Social explanations for job insecurity: Group influences on causal attributions

Abstract

Job insecurity—a concern about the future existence of the job—is one of those unexpected events which lead to a search for causal explanations. This paper pays attention to the social nature of these attributions. The social character of the causal attribution process investigated here appears from the kind of attributions that employees make and the degree in which causal attributions are influenced by social ideas shared by colleagues and other groups. We research these social explanations for job insecurity on the basis of the results of a survey of job insecurity and causal attributions among 311 employees in the Netherlands.