Abstract

Over the past decade, job insecurity referring to the employees’ perceived threat to the continuity and stability of employment as it is currently experienced has become a hot topic. A general assumption, supported by the findings, is that job insecurity causes far-reaching negative consequences for the employee health and well-being, attitudes toward organization and the job, and behaviors at work. However, the focus on behavioral outcomes, especially on employee performance at work, is still scant. Moreover, the literature remains fragmented concerning the impact of job insecurity on employee trust in the organization and how the trust influences employee subjective well-being (SWB), which in turn affects employee performance. Consequently, the link between job insecurity and SWB needs more investigation. Trying to narrow the gap, the paper aims at revealing the linkage between job insecurity, trust in the organization, SWB, and task performance. Quantitative data were collected in Lithuania. As predicted, the results revealed that job insecurity had a negative impact on trust in the organization and employee SWB. In case of linkage between job insecurity and task performance, the hypothesis was rejected. In general, these findings affirmed that job insecurity was a hindrance stressor, which needed to be considered when managing human resources in the current volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity context.

Highlights

  • For a couple of centuries, work has become a subject of transformations (Sverke and Hellgren, 2002), especially recently referring to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), context (Baran and Woznyj, 2020)

  • While exploring the virtuous cycle between trust in the organization, subjective well-being (SWB), and task performance, the findings demonstrated that trust in the organization increased SWB, whereas SWB increased task performance

  • The aim of the paper was to explore the linkage between job insecurity, trust in the organization, SWB, and task performance in the VUCA context while addressing the virtuous cycle

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Summary

Introduction

For a couple of centuries, work has become a subject of transformations (Sverke and Hellgren, 2002), especially recently referring to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), context (Baran and Woznyj, 2020). Rapid technological advancement coupled with the general ambition within organizations to save costs and increase effectiveness (Flecker et al, 2017; Lee. Job Insecurity in the VUCA Context et al, 2018; Sverke et al, 2019) causes employees’ feelings of insecurity about the nature and future existence of their job (Sverke and Hellgren, 2002). Assuming the existence and the relevance of the two types of job insecurity, quantitative job insecurity still receives considerable attention compared to qualitative (Vander Elst et al, 2014b). Trying to narrow the gap and treating job insecurity as a complex phenomenon, the current paper treats job insecurity as a second-order construct, which consist of both types of insecurity

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