Job insecurity constitutes uncertainty about the future of the current job. Such uncertainty is expected to impact attitudes and behaviors about one’s work and career and how it will progress. The aim of the present study is to meta-analytically consolidate research on the associations between job insecurity and career-related outcomes. A further aim of the study is to explore two methodological moderators: study design (cross-sectional vs. longitudinal) and type of job insecurity measure (cognitive, affective, or combined). Based on a sample of 237 primary studies, our main results show that job insecurity was positively related to occupational and organizational turnover intention, job search behaviors, and knowledge hiding, and negatively related with career satisfaction, career opportunities, employability, and proactive skill development. In terms of the moderators, the associations were generally stronger in cross-sectional studies compared to longitudinal studies, while the impact of the type of job insecurity measure used was mixed. While our results inform research on job insecurity and career-related outcomes, more studies with a longitudinal design are needed on this research topic. Future research should also further examine how different types of job insecurity measures – cognitive, affective, or combined – are associated with career-related outcomes.

There is often a gap between what managers perceive they do in terms of fairness (managers’ justice enactment perceptions) and how fairly employees feel treated by their supervisor (employees’ organizational justice perceptions). This study investigates three managerial actions as potential predictors of congruence in managers’ justice enactment and employees’ justice perceptions. Using individual pay setting as context, the authors hypothesize that goal clarity, continuous feedback, and supervisory credibility predict congruence in justice perceptions (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice). Analyses are based on 124 pay-setting managers with their employees from an industrial company in Sweden. Results reveal that goal clarity, continuous feedback, and supervisor credibility reduce the mean-value difference in justice perceptions between managers and employees. This study broadens the organizational justice literature by contributing with a new way of simultaneously studying justice enactment and justice perceptions to further knowledge on how to facilitate and improve fairness in organizations.

This study explored pay-setting managers’ experiences regarding the individualized pay-setting process. Seven semi-structured group-interviews with pay-setting managers (N = 28) from four private companies in Sweden were conducted. A thematic analysis identified three main themes: 1) Prerequisites for pay-setting, which included conditions for pay-setting work and experiences of these conditions; 2) Assessment and feedback, which included experiences of employee performance assessment and feedback provision; 3) Rewards, which covered experiences of different pay incentives and the relationship between performance and pay. The pay-setting process was considered to include many obstacles as well as a few opportunities. Without proper pre-requisites to assess employee performance, the possibilities to adequately reward performance were experienced as limited, which, in turn, hampered possibilities to justify both the assessment and pay raise. Taken together, this study underscores the conflict between intentions relating to how to carry out a pay-setting process and managers’ difficulties to actually accomplish this.

Insecure work has become increasingly frequent in recent decades. It includes insecure employment contracts (contractual arrangements that deviate from permanent, open-ended contracts) as well as perceived job insecurity (an individual perception that one’s job is at risk). While research on insecure work (contractual and perceived) has identified numerous work-related and health-related outcomes, a limited number of studies have investigated if union membership may be a protective factor. The unionization rate among workers with insecure employment contracts is relatively low, despite these contractual arrangements often being characterized by poor working conditions. This chapter reviews previous research to address the following questions: (1) How do insecure workers view union membership and what are their unionization behaviours (joining and leaving)? (2) Can union membership and support buffer the negative effects of insecure work on work-related and health-related outcomes? (3) How can unions represent the interests of insecure workers?

How experiences and perceptions of pay and pay setting relate to employees’ job performance, willingness to remain in the organization, and health has been the subject of much debate. Previous research has typically used a variable-centered approach to investigate associations between different pay-related factors and such outcomes. In contrast, we used latent profile analysis to explore combinations of compensation characteristics (pay level, perceived horizontal pay dispersion, and procedural quality, i.e., transactional leadership and procedural pay-setting justice), combining relevant theories on the subject. Based on a nationally representative sample of private sector employees in Sweden (N = 1,146), our study identified six compensation profiles. Our key findings show, first, that higher levels of pay were generally associated with better performance, lower turnover intention, better self-rated health, and lower work-related exhaustion, especially when combined with perceptions of high procedural quality. Second, in terms of perceived horizontal pay dispersion, the results indicate that pay compression may be associated with beneficial outcomes, particularly when combined with high procedural quality. Third, procedural quality was generally associated with favorable work-related and health-related outcomes, although such positive effects may be contingent upon pay level and perceived horizontal pay dispersion. In conclusion, while pay level, perceptions of horizontal pay dispersion, and procedural quality may all matter for employee outcomes, it is important to consider their combinations.

Building on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity framework, we investigate managers’ ability, motivation, and opportunity as predictors of managers’ self-reported justice enactment during pay setting. Data from 168 managers from a large industrial company in Sweden were analyzed with hierarchical multiple regression analyses to predict the four dimensions of enacted justice (distributive, procedural, informational, interpersonal). Ability indicators contributed to all justice enactment dimensions, with self-efficacy in one’s role as pay-setting manager being positively related to all justice enactment dimensions. Motivation indicators contributed to three justice enactment dimensions (not informational), with managers’ outcome expectations of pay setting being positively related to distributive justice enactment. Opportunity indicators contributed to three justice enactment dimensions (not interpersonal), where social support in the pay-setting process predicted these justice enactment dimensions. Demographics and personality variables only explained additional variance in interpersonal justice enactment. The paper sheds light on the managers’ side of justice in pay setting, and highlights the relevance of resources to equip managers with ability, motivation, and opportunities in order to perceive that they can be fair during pay setting.

Summary This study sets out to investigate the potential differences between social workers using voice- or silence strategies in their experience of organisational resources, attitudes and health, and whether social workers moving between strategies (voice or silence) over time have a different experience of the same outcomes than those who stay with the same strategy group. The participating social workers (n = 1356) responded to two web-based questionnaires over a one-year period. Findings The results show that voice strategies are related to the experience of more positive organisational resources, more positive attitudes (greater job satisfaction and organisational commitment, but lower intention to exit) and more positive health (greater recovery, but less emotional exhaustion and stress symptoms) than those using silence strategies. The results also show that moving from silence to voice is related to the experience of increased organisational resources, more positive attitudes and more positive health at T2, while those moving from voice to silence reported the opposite. Applications The longitudinal approach applied in this study adds empirical evidence of the relationship between voice/silence and work-related attitudes, as well as health and well-being. The close relationship between organisational resources, employee voice behaviour and related individual outcomes regarding attitudes and health imply that Human Resources (HR) management has a lot to gain by developing and securing a voice-friendly and considerate climate in their organisations.

The use of performance-based pay is increasing rapidly, but empirical evidence on how and why it relates to job performance, as well as its relative strategical importance, remains unclear. The present study examined the relative importance of performance-based pay variables and support of psychological needs variables for task and contextual performance in a sample of 582 white-collar employees in Sweden. Multiple regression results, based on survey and register data, showed that the instrumentality of the pay system related to lower levels of task and contextual performance. However, supplementary relative weight analysis (RWA) showed that, in relative terms, instrumentality of the pay system was of minor importance for performance. Performance-based pay-raise amount was positively related to contextual performance but not predictive of task performance. Procedural pay-setting justice was unrelated to both outcomes. Among the support of psychological needs variables, feedback and job autonomy had positive associations with both outcomes while social support from colleagues was not predictive of performance. Considering the explained variance (16–17%), the performance-based pay variables combined accounted for up to a third (12.6–29.2%) while support of psychological needs variables accounted for more than half of the explained variance (56.1–68.1%) in task and contextual performance. The results indicate that organizations would benefit from putting support of psychological needs to the forefront of their motivational strategies as a complement to administrating complex compensation systems.

Perceiving a pay system as just has been suggested to be a precondition for individualized pay to have a motivating effect for employees. Supervisors' enacted justice is central for understanding the effects that pay setting can have on employee attitudes and behavior. Yet, enacted justice has received little research attention, in regard to both organizational justice and pay-related topics. This study examines the effects of employees' perceived pay justice and supervisors' enacted justice, as well as the degree of congruence, on employees' work-related attitudes and behaviors. Questionnaire data from employees (N= 566) matched with data from their pay-setting supervisors (N= 208), employed in a Swedish manufacturing company, were analyzed. Results of polynomial regression with response surface analysis show that employees' perceptions of pay justice were important for their work-related attitudes and behaviors and that supervisor-employee congruence regarding pay justice was positively related to employees' attitudes and behavior, particularly when the ratings concerned high levels of justice. The results not only highlight the importance of developing a pay system that is perceived as just by employees but also emphasize the importance of reaching a congruence between supervisors' and employees' perceptions of high fairness, as this has positive implications for employees' attitudes and behaviors.

Nella loro carriera lavorativa tutti, prima o poi, sperimentano cambiamenti organizzativi. Il modo in cui le persone fanno fronte e reagiscono ai cambiamenti che incontrano nelle loro carriere e ne ...

Background: There is considerable evidence that leadership influences workplace safety, but less is known about the relative importance of different leadership styles for safety. In addition, a leadership style characterized by an emphasis and a focus on promoting safety has rarely been investigated alongside other more general leadership styles. Methods: Data were collected through a survey to which 269 employees in a paper mill company responded. A regression analysis was conducted to examine the relative roles of transformational, transactional (management-by-exception active; MBEA), and safety-specific leadership for different safety behavioral outcomes (compliance behavior and safety initiative behaviors) and for minor and major injuries. Results: A safety-specific leadership contributed the most to the enhanced safety of the three different kinds of leadership. Transformational leadership did not contribute to any safety outcome over and above that of a safety-specific leadership, whereas a transactional leadership (MBEA) was associated with negative safety outcomes (fewer safety initiatives and increased minor injuries). Conclusion: The most important thing for leaders aiming at improving workplace safety is to continuously emphasize safety, both in their communication and by acting as role models. This highlights the importance for leadership training programs aiming to improve safety to actually focus on safety-promoting communication and behaviors rather than general leadership. Furthermore, an overly monitoring and controlling leadership style can be detrimental to attempts at achieving improved workplace safety. (C) 2018 Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC.

Purpose: Employee perceptions of pay as fair have been suggested to be important for motivation and performance. This circumstance, together with an increase in pay-systems where annual pay raises ...

The private sector in Sweden is rapidly moving towards more performance-oriented pay systems in order to increase employees’ work motivation. In the research literature there has been a long lastin ...

Previous research has shown that job insecurity is linked to a range of performance outcomes, but the number of studies exploring this relationship is still limited and the results are somewhat mixed. The first aim of this study was to meta-analytically investigate how job insecurity is related to task performance, contextual performance, counterproductive work behavior, creativity, and safety compliance. The second aim was to test two method-related factors ( cross-sectional vs. longitudinal associations and self-vs. supervisor-ratings of performance) and two macro-level indicators of social protection ( social welfare regime and union density) as moderators of these associations. The results show that job insecurity was generally associated with impaired employee performance. These findings were generally similar both cross-sectionally and longitudinally and irrespective of rater. Overall, the associations between job insecurity and negative performance outcomes were weaker in welfare regimes characterized by strong social protection, whereas the results concerning union density produced mixed results. A majority of the findings confirmed the negative associations between job insecurity and types of employee performance, but future research is needed to elaborate on the effects of temporal aspects, differences between ratings sources, and further indicators of social protection in different cultural settings in the context of job insecurity.

Purpose: While previous research has shown that job insecurity is linked to job performance, the number of studies exploring this relationship is limited and the results are mixed (Cheng & Chan ...

Lonesattningen i privat sektor sker med olika grad av koppling till den individuellaprestationen. Vissa avtal ger inget eller endast begransat utrymme for verksamhets- ochindividnara lonesattning. ...

Job insecurity, which reflects employees’ concerns about losing one’s job, is generally characterised as a predominant work stressor. The research literature in this field has been steadily growing ...

Foretags- och medarbetarnara lonebildning blir allt vanligare. Den utvecklingen baseras pa antaganden om att lon och loneutveckling bidrar till okad motivation och goda arbetsprestationer, och att ...

Situationen inom svensk socialtjanst framstar som sarskilt problematisk med svara arbetsvillkor, stressrelaterad ohalsa och hoga ohalsotal. Baserat pa en nationell enkatstudie med myndighetsutovand ...