Chapter 5: Factors Influencing Employee Claiming Behavior in Relation to the Termination of Employment: Evidence From Europe

This chapter investigates actual employee claiming behavior in relation to the termination of employment amongst an Irish sample of 199 terminated employees. The research proposes a conceptual model of employee claiming behavior incorporating formal and informal bases of procedural justice, the quality of decision making, quality of treatment. The proposed model is operationalized through the use of number of different theoretical perspectives including organizational justice, social information processing, referent cognitions and sociolegal theories. In all seven independent variables are found to be significant predictors of claiming behavior, successfully accounting for over 70% of explained variance in how an individual arrives at the decision to initiate a claim against their former employer.

The findings represent a significant advancement in terms of our understanding of the nature of claiming behavior and the factors which influence it while raising some interesting potential differences in employee perceptions of claiming from a European and U.S. perspective. The practical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.