Job insecurity and employee outcomes: the moderating role of collective trust in management

Wang, Wen; Mather, Kim; Seifert, Roger

Abstract

Contextualized within the widespread cynicism and employment insecurity of the modern British workplace, this article intends to examine the moderating effect of collective trust on the correlation of job insecurity (both subjective and actual) and employee outcomes (work related anxiety and organizational commitment). We use matched employer-employee data extracted from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2011; the data includes over 15,000 employees from more than 1,100 organizations. The multilevel analyses confirm that both subjective perception of job loss and actual job insecurity (losing important aspects of a job) are significantly correlated with high level of work related anxiety and lower level of organizational commitment. The negative impact of actual job insecurity on employee outcomes is partially mediated by subjective job insecurity, which is also influenced by management practices. Perceived collective trust in management (being reliable, honest and fair) significantly attenuates negative correlation between subjective job insecurity and work related anxiety or the negative correlation between actual job insecurity and organizational commitments when it happened. These findings are particularly compelling at Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. Theoretical and practical implications of these effects are discussed.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Nov 30, 2017
• Publication Date: 2017-08
• Deposit Date: Jan 31, 2024
• Journal: Academy of Management Proceedings
• Print ISSN: 0065-0668
• Electronic ISSN: 2151-6561
• Publisher: Academy of Management
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2017
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 14355
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2017.14355abstract
• Publisher URL: https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/AMBPP.2017.14355abstract