Organizational tenure and mastery-avoidance goals: the moderating role of psychological empowerment

Mastery-avoidance (MAv) goals are recognized to be detrimental as they arouse counterproductive work-related behaviors. In the current literature, MAv goals are assumed to be more predominant among newcomers and longer-tenured employees. The alleged relationship provides important implications but yet has received scant empirical attention. In response, this study examines the proposed U-shaped curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and MAv goal orientation. In addition, the potential moderating role of psychological empowerment on this curvilinear relationship is investigated. Based on data from 655 certified accountants, the results support the existence of the hypothesized curvilinear relationship. Also, it revealed that for employees who experience higher levels of psychological empowerment, the U-shaped relationship between organizational tenure and MAv goal orientation becomes flattened. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Job security as a threatened resource: reactions to job insecurity in culturally distinct regions

As downsizing and restructuring have become global phenomena, the impact of job insecurity on employee attitudes has received significant attention. However, research examining the role of cultural dimensions has been largely unexplored. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we investigated whether the relationships between both quantitative job insecurity (i.e. the perceived threat of job loss) and qualitative job insecurity (i.e. the perceived threat of losing valued job features) and employee attitudes (job satisfaction and turnover intention) differ in culturally distinct regions. This was examined using representative employee samples from two regions of Switzerland which differ in societal practices uncertainty avoidance and performance orientation: the German-speaking (n = 966) and the French-speaking (n = 307) regions. Our research indicates that whereas the relationship between quantitative job insecurity and turnover intention is stronger in the French-speaking region where there is higher societal practice uncertainty avoidance, the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and job satisfaction is stronger in the German-speaking region where there is higher societal practice performance orientation.     

Effects of workplace bullying on work engagement and health: the mediating role of job insecurity

This study examined the effects of exposure to workplace bullying on work engagement and health problems. It is one of the few studies to treat job insecurity as an explanatory factor of the bullying–outcome relationship. Specifically, we perceive that job insecurity unfolds through an interpersonal process in which negative experiences, such as bullying, make employees feel less valuable in their workplace. By analyzing the data from employees in Korea using the latent factor approach, the tested mediation model explained that exposure to workplace bullying decreased the work engagement of employees and increased their health problems because of their high level of perceived job insecurity. The relationship between bullying and engagement would not be established without the job insecurity variable, thereby suggesting its indirect effect. Given the partial mediating effect of health problems, job insecurity is identified as an additional underlying mechanism that explains why bullying increases health problems. This finding does not contradict the widespread arguments on the health-impairing effect of workplace bullying. This study contributes to the literature and business practices by identifying an important underlying mechanism that helps us understand the association between exposure to workplace bullying and key work outcomes.     

A weekly diary study on the buffering role of social support in the relationship between job insecurity and employee performance

In this article, the authors used a within‐person design to examine the relationship between job insecurity and employee in‐role and extra‐role performance, and the buffering role of time‐varying work‐based support (i.e., supervisor and colleague support) in this relationship. Weekly diary data gathered over the course of three weeks from 56 employees confronted with organizational restructuring and analyzed with a hierarchical linear modeling approach showed that weekly fluctuations in job insecurity negatively predicted week‐level in‐role performance. As predicted, supervisor support moderated the intra‐individual relationship between job insecurity and in‐role performance, so that employees' in‐role performance suffered less from feeling job insecurity during weeks in which they received more support from their supervisor. No relationship between job insecurity and extra‐role performance was observed. This within‐person study contributes to research on job insecurity that has primarily focused on inter‐individual differences in job insecurity and their associations with job performance. Theoretical and practical implications for human resource management are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cognitive job crafting: A possible response to increasing job insecurity and declining professional prestige

Recent research has shown that job crafting, which describes individuals' attempts to craft a job to make it correspond more to personal inclinations, skills, and abilities, can generate significant work and nonwork benefits for individuals. Using the theoretical lens of activation theory, we examined whether professionals are prompted to cognitively craft their jobs in response to the increasing perception of precarisation of their profession, measured in terms of job insecurity and perceived external prestige. We adopted a mixed methods approach among professional accountants operating in Southern Italy and the results indicated the presence of two curvilinear relationships. More specifically, we found that accountants were more likely to engage in cognitive crafting when experiencing moderate levels of job insecurity (rather than high or low) and in the presence of both low and high levels of perceived external prestige (rather than a moderate level). Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Contingent workers' impact on standard employee withdrawal behaviors: Does what you use them for matter?

Previous research has suggested that workforce mixing—simultaneously using contingent workers and standard employees—can negatively affect standard employee attitudes and behaviors. In this study, we consider the impact of two reasons employers choose to use contingent workers (to enhance standard employee employment stability and to reduce labor costs) on standard employee withdrawal behaviors (absenteeism and turnover). We posit that when the aim of using contingent labor is to enhance standard employee employment stability (employment stability contingent labor strategy or ESCLS), the effects on standard employee withdrawal behaviors will differ from when the aim is to reduce labor costs (labor cost contingent labor strategy, or LCCLS). Using a sample of 90 firms that employ a mixed workforce, we examine the influence of ESCLS, LCCLS, and high investment HR systems (HIHRS) on standard employee withdrawal behaviors at the firm level. In addition to supporting the hypothesized direct (positive) effect of LCCLS on standard employee withdrawal behaviors, this study's results support the hypothesized moderating effects of HIHRS on the negative relationship between ESCLS and standard employee withdrawal behaviors and the positive relationship between LCCLS and standard employee withdrawal behaviors. Implications for research and practice and suggestions for further research are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

When workplace ostracism leads to burnout: the roles of job self-determination and future time orientation

Abstract

Given that ostracism is a common occurrence in the workplace, scholars and practitioners alike have identified its range of negative effects. This study aims to examine the association between workplace ostracism and burnout level as well as the moderating effects of job self-determination and employees’ future time orientation, using a survey questionnaire. This was completed by a total of 248 employees from a hotel group. We hypothesized that: (a) workplace ostracism was positively associated with burnout; (b) this positive relationship was contingent upon job self-determination such that the relationship was weaker for higher, rather than lower, job self-determination; and (c) the positive relationship was also contingent upon employees’ future time orientation such that the relationship was weaker for employees who have higher, rather than lower future time orientation. Results confirm all three hypotheses.     

Residential mobility and job changes under uncertainty

This paper empirically investigates households' residential mobility and job change decisions under uncertainty. We allow households' degree of risk aversion to be a confounding factor in the joint decision of residential mobility and job changes. Using panel data to estimate a random effects multinomial probit model of households' joint decision of residential and job mobility, our empirical results show that risk aversion discourages a household from making any changes. Moreover, when compared to single changes in either job or residential locations, risk aversion is more discouraging for joint changes to more central residential locations and less discouraging for joint changes to more distant residential locations. These effects are statistically significant, albeit small in magnitude. Our empirical results demonstrate the uncertainty does play a role in households' job and residential mobility decisions.     

Influence of Leadership on Job Satisfaction: The Moderating Effects of Follower Individual‐Level Masculinity–Femininity Values

The current study examined whether employee individual‐level masculinity–femininity values moderate the relationship between leadership styles (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) and employee job satisfaction. Overall, the research provided support for the impact of individual‐level masculinity–femininity on follower reactions to various leadership behaviors. The findings indicated that followers who scored high on feminine orientation perceived a weaker relationship between all leadership behaviors and job satisfaction. Followers with more masculine values associated more perceptions of job satisfaction with human resource, political, and symbolic leadership and viewed leaders' structural behaviors as less important for satisfaction at work.     

Employee overqualification and manager job insecurity: Implications for employee career outcomes

In this study, we propose that manager job insecurity will moderate the nature of the relationship between perceived overqualification and employee career-related outcomes (career satisfaction, promotability ratings, and voluntary turnover). We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 124 employees and 54 managers working in a large holding company in Ankara, Turkey, collected across five time periods. The results suggested that average perceived overqualification was more strongly, and negatively, related to career satisfaction of employees when managers reported higher job insecurity. Furthermore, employee perceived overqualification was positively related to voluntary turnover when manager job insecurity was high. No direct or moderated effects were found for promotability ratings. Implications for overqualification and job insecurity literatures were discussed.     

Job Insecurity and the Difficulty of Regaining Employment: An Empirical Study of Unemployment Expectations

It is widely assumed that British workers have become more insecure over he last decade. This paper sets out to establish whether the popular assumption is correct. We examine changes in measures of workers' insecurity using direct measures of their unemployment expectations, using data colleted by the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) in 1986 and by the Skills Survey (SS) in 1997. The paper also investigates how closely subjective measures of insecurity are related to objective measures commonly used as proxies, and analyses how these expectations are determined. It finds that: i. In aggregate job insecurity, measured as the expected risk of job loss, has changed little, while the expected difficulty of regaining employment has fallen over the last decade. ii. Job insecurity has increased among non-manual workers, while it has fallen among non-manual workers, who were traditionally less secure in the first place. iii. Unemployment in the external labour market has a large impact onindividuals' expectations of unemployment and on their expectations of re-employment. vi. There is a strong positive association between a job being temporary and insecurity. It is valid, therefore, to see a possible problem of rising subjective insecurity if there is a rising proportion of temporary workers in the labour force. v. Job tenure and job insecurity follow a U-shaped relationship. vi. The fall in unemployment from 1986 to 1997 would have been predicted to induce a substantial fall in job insecurity, that this fall did not materialise suggests that there has been an upward shift in job nsecurity.     

Emotional intelligence,job insecurity,and psychological strain among real estate agents: a test of mediation and moderation models

We develop two models of the relationships between emotional intelligence (EI), job insecurity, and psychological strain. The moderation model suggests that EI reduces psychological strain by helping individuals cope with job insecurity when it arises. The mediation model suggests that EI reduces psychological strain by enabling individuals to conserve resources, thereby reducing their experience of job insecurity. Our results, based on a sample of 232 real estate agents, show that job insecurity mediates the relationship between EI and psychological strain. Contrary to what the moderation model suggested, the positive relationship between job insecurity and psychological strain was found to be stronger when EI was higher. Overall, the results provide more nuanced insights into the role of EI in psychological strain.     

Job autonomy, trust in leadership, and continuous improvement: An empirical study in health care

This research examines the influence of autonomy in day-to-day work on commitment of frontline employees to continuous improvement. Our hypothesized model links the job characteristics theory of work design that associates job autonomy with responsibility for outcomes, and the total quality management perspective that advocates empowering employees in order to generate commitment to continuous improvement. Further, as leadership is known to have a role in shaping job behaviors, and is considered important for the success of total quality management, the influence of trust in leadership on the relationship between job autonomy and commitment to continuous improvement is also examined. We test our hypotheses on data collected from individual employees working for an outpatient health care organization that is applying lean principles for managing and improving work processes. Based on our results, we present implications for organizations implementing continuous improvement initiatives such as lean, particularly in service environments such as health care.     

Individual risk attitudes and the composition of financial portfolios: Evidence from German household portfolios

This paper explores the relationship between the self-declared risk aversion of private investors and their propensity to hold incomplete portfolios of financial assets. The analysis is based on household survey data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) that provides a reliable measure of individual attitudes toward financial risk. Our findings suggest that more risk averse households tend to hold incomplete portfolios consisting mainly of a few risk-free assets. We also find that the propensity to acquire additional assets is highly dependent on whether liquidity and safety needs are met.     

Self-employment and risk aversion—evidence from psychological test data

This paper investigates the effect of risk aversion on an individual's probability of being self-employed by using psychometric data from a large, population-based cohort of Finns born in 1966. We found that our measure of risk aversion, a facet of a basic temperament dimension, harm avoidance, has a significant negative effect on self-employment status. Since this measure is directly derived from a highly valid biosocial theory of normal personality variation (Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 44 (1987) 573) whose scalable dimensions manifest well before adulthood and remain stabile over lifetime, we argue that risk aversion is a psychological factor causative of the choice to become self-employed. ©2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.     

Role overload,knowledge acquisition and job satisfaction: An ambidexterity perspective on boundary-spanning activities of IT employees

Abstract

Building upon the ambidexterity perspective, this study conceptualizes boundary-spanning activities as both transactional and learning to illuminate their different effects on IT employees’ job satisfaction. Specifically, we offer an overarching theoretical framework rooted in ambidexterity by connecting the role theory and knowledge acquisition perspective to reconcile the inconsistency of extant findings. Role overload has a mediating effect on the relationship between boundary-spanning activities (both transactional and learning) and job satisfaction, whereas knowledge acquisition mediates the relationship between learning boundary-spanning activities and job satisfaction. Furthermore, high achievement motivation and learning goal orientation moderate the positive effect of learning boundary-spanning activities on job satisfaction. The quantitative analysis of IT employees in Chinese state-owned enterprises largely supports our hypotheses. We conclude this paper by discussing theoretical and managerial implications for ambidexterity, boundary spanning, and job satisfaction.     

A path-analytic investigation of the determinants of career withdrawal intentions of engineers: some HRM issues arising in a professional labour market in Singapore

Data obtained from engineers (N = 230) in Singapore were used to test a model of career withdrawal intentions. The model hypothesized personal, organizational and environmental variables as exogenous variables that affect career satisfaction and job satisfaction. These affective states in turn affect career commitment which was posited directly to affect career withdrawal intentions. The findings suggest that the model is useful in explaining career withdrawal intentions as 50 per cent (R²) of the variance was explained. As hypothesized, career commitment revealed a significant negative path to career withdrawal intentions. Some of the exogenous variables, particularly organizational variables, showed direct significant paths to career withdrawal intentions, though work–family conflict, a personal variable, approached significance. A limitation of the study, direction for future studies and implications of the findings are discussed.     

Job insecurity and intent to leave the nursing profession in Europe

To determine the occupational factors affecting nurses' decision to leave their profession before reaching retirement age, a large epidemiological study (Nurses' early exit study – NEXT)1 1. EU-financed project QLK6-CT-2001-00475. was carried out in ten European countries. Altogether 32,037 registered nurses answered a questionnaire, covering, for example, questions on job insecurity and intention to leave nursing work. The data were analysed statistically using Chi² test and binary logistic regression models.

Concern about becoming unemployed and difficulties to find a new job if laid off was reported by 40% of the respondents. More than half of the respondents were worried about their qualitative job security (being transferred to another job or changes in work schedule), while less than 40% had concerns about becoming unable to work. Thoughts about leaving the profession were reported by 15% of the respondents.

The hypothesis, that nurses will show higher intention to leave if they experience high levels of job insecurity, was partly supported by the results of the study. The concern about the qualitative aspects of job security correlated positively with intent to leave nursing in almost all the participating countries; most strongly among the Finnish and Norwegian nurses. The relationship between the concern about employment security and intent to leave varied from country to country, probably due to differences in the labour market situation. The correlation was positive for the Dutch and British nurses while, for the Polish and German sample, nurses who reported worry about their employment security appeared to be less willing to leave the profession than those who were not too worried. The concern about being unable to work correlated positively with intent to leave in several countries, reflecting the demands of the profession.

The effects of job insecurity can be reduced if nurses feel that they are important to the health care institution they work for, and that the institution cares about them, and values their opinion.     

Workplace incivility and work engagement: The mediating role of job insecurity and the moderating role of self-perceived employability

Drawing upon the job demand–resource model and the theory of existence, relatedness, and growth needs, we established and checked a model that connects workplace incivility to employee work engagement (i.e., vigor, dedication, and absorption) through job insecurity. Furthermore, we propose and test self-perceived employability as the boundary condition of this connection. The conclusions of two substudies with time-delay design provided evidence to support theoretical models. Specifically, the conclusions of both studies show that workplace incivility has negative impacts on work engagement (i.e., vigor, dedication, and absorption) through job insecurity. The results of Study 2 show that self-perceived employability not only weakens the negative influences of job insecurity on work engagement (i.e., vigor, dedication, and absorption) but also moderates the mediating roles of job insecurity in the relationships between workplace incivility and work engagement (i.e., vigor, dedication, and absorption). The theoretical and practical implications and limitations are discussed based on the conclusions of the two substudies.     

Overestimating Oneself and Overlooking the Law: Psychological Supports for Employment at Will

This article studies the hypotheses that people tend to underrate other people's work motivation and skills relative to their own, and further tend to be unaware of the legal status of employment at will in contemporary U.S. law. The theoretical part of the article describes psychological bases for the hypothesized tendencies and explains how they can be expected to foster acquiescence to employment at will and high employment insecurity. The empirical portion of the article describes and discusses a survey of M.B.A. students that probed their knowledge of and attitudes toward U.S. employment law, along with their attitudes toward employment insecurity and work motivation. Consistent with the hypotheses, the study found widespread lack of knowledge about the legal status of employment at will, as well as a tendency toward overrating one's own work motivation relative to others and a tendency toward taking higher risks of termination when they were presented as controllable on an individual, though not a group, basis.