Changing experiences of work dirtiness, occupational disidentification, and employee withdrawal.

Research and theory concerning “dirty work” has largely focused on how employees cope with stable features of their jobs. From a study of employees’ experiences across 6 weekly repeated measurements, we found that within-person increases in experienced dirtiness were positively related to their withdrawal behaviors and job change propensity indirectly through occupational disidentification. Assessed at the between-subjects level, team-oriented leadership moderated the indirect within-person effects of work dirtiness experiences on these outcomes. The relationships between elevations in experienced work dirtiness and occupational disidentification were more strongly positive at lower levels of team-oriented leadership. Analyses also showed that individuals’ perceptions of occupational stigma independently moderated the within-person relationship between experienced dirtiness and occupational disidentification. We discuss theoretical implications for the literature on dirty work and practical implications for mitigating the adverse outcomes associated with experienced work dirtiness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)