  Ordered states in itinerant magnets may be related to magnetic moments
displaying some weak local moment characteristics, as in intermetallic
compounds hosting transition metal coordination complexes. In this paper, we
report on the Fe $K$-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) of the itinerant
magnets $R$Fe$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ ($R=$ Na, K, Ca, Sr, Ba), aiming at exploring the
electronic and structural properties of the octahedral building block formed by
Fe and the Sb ligands. We find evidence for strong hybridization between the Fe
$3d$ and Sb $5p$ states at the Fermi level, giving experimental support to
previous electronic structure calculations of the $R$Fe$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$
skutterudites. The electronic states derived from Fe 3$d$ Sb $5p$ mixing are
shown to be either more occupied and/or less localized in the cases of the
magnetically ordered systems, for which $R=$ Na or K, connecting the local Fe
electronic structure to the itinerant magnetic properties. Moreover, the
analysis of the extended region of the XAS spectra (EXAFS) suggests that bond
disorder may be a more relevant parameter to explain the suppression of the
ferromagnetic ordered state in CaFe$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ than the decrease of the
density of states.
