Job insecurity and job performance : the moderating role of organizational justice and the mediating role of work engagement

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Journal of Applied Psychology

Publication Date

7-1-2015

Volume

100

Issue

4

First Page

1249

Last Page

1258

Keywords

job insecurity, job performance, organizational justice, work engagement, uncertainty management

Abstract

Organizational justice has been shown to play an important role in employees’ affective and performance outcomes particularly in uncertain contexts. In this study, we investigated the interaction effect of job insecurity and organizational justice on employees’ performance, and examined the mediating role of work engagement from the perspective of uncertainty management theory. We used 2-wave data (Study 1) from a sample of 140 Chinese employees and 3-wave data (Study 2) from a sample of 125 Chinese employees to test our hypotheses. In Study 1, we found that when employees perceived low levels of organizational justice, job insecurity was significantly negatively related to job performance. In contrast, we found that job insecurity was not related to job performance when there were high levels of organizational justice. Study 2 again supported the interaction of job insecurity and organizational justice on job performance. Furthermore, it was found that work engagement mediated the interaction effect. The results of the mediated moderation analysis revealed that job insecurity was negatively associated with job performance through work engagement when organizational justice was low.

DOI

10.1037/a0038330

Print ISSN

00219010

E-ISSN

19391854

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2015 American Psychological Association

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Wang, H.-j., Lu, C.-q., & Siu, O.-l. (2015). Job insecurity and job performance: The moderating role of organizational justice and the mediating role of work engagement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(4), 1249-1258. doi: 10.1037/a0038330

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