Not all job demands are equal: differentiating job hindrances and job challenges in the Job Demands-Resources model

This study aimed to integrate the differentiation between two types of job demands, as made in previous studies, in the Job-Demands Resources (JD-R) model. Specifically, this study aimed to examine empirically whether the differentiation between job hindrances and job challenges, next to the category of job resources, accounts for the unexpected positive relationships between particular types of job demands (e.g., workload) and employees' work engagement. Results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the three categories of job characteristics in two samples (N1=261 and N2=441). Further, structural equation modelling confirmed the hypotheses that job hindrances associate positively with exhaustion (i.e., the main component of burnout) and negatively with vigour (i.e., the main component of work engagement). Job resources displayed the reversed pattern of relations. Job challenges were positively related to vigour. Rather unexpectedly, they were unrelated to exhaustion. Based on these findings, we discuss the importance of the differentiation between different types of job demands in the JD-R model for both theory and practice

The Role of Perceived Employability, Core Self- Evaluations, and Job Resources on Health and Turnover Intentions

According to Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study investigated the explanatory role of perceived employability, over and above core self-evaluations (CSE) and job resources, in relation to different aspects of health (physical and mental) and turnover intentions. Based on data obtained from a sample of 274 Romanian blue-collar employees (59.5% men), hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that perceived employability adds a significant variance compared to variance due to CSE and job resources with respect to aspects of health and turnover. The results highlight the role of perceived employability in health – on an individual level, and in decisions to leave the organization – on an organizational level. The findings are of value because they inform organizations how to design human resources strategies in order to retain a healthy workforce

How does job insecurity affect performance and political outcomes? Social identity plays a role

Can job insecurity, performance and political attitudes be connected? The presented study draws from social identity theory to propose that fearing to lose ones job can threaten a person’s identity as an employed person. This identity threat can then lead people to disengage at their work and also shift their political attitudes. A longitudinal survey study among n = 632 British workers was carried to test these assumptions. Results of time stable, cross-lagged structural equation modelling indicate that people who felt more job insecure, also reported less attachment to the general working population and more similarity to the unemployed population at a later time point. At work, this identity threat was related to less persistency. Outside work, it was related to less endorsement of values of group inequality and a shift in self-identified political standing, more to the politically left. The results illustrate that job insecurity is not only relevant for behavior at work and organizational outcomes, but that they can have wider, societally relevant consequences. By including social identity we offer a theoretically well-established explanatory mechanisms to account for this effect. This study broadens current literature in organizational behavior by connecting it to wider outcomes, outside the work context

Perceived job insecurity and self-rated health: Testing reciprocal relationships in a five-wave study

Rationale The present study aimed to investigate the pattern of cross-lagged relationships between job insecurity and self-rated health over a period of four years. While health complaints are usually seen as one of the detrimental outcomes of job insecurity, the question of the direction of the job insecurity-health relationship has not yet been fully resolved. Only a few longitudinal studies have explicitly aimed to test the possibility of reciprocal or reverse effects, and even fewer studies have used multi-wave designs to examine the pattern of these relationships. Objective The current study aims to address this gap by testing how cross-lagged relationships between job insecurity and self-rated health status unfold over time. Method The study was conducted on a sample of Swiss working population (N = 928), using the data from five consecutive measurement occasions, each separated by a one-year lag. Cross-lagged structural equation modelling was performed to examine the direction of the effects. Results The results revealed an interchangeable direction of the relationship between job insecurity and health over time. T1 job insecurity predicted lower ratings of health at T2, which then predicted job insecurity at T3, which, in turn, was related to lower health at T4. The only exception was observed in the last follow-up (i.e., T4 to T5), where no evidence of cross-lagged relationships between job insecurity and self-rated health was found. Conclusion These findings contribute to the literature suggesting that not only job insecurity may predict later health impairment, but that in some cases the reverse may be possible too. This is an important message that needs to be taken into account by researchers and policy makers. The observed lagged reciprocal effects between job insecurity and health seem to form a negative cycle over time, thereby implying a dual process in the development of workplace vulnerabilities

Understanding workaholics' motivations: a self-determination perspective

In order to explain the diverging well-being outcomes of workaholism, this study aimed to examine the motivational orientations that may fuel the two main components of workaholism (i.e. working excessively and working compulsively). Drawing on Self-Determination Theory, both autonomous and controlled motivation were suggested to drive excessive work, which therefore was expected to relate positively to both well-being (i.e. vigor) and ill-health (i.e. exhaustion). Compulsive work, in contrast, was hypothesized to originate exclusively out of controlled motivation and therefore to only associate positively with ill-being. Structural equation modeling in a heterogeneous sample of Belgian white-collar workers (N=370) confirmed that autonomous motivation associated positively with excessive work, which then related positively to vigor. Controlled motivation correlated positively with compulsive work, which therefore related positively with exhaustion. The hypothesized path from controlled motivation to exhaustion through excessive work was not corroborated. In general, the findings suggest that primarily compulsive work yields associations with ill-being, since it may stem from a qualitatively inferior type of motivation

Temporary employment and employability: training opportunities and efforts of temporary and permanent employees.

The rise of temporary employment contributes to the fact that people can no longer count on life time employment with one employer. The conclusion that life time employment within the same organisation is no longer a prerogative for all, inspires the search for new career concepts. 'Life time employability' is often put forward as an alternative to 'life time employment'. A successful career is, then, believed to be assured by having and obtaining the appropriate capacities for being continuously employable on the internal and external labour market during one's working life. At first sight, temporary employment relations and employability go hand in hand. For temporary employment is less dramatic when it is linked to a higher employability. The career opportunities of temporary workers are safeguarded by their employability. Opponents, however, add some critical observations to this statement and claim that contractual flexibility and employability enhancement are at odds. In this article, we deal with this question. If temporary employment and employability enhancing activities are at odds, temporary employees get less facilities to expand their employability. This can have important implications for the career opportunities of temps. We compare the employability enhancing activities of temporary and permanent employees. We study one central employability enhancing activity, namely training. Firstly, we have a look at the capacity and the willingness of temporary and permanent employees to participate in training in order to enhance their employability. Secondly, we also study the training opportunities that are offered by employers to temporary and permanent employees. The results indicate that, although temps do largely take responsibility for their own training, they get less opportunities to enhance their employability than permanent employeEmployment;

On the Reciprocal Relationship between Quantitative and Qualitative Job Insecurity and Outcomes. Testing a Cross-Lagged Longitudinal Mediation Model

Prior cross-sectional research indicates that the negative effects of quantitative job insecurity (i.e., threat to job loss) on employees’ wellbeing are fully mediated by qualitative job insecurity (i.e., threat to job characteristics). In the current longitudinal study, we replicated and further extended this view to include a direct effect of qualitative job insecurity on quantitative job insecurity. We explored these reciprocal relations in the context of their concurrent effects on work related outcomes by means of dual-mediation modelling. We identified a wide range of the outcomes, classified as: job strains (i.e., exhaustion, emotional and cognitive impairment), psychological coping reactions (i.e., job satisfaction, work engagement, turnover intention), and behavioral coping reactions (i.e., in-role and extra role performance, counterproductive behavior). We employed a threewave panel design and surveyed 2003 Flemish employees. The results showed that the dual-mediation model had the best fit to the data. However, whereas qualitative job insecurity predicted an increase in quantitative job insecurity and the outcome variables six months later, quantitative job insecurity did not affect qualitative job insecurity or the outcomes over time. The study demonstrates the importance of qualitative job insecurity not only as a severe work stressor but also as an antecedent of quantitative job insecurity. Herewith, we stress the need for further research on the causal relations between both dimensions of job insecurity

A Person-Centered Approach to Job Insecurity: Is There a Reciprocal Relationship between the Quantitative and Qualitative Dimensions of Job Insecurity?

Radical transformations in the current work model induce qualitative job insecurity (i.e., a threat to job characteristics) and strengthen quantitative job insecurity (i.e., a threat to job loss). Both dimensions are separate yet interdependent work stressors. Although organisational changes are often the core source for both types of job insecurity, it is predominantly a subjective experience— individual perception ultimately determines the risk and the consequences of these threats. So far, the between-person analysis suggests that the relationship between the two dimensions is in both directions. However, it is not clear whether these associations also reflect within-person processes. This study proposes and tests the reciprocal relationship between quantitative and qualitative job insecurity at the within-person level. We employed a multiple indicator random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) to test these associations within-person while controlling for between-person differences. We used three-wave longitudinal data (6 months’ time lag) collected from a Belgian working population (N = 3694). The results suggest a unidirectional relationship (from quantitative to qualitative job insecurity). Furthermore, the results reveal significant within-person carry-over effects of quantitative job insecurity but not for qualitative job insecurity. Overall, these results suggest that a change in the experience of threats to job loss (i.e., higher-than-usual quantitative job insecurity) not only anticipates higher-than-usual threats to job loss (autoregressive paths) but also higher-than-usual threats to job characteristics (i.e., qualitative job insecurity), six months later. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on how job insecurity dimensions influence each other. Given these results and the continuous changes to how we work, we call for further research to better understand the within-person processes of job insecurity development

On the Dynamics of the Psychosocial Work Environment and Employee Well-Being: A Latent Transition Approach

The current study investigates employee well-being in stable versus changing psychosocial working conditions, using the Job Demand-Control theoretical framework. It thereby addresses a gap in the literature dealing with how the dynamics of the work environment may affect different aspects of well-being, such as job satisfaction, work stress, mental health complaints, and overall quality of life. The study was carried out on a large heterogeneous sample of employees in Switzerland (N = 959) and was based on two measurement points. Latent profile and latent transition analyses were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed three commonly encountered and temporally quite stable patterns of job characteristics (i.e., latent profiles), defined by low, average, or high job control and average job demands. The average demand-low control combination was the most precarious, whereas a combination of average demands and high control was the most beneficial and it clearly outperformed the balanced average demands-average control pattern. Furthermore, our results partially supported the claim that employee well-being is contingent on the dynamics (i.e., transition scenarios) of the psychosocial work environment. They particularly highlight the central role of job resources in preventing the deleterious effects on well-being, which may occur even in relatively mild situations where job demands are not excessive. Keywords: job characteristics; employee well-being; work stress; latent profile