close friendship with my manager, my dependence on the salary and another hundred of other links.

The magnitute to which the person is attached to the company depends on the number of those links. Importantly, the direction of the relationship is positive meaning that the more links there are, the stronger the relationship is. As I said, there is about a hundred strong links for me, therefore I am strongly bound to the company. Significantly, the importance of these links is personal so it differs. One link can be perceived as crucial for me whereas the same link can have a minor impact for another person. Not every employee has such a bond with the manager nor everyone is as dependent on salary as much/little as I am.

Fit

Fit illustrates how well does an organisation fit within the employee's environment. Both the company and the current job must match such vital aspects of the employee's life as beliefs, goals and dreams for the future. Just like before, the relationship between fit and the likelihood to feel tied to the organisation is positive: the better fitting in the person feels, the higher the likelihood is.
Obviously, an organisation doesn't exist on its own - each is placed in a community and has an environment. These might differ from the organisation completely or might create a holistic unit. For instance, I love my workplace and all aspects about it, but I hate my commute to work, the city I live in. I guess, at this point other factors (links and sacrifice) and the strength of the fit at the actual work determine if I want to stay at work or I prefer quitting.

Sacrifice

It measures both psychological and materialistic cost of leaving the job. For example, if I quite my supervisor's position, I lose the beautiful relationships I've formed, the salary, staff events etc. When the amount of these costs increases, it gets harder to quit a job.
Some obvious sacrifices are salaries and other financial benefits, however, there are some inner potential factors that are strikingly essential. Some of them would be job stability and growth. Like Steffi mentioned before, challenging herself (self-growth) is crucial for her. Shelly was on the same front with her. I bet there are quite a few more people who believe the same way. Therefore, it would be one of the things hard to sacrifice or important to seek for. 

Reading the paper made me filter the information through my own prism. I must say everything makes sense to me and I can confirm that at this current point in life, I have quite a few links at work, even though the job does not fit into my dreams and lifestyle too well, and there are not too many things I would feel bad about sacrificing...
As I mentioned above, the only reason I'm still at work is that I feel too oblicated to stay at the job and do not feel confident enough to apply to my dream job.
I surely will explore these issues in the upcoming post!

P.S. I would love to point out that the paper is really interesting and easy to read. Also, the authors give a vast list of studies supporting each statement. It is really worth peeking at them if you fancy to know a bit more about the topic.
P.S. 2. yes, I actually created some words. Forgive me, but language is alive!