Abstract

Theory development

Method

Measures

Confounders

Analyses

Results

Discussion

Limitations

Practical implications

Acknowledgement

References

Abstract

     We examine the relationship between job insecurity (JI) and performance (i.e., adaptivity, proactivity, task performance) from a multilevel perspective. We suggest that different behavioural responses will be triggered depending on whether the JI refers to an employee’s relative JI within a team or a team’s collective JI. An individual employee’s relative JI within a team may evoke a withdrawal reaction (i.e., diminished performance) because the individual experiences the insecurity as a personal issue (one which does not affect the rest of the team as much; i.e., a “person-at-risk” situation). However, when JI is experienced as a collective phenomenon (one that affects the entire team as a whole because of the shared context, i.e., a “job-at-risk” situation), employees may demonstrate higher performance as they are driven by job preservation motives. We incorporated both individual employee and supervisor ratings as they have complementary value in evaluating performance. Data was obtained from 53 teams, including 403 employees and 53 supervisors. Team’s collective JI was associated with higher supervisor-rated performance at the team-level, both in terms of adaptivity and proactivity but not in terms of task performance. The employee’s relative JI within a team was associated with reduced self-rated performance in terms of both adaptivity and task performance.

Theory development
JI as an individual phenomenon and its relationship with performance
Perceptions of fair exchange in the relationship between employee and employer are, according to SET (Blau, 1964), critical to employee job attitudes and behaviours. Positive, beneficial actions directed at employees by the organization can lead to employees feeling socially indebted to their employer (Blau, 1964), and an attempt to reciprocate by engaging in positive behaviours at work. Perceived negative contributions from the organization, on the other hand, can result in poor performance as employees attempt to restore the disrupted balance in their exchange with the employer. Applied to JI, concerns about losing one’s job can erode positive work behaviours, because they breach the individual’s expectations of long-lasting employment (De Cuyper & De Witte, 2006). An employee’s assumption that the organization will demonstrate its commitment by ensuring the stability of his or her job is not uncommon, especially among those employed on a permanent basis (De Cuyper & De Witte, 2006). If workers perceive their organization as incapable or unwilling to secure their employment over a longer period of time, this is likely to result in an adjustment of their work behaviours as a means of restoring the equilibrium in the volatile exchange relationship with their employer (Reisel et al., 2010). In addition, from a stress and strain point of view, an employee is likely to reduce his or her work effort (a sign of withdrawal) in response to feeling unable to cope with the situation (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and the energy- and resource-depleting effects of prolonged exposure to the uncertainty (Stynen et al., 2015). Despite the lack of consensus, the vast majority of the studies on individual-level JI and employee performance point towards a negative relationship between the two (Sverke et al., 2019), in line with the assumptions formulated by stress theories and SET.

Results
Descriptive results

     Means, standard deviations and correlations are depicted in Table 1. JI was negatively associated with self-rated task performance (r = −.۲۴, p < .01), and self-rated adaptivity (r = −.۱۷, p < .01). The correlation between JI and self-rated proactivity was not significant. JI was negatively associated with supervisor-rated task performance (r = −.۱۱, p < .05) but unrelated to supervisor-rated adaptivity and proactivity