Job Insecurity: A Comprehensive Integration of Research Findings

Abstract

Given the prevalence of job insecurity and the adverse consequences of job insecurity, this symposium seeks to deepen our understanding of the job insecurity process. Job insecurity can be defined as the perceived negative change to one's job (e.g., losing one's job or attractive job features) and emotional reactions to the perceived change to one's job (e.g., worry). Thus, job insecurity can be conceptualized as cognitive and affective job insecurity or job feature insecurity and job loss insecurity. The five empirical articles in this symposium, therefore, reflect these different conceptualizations of the job insecurity construct. Specifically, the first two articles focus on cognitive and affective job insecurity, while the last three articles focus on job loss job insecurity and/or job feature job insecurity. Moreover, deriving from diverse theoretical foundations, these five articles examine antecedents, outcomes, mediators, and moderators in the job insecurity process. Specifically, building on the emotional contagion literature, the first article explores antecedents (i.e., joy-absorbed, fear- absorbed) of cognitive and affective job insecurity. Drawing from cognitive appraisal theory, the second article examines the mediator (i.e., work rumination) and moderator (i.e., negative gossip) in the relation between cognitive job insecurity and affective job insecurity. Using job crafting as the theoretical foundation, the third article tests a moderated mediation model where I-deals mediate and grit moderates the relation between job loss insecurity and a host of outcomes. Based on conservation of resources theory, the fourth article examines the mediation role of work-family conflict and the moderation role of work centrality in the relation between job feature insecurity and subjective well-being. The last article, drawing on the literature on different foci of employee commitment and proactivity, builds a mediated moderation model to compare the differential effects of job loss insecurity and job feature insecurity.