Catch me if I fall! Enacted uncertainty avoidance and the social safety net as country-level moderators in the job insecurity-job attitudes link

Debus ME, Probst TM, König CJ, Kleinmann M (2012)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2012

Journal

Journal of Applied Psychology American Psychological Association

Book Volume: 97

Pages Range: 690-698

Journal Issue: 3

DOI: 10.1037/a0027832

Abstract

Job insecurity is related to many detrimental outcomes, with reduced job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment being the 2 most prominent reactions. Yet, effect sizes vary greatly, suggesting the presence of moderator variables. On the basis of Lazarus's cognitive appraisal theory, we assumed that country-level enacted uncertainty avoidance and a country's social safety net would affect an individual's appraisal of job insecurity. More specifically, we hypothesized that these 2 country-level variables would buffer the negative relationships between job insecurity and the 2 aforementioned job attitudes. Combining 3 different data sources, we tested the hypotheses in a sample of 15,200 employees from 24 countries by applying multilevel modeling. The results confirmed the hypotheses that both enacted uncertainty avoidance and the social safety net act as cross-level buffer variables. Furthermore, our data revealed that the 2 cross-level interactions share variance in explaining the 2 job attitudes. Our study responds to calls to look at stress processes from a multilevel perspective and highlights the potential importance of governmental regulation when it comes to individual stress processes.

Authors with CRIS profile

Maike Debus

Involved external institutions

Washington State University (WSU) US United States (USA) (US) University of Zurich / Universität Zürich (UZH) CH Switzerland (CH) Universität des Saarlandes (UdS) DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Debus, M.E., Probst, T.M., König, C.J., & Kleinmann, M. (2012). Catch me if I fall! Enacted uncertainty avoidance and the social safety net as country-level moderators in the job insecurity-job attitudes link. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(3), 690-698. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0027832

MLA:

Debus, Maike E., et al. "Catch me if I fall! Enacted uncertainty avoidance and the social safety net as country-level moderators in the job insecurity-job attitudes link." Journal of Applied Psychology 97.3 (2012): 690-698.

BibTeX: Download