The ups and downs of felt job insecurity and job performance: The moderating role of informational justice

ABSTRACT

In two intra-individual studies, we examine how felt job insecurity relates to job performance. Based on conservation of resources theory, we argue that there is a negative intra-individual relation between felt job insecurity and job performance. Informational justice is expected to moderate this within-person relationship, so that the relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance is weaker when informational justice is higher than on average. Hypotheses were tested in two studies conducted over a time span of six weeks (Study 1, N = 90) and four weeks (Study 2, N = 99) in organisations undergoing some form of change. Employees reported lower levels of contextual performance (Study 1) and productivity (Study 2) in weeks that felt job insecurity was higher than usual, unless employees perceived that their organisation had adequately informed them about the change. In the latter case, contextual performance and productivity levels remained intact. Our findings extend existing research by showing that intra-individual variations in felt job insecurity and informational justice help explain intra-individual variations in job performance. Our interpretation, though tentative, is that informational justice may serve as a substitute for the resources lost due to felt job insecurity.

KEYWORDS:

• Job insecurity
• organisational change
• job performance
• informational justice
• intra-individual variations, multi-level analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We also ran the analyses without controlling for organizations. Results were virtually similar and can be obtained upon request.

2 The way hypotheses are tested assumes an immediate response: respondents react immediately upon feelings of job insecurity. A plausible assumption is that reactions come only after some time. Analyses suggesting such delayed response show similar results. Results from the cross-lagged path analysis can be obtained upon request.

3 We also ran the analyses without general level of performance as a control variable. Results are virtually similar and can be obtained upon request.