Abstract
Abstract. The Qualitative Job Insecurity Scale (QUAL-JIS) has been used in job insecurity (JI) research for the past 9 years, without formal validation. The goal of the current study was to test the scale’s psychometric properties. We checked the scale’s reliability, as well as its validity, investigating evidence based on the scale’s content, internal structure, and relations to other variables (convergent and discriminant, predictive and concurrent, as well as incremental predictive evidence). We additionally evaluated its cross-country and longitudinal invariance over three measurement times (6 months apart) in two countries (Romania and Belgium; NRO = 388, NBE = 1,992). We found evidence for the scale’s reliability and validity, QUAL-JIS showing partial scalar invariance across time and between the two countries. Interestingly, qualitative JI measured with QUAL-JIS explained additional variance in the employees’ need for recovery above and beyond another popular qualitative JI scale.
Highlights
Job insecurity (JI), a “sense of powerlessness to maintain desired continuity in a threatened job situation” (Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984, p. 438), is currently one of the most prevalent workplace stressors (Lee et al, 2018)
It becomes apparent that the QUAL-Job Insecurity Scale (JIS) scale differs from other qualitative JI instruments by the fact that it instructs the respondent to state how much they agree with four generic items, rather than listing specific job features
Throughout the article we argued for a need to have a short, reliable and valid instrument for the detection of qualitative JI, and we showed that QUAL-JIS is such a measure
Summary
Job insecurity (JI), a “sense of powerlessness to maintain desired continuity in a threatened job situation” (Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984, p. 438), is currently one of the most prevalent workplace stressors (Lee et al, 2018). It becomes apparent that the QUAL-JIS scale differs from other qualitative JI instruments by the fact that it instructs the respondent to state how much they agree with four generic items, rather than listing specific job features. Qualitative job insecurity measured with the QUAL-JIS scale predicts need for recovery over time. The QUAL-JIS scale explains additional variance for the need for recovery, compared to a qualitative JI scale measuring specific characteristics of work. We measured quantitative JI, in both samples, with the four-item Job Insecurity Scale (JIS) developed by De Witte (2000) and validated by Vander Elst et al. We used data from T1 in both samples, to perform a CFA of the measurement model, to verify invariance across the two countries, and to test for convergent (with quantitative JI) and discriminant (against dedication) evidence of the QUAL-JIS scale. The model goodness-of-fit was evaluated by using absolute fit indices (the chi-square statistic, the standardized root mean squared residual, and the root mean square error of approximation) and relative fit indices (the non-normed fit index and the comparative fit index)
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