Multiple instruments have been developed and used to measure quantitative job insecurity (i.e., insecurity to lose the job as such), often without systematic evaluation of their psychometric ...characteristics across countries and language barriers. This may hamper consistent and reliable cross-study and cross-country comparisons. This study's aim was to introduce and validate the four-item Job Insecurity Scale (JIS) developed by De Witte across five European countries (i.e., Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK). Overall, the results demonstrated the construct validity (i.e., configural invariance and invariance of the measurement model parameters), the reliability (internal consistency of the items), and the criterion validity (with respect to affective organizational commitment, perceived general health, and self-reported performance) of the JIS. The different translations of the JIS can thus be considered as valid and reliable instruments to measure job insecurity and can be used to make meaningful comparisons across countries. Furthermore, the JIS translations may be utilized to assess how job insecurity is related to outcomes.
This study aimed to investigate the curvilinear relationship between extent of telecommuting and work-related well-being (ie, burnout, work engagement, and cognitive stress complaints), as well as to ...test whether job characteristics act as explanatory mechanisms underlying this relationship.
A sample of 878 employees from an international telecommunication company with a long history of telecommuting participated in a survey on psychosocial risk factors and well-being at work. Mediation path analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.
Social support from colleagues, participation in decision-making, task autonomy, and work-to-family conflict, but not extent of telecommuting, were directly related to work-related well-being. Extent of telecommuting was indirectly related to well-being via social support.
Employers should invest in creating good work environments in general, among both telecommuters and nontelecommuters.
Abstract Both work- and person-related factors may trigger workplace bullying. Work-related factors, such as role stressors, can create a stressful work environment leading to bullying. Additionally, ...person-related factors, such as emotion-focused coping, could make employees more vulnerable to bullying. In this study, we aimed to develop a comprehensive model integrating these factors. We systematically reviewed studies published between 1984 and 2014. First, we identified the most relevant work-related stressors (role conflict, workload, role ambiguity, job insecurity and cognitive demands) as predictors of being a target of workplace bullying. Second, problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies that may moderate the association between stressors and targets of bullying were identified. Third, coping resources that are associated with coping strategies were indicated. Results suggested a model in which reappraisal coping, confrontive coping, practical coping, direct coping, active coping, social support (problem-focused coping) and self-care (emotion-focused coping) decrease the association between work stressors and bullying (i.e. buffer-effect). Wishful thinking, emotional coping, avoidance, recreation, social support and suppression (emotion-focused coping) increase this association (i.e. boost-effect). Coping resources (locus of control, self-efficacy, optimism, co-workers support, supervisor support, task complexity, participation in decision-making, autonomy and continuance commitment) related positively to problem-focused coping strategies and negatively to emotion-focused coping strategies.
Job insecurity is a work stressor with many negative consequences for the individual as well as the organization. However, currently, little is known about why job insecurity is related to these ...outcomes. In the present study, actual turnover was investigated as a possible consequence of job insecurity. Additionally, rumination about a possible job loss (i.e., the act of intensified thinking about the future of the job) was investigated as an explanatory mechanism. Relationships were tested using longitudinal data from a sample of 699 Belgian employees. Results of structural equation modeling analyses show that job insecurity was related to turnover 1 year later. This relationship was mediated by rumination about job insecurity. Actual turnover was investigated over time as a potential consequence of job insecurity, compared to many studies that used turnover intention as a proxy to predict actual turnover. Moreover, a job insecurity-specific mechanism-namely, rumination about job insecurity-was studied, which increased our understanding of how job insecurity develops into its consequences.
The current study contributes to the literature on job insecurity by highlighting threat to the benefits of work as an explanation of the effect of job insecurity on health complaints. Building on ...the latent deprivation model, we predicted that threats to both manifest (i.e., financial income) and latent benefits of work (i.e., collective purpose, social contacts, status, time structure, activity) mediate the relationships from job insecurity to subsequent mental and physical health complaints. In addition, in line with the conservation of resources theory, we proposed that financial resources buffer the indirect effect of job insecurity on health complaints through threat to the manifest benefit. Hypotheses were tested using a multilevel design, in which 3 measurements (time lag of 6 months between subsequent measurements) were clustered within 1,994 employees (in Flanders, Belgium). This allowed for the investigation of within-person processes, while controlling for variance at the between-person level. The results demonstrate that job insecurity was related to subsequent threats to both manifest and latent benefits, and that these threats in turn were related to subsequent health complaints (with an exception for threat to the manifest benefit that did not predict mental health complaints). Three significant indirect effects were found: threat to the latent benefits mediated the relationships between job insecurity and both mental and physical health complaints, and threat to the manifest benefit mediated the relationship between job insecurity and physical health complaints. Unexpectedly, the latter indirect effect was exacerbated by financial resources.
This study aimed to investigate whether people scoring higher (compared to lower) on sensory-processing sensitivity respond differently to the work environment. Specifically, based on the literature ...on sensory-processing sensitivity and the Job Demands-Resources model, we predicted that the three components of sensory-processing sensitivity (i.e. ease of excitation, aesthetic sensitivity and low sensory threshold) amplify the relationship between job demands (i.e. workload and emotional demands) and emotional exhaustion as well as the relationship between job resources (i.e. task autonomy and social support) and helping behaviour. Survey data from 1019 Belgian employees were analysed using structural equation modelling analysis. The results showed that ease of excitation and low sensory threshold amplified the relationship between job demands and emotional exhaustion. Low sensory threshold also strengthened the job resources-helping behaviour relationship. This study offered first evidence on the greater susceptibility among highly sensitive persons to the work environment and demonstrated that the moderating role might differ for the three components of sensory-processing sensitivity. Additionally, it adds sensory-processing sensitivity to the Job Demands-Resources model and highlights the idea that personal factors may act both as a personal vulnerability factor and a personal resource, depending on the nature of the perceived work environment.
This study aims to explain the reciprocal relationship between job insecurity and employee well‐being (i.e., emotional exhaustion and vigour) by perceived control. Building on appraisal theory and ...conservation of resources theory, we suggest that perceived control mediates the cross‐lagged relationships from job insecurity to employee well‐being, and from employee well‐being to job insecurity. These hypotheses were tested using repeated‐measures data (two waves) from 536 Flemish employees from different organizations and sectors. First, cross‐lagged structural equation modelling analyses showed an effect from job insecurity to perceived control, and from perceived control to emotional exhaustion, so that perceived control (partially) mediated the positive cross‐lagged relationship from job insecurity to emotional exhaustion. Second, we established a cross‐lagged effect from emotional exhaustion to perceived control, although not from perceived control to job insecurity. Third, no cross‐lagged paths were found between perceived control and vigour. This study contributes to both appraisal theory and conservation of resources theory by investigating reciprocal relationships that fit the transactional conceptualization of stress within both frameworks. Furthermore, the results of this study highlight perceived control as the process through which the stressor job insecurity impacts on employee well‐being.
Practitioner points
The current study suggests a possible theoretical explanation of the negative consequences of job insecurity for employee well‐being: Perceived control accounted for the effect of job insecurity on emotional exhaustion.
Job insecurity enhances emotional exhaustion by decreasing employees' feelings of control. Therefore, interventions providing employees with a sense of control, such as communication programmes and measures that promote participative decision‐making, may provide a deterrent to this effect.
The current study additionally adds to our knowledge of the impact of employee well‐being on evaluations of the work situation: Emotional exhaustion was found to be related to reduced perceived control over the work situation.
Practitioners may want to invest in measures that stimulate employee well‐being, for example job design. This may increase employees' perceptions of control, which then makes them less vulnerable to stressors. Additionally, by fostering both employee well‐being and perceived control, practitioners may forestall a loss cycle between poor well‐being and lack of control.
BACKGROUND:Human errors occur everywhere, including in health care. Not only the patient, but also the involved health professional is affected (ie, the “second victim”).
OBJECTIVES:To investigate ...the prevalence of health care professionals being personally involved in a patient safety incident (PSI), as well as the relationship of involvement and degree of harm with problematic medication use, excessive alcohol consumption, risk of burnout, work-home interference (WHI), and turnover intentions.
RESEARCH DESIGN:Multilevel path analyses were conducted to analyze cross-sectional survey data from 37 Belgian hospitals.
SUBJECTS:A total of 5788 nurses (79.4%) and physicians (20.6%) in 26 acute and 11 psychiatric hospitals were included.
MEASURES:“Involvement in a patient safety incident during the prior 6 months,” “degree of harm,” and 5 outcomes were measured using self-report scales.
RESULTS:Nine percent of the total sample had been involved in a PSI during the prior 6 months. Involvement in a PSI was related to a greater risk of burnout (β=0.40, OR=2.07), to problematic medication use (β=0.33, OR=1.84), to greater WHI (β=0.24), and to more turnover intentions (β=0.22). Harm to the patient was a predictor of problematic medication use (β=0.14, OR=1.56), risk of burnout (β=0.16, OR=1.62), and WHI (β=0.19).
CONCLUSIONS:Second victims experience significant negative outcomes in the aftermath of a PSI. An appropriate organizational response should be provided to mitigate the negative effects.
A better knowledge of the job aspects that may predict home health care nurses' burnout and work engagement is important in view of stress prevention and health promotion. The Job Demands–Resources ...model predicts that job demands and resources relate to burnout and work engagement but has not previously been tested in the specific context of home health care nursing.
The present study offers a comprehensive test of the Job-Demands Resources model in home health care nursing. We investigate the main and interaction effects of distinctive job demands (workload, emotional demands and aggression) and resources (autonomy, social support and learning opportunities) on burnout and work engagement.
Analyses were conducted using cross-sectional data from 675 Belgian home health care nurses, who participated in a voluntary and anonymous survey.
The results show that workload and emotional demands were positively associated with burnout, whereas aggression was unrelated to burnout. All job resources were associated with higher levels of work engagement and lower levels of burnout. In addition, social support buffered the positive relationship between workload and burnout.
Home health care organizations should invest in dealing with workload and emotional demands and stimulating the job resources under study to reduce the risk of burnout and increase their nurses' work engagement.
Purpose
This study aims to add to the understanding of the qualitative job insecurity, i.e., the insecurity about the continuity of valued job aspects in future. Specifically, we examine whether ...qualitative job insecurity is related to counterproductive work behavior, both directed to the organization (i.e., CWB-O) and other individuals at work (i.e., CWB-I), and whether frustration of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, belongingness and competence, as defined in self-determination theory, may account for these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypothesis were examined using structural equation modeling in heterogeneous sample of Romanian employees.
Findings
Results support the hypotheses showing that feeling insecure about one’s valued job aspects associates with high levels of need frustration and, therefore, also with both CWB-O and CWB-I. While each of the accounted for the associations of qualitative insecurity and CWB-O, only frustration of the need for autonomy explained its detrimental association with CWB-I.
Originality/value
This study is innovative, as it integrates and extends three different fields and has high practical relevance. We detail qualitative job insecurity, an increasing, but understudied job stressor. We extend research on the antecedents of counterproductive work behaviour by focussing on environmental factors. We develop need satisfaction, as integrative theoretical underlying mechanism.
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