Lyu, Y, Wu, C-H orcid.org/0000-0002-8011-6323, Kwan, HK et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Why and when job insecurity hinders employees’ taking charge behavior: The role of flexibility and work-based self-esteem. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 44 (3). 853 - 874. ISSN 0143-831X
Abstract
Job insecurity is negatively associated with employees’ extra-role behavior. Studies of this negative impact often use a social exchange or stress–strain perspective to explain how job insecurity impairs employees’ extra-role behavior. This study offers an alternative account. Based on a conservation of resources perspective, the authors propose that job insecurity denotes a threat of loss of resources, which will motivate individuals to focus on how to protect what they have and reduce further loss. Such conservation of resources will limit one’s flexibility, or the ability to consider alternatives and change a course of action in response to environmental changes, and thus undermine employees’ extra-role behavior for pursuing constructive changes at work (i.e., taking charge). The authors also propose that the impact of job insecurity on flexibility can be more detrimental to employees higher in work-based self-esteem (i.e., domain-specific self-esteem) due to the experience of self-concept dissonance. The results, obtained from 188 employees in 19 teams of a manufacturing company, supported the hypotheses, while mechanisms suggested by a social exchange perspective (i.e., felt obligation to organizations) and a stress–strain perspective (i.e., vigor) were taken into account. This investigation extends understanding of how and why job insecurity influences employees’ work behavior, as well as who is most vulnerable to job insecurity.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022, This is an author accepted version of an article published in Economic and Industrial Democracy: an international journal. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Conservation of resources theory; flexibility; job insecurity; proactivity; self-esteem |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Management Division (LUBS) (Leeds) > Management Division Organizational Behaviour (LUBS) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 01 Apr 2022 15:55 |
Last Modified: | 07 Nov 2024 15:11 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0143831X221100852 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:185309 |