Job insecurity in the current global climate has escalated and more organisations are engaged in downsizing and restructuring in an attempt to survive under difficult economic conditions. At the same time, organisations are also exposed to structural reforms and international competition leading to transformations in the labour market. Jordan, Ashkanasy and Hartel (2002) developed a model to explain the effect of job insecurity on employees’ coping behaviour. In their two stage model they propose that perceptions of job insecurity could lead to lower affective organisational commitment and higher job-related stress which in turn could lead to negative coping behaviour. They then include emotional intelligence - a moderator linking the above-mentioned constructs. The main objective of this study was to investigate whether this model will be applicable to a national soft drink company in South Africa. A literature review was conducted to determine how emotional intelligence, job insecurity, affective organisational commitment, job-related stress, and coping behaviour were conceptualised. The relationships between these constructs and the role of emotional intelligence as moderator were also determined. This was done to investigate the model of Jordan et al. (2002). A cross-sectional research design was used for the purpose of this study. Managers of a national soft drink company were the participants. The Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) (Schutte et al., 1998); the Job Insecurity Questionnaire (JIQ) of De Witte, (2000); the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire of Meyer and Allen (1997); the COPE Questionnaire of Carver, Scheier and Weintraub (1989); and the Experience of Work and Life Circumstances Questionnaire (WLQ) of Van Zyl and Van der Walt (1991), including the biographical questionnaire, were utilised. The SPSS programme was used to perform the statistical analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. Cronbach alpha coefficients were used to assess the reliability; and explorative factor analysis was conducted to assess the validity of the measuring instruments. Pearson’s product-moment coefficients were used to specify the relationships between the variables. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the moderating influence of emotional intelligence. It was determined that, in this specific research group, job insecurity has a negative correlation with affective organisational commitment, but job insecurity has a positive correlation with job-related tension. A positive correlation was found between job-related tension and negative coping behaviours, such as denial, behavioural disengagement, mental disengagement or alcohol-drug disengagement. A negative correlation was found between job-related tension and affective organisational commitment. Furthermore, job insecurity was found to have a negative correlation with affective organisational commitment. Lastly, problem-focused coping has a positive relationship with emotion-focused coping. All of these correlations were statistically and practically significant. Multiple regression analyses were performed to determine the moderating effect of emotional intelligence as mentioned above. The results indicated emotional intelligence does not moderate any of the relationships between the constructs. Conclusions and limitations of this research and recommendations for the national soft drink organisation as well as for future research were made. / MA, Industrial Psychology, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

Fierce competition and re-allocation of firms on a global scale, including processes of substantial downsizing have come to the forefront of attention. The concern is that the global scale of actions cannot be controlled on a local level and may therefore pose a threat to a wide variety of workers. Many of the changes taking place in the economies and labour markets of the industrialised countries may have increased structural job insecurity. Cutbacks and dismissals give rise to feelings of job insecurity. More often employees experience a sense that their jobs are a fragile, threatened privilege, which can be taken away at any time. Employee perception of management efforts to maintain employment security is based on past downsizing thus raising the potential that continued downsizing will increase insecurity and therefore, will decrease both employee desire to participate in decision-making as well as employee satisfaction and commitment to the organisation. Previous research found a consistent negative relationship between perceived job insecurity and both employee satisfaction and commitment. The empirical objective of this study was to determine the relationship between job insecurity, organisational commitment and job satisfaction. A survey design was used to test research hypotheses and to determine the relationship between job insecurity, organisational commitment and job satisfaction. Data from the total population of engineers in a parastatal (N = 60) were gathered. The Job lnsecurity Survey Questionnaire (JISQ), Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (short version) (MSQ) were administered. The statistical analysis was carried out with the help of the SAS programme. The statistical methods utilised consisted of descriptive statistics, Cronbach Alpha coefficients, inter-item correlations, and Pearson-product moment correlations. Results indicated that engineers do not experience high levels of job insecurity. Furthermore, engineers don't experience low levels of organisational commitment and job satisfaction. Research findings indicated that the Job lnsecurity Survey Questionnaire (JISQ), Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) are valid and reliable measuring instruments. The findings suggested that a relationship exist between job insecurity, organisational commitment and total job satisfaction. Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between job insecurity and the work-related outcomes of over-commitment and perceived performance of trainers and trainees (n = 700) at a South African gold mine?s training academy. A cross-sectional survey design was utilised to attain the outcomes of the research. The Qualitative and Quantitative Job insecurity scales of Hellgren, Sverke and Isaksson (1999), the Social support scales of Caplan, Cobb, French, Van Harrison and Pinneau (1975), the Over-commitment scale of Näswall, Baraldi, Richter, Hellgren and Sverke (2006) and a scale measuring Perceived performance (Hall & Hall, 1976) were administered. The results indicated significant relationships between job insecurity, over-commitment and perceived performance. The regression analysis confirmed that job insecurity (qualitative and quantitative), social support and their interaction predict over-commitment. Perceptions of performance were only predicted by social support. This study offers assistance to organisations that are going through adjustments and are striving for a healthy work organisation. In closing, recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Companies throughout the world are faced with continual changes in order to remain competitive and survive. These changes are caused by economic uncertainty, globalisation, mergers and acquisitions. The results are unemployment or transfer of workers to the different areas of the organisation. These changes have unprecedented effect on workers, especially the survivors of retrenchments or downsizing, resulting in a feeling of job insecurity. lnsecurity is concerned with the continued existence of jobs for the employees in the organisation. It is characterised by feelings of powerlessness, uncertainty and fear. Consequently, job insecurity has emerged as an important stressor in modern organisations. Studies indicate that job insecurity leads to physical and psychological health problems. Further employees who experience feelings of job insecurity are more likely to display undesirable organisational outcomes such as withdrawal behaviours, job dissatisfaction and low organisational commitment. The empirical objective of this study was to determine the possible relationship between job insecurity, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Also, whether job insecurity can predict job satisfaction and organisational commitment. A survey design was used to realise the research objectives. The study population consisted of 121 employees in a mining organisation. The Job Insecurity Questionnaire, the Revised Short-version of the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Organisational Commitment Questionnaires were used as measuring instruments. Reliability and construct validity of all three questionnaires were found to be acceptable. It was found that respondents experienced below average levels of job insecurity. They further showed above average levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The findings indicate that a relationship exists between job insecurity, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Practically significant differences of medium to large effect were established for race, respondents having qualifications of less than Std 10, semiskilled, grade C3, 4 and 5 and E, DL and DU, and who are affiliated to NUMSA, which means that they experience more job insecurity compared to other groups. Through regression analysis, it was established that job insecurity predicts 44% of total variance of job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Limitations were identified and recommendations with regard to future research and recommendations for the organisation were made. / Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between job insecurity and the work-related outcomes of over-commitment and perceived performance of trainers and trainees (n = 700) at a South African gold mine?s training academy. A cross-sectional survey design was utilised to attain the outcomes of the research. The Qualitative and Quantitative Job insecurity scales of Hellgren, Sverke and Isaksson (1999), the Social support scales of Caplan, Cobb, French, Van Harrison and Pinneau (1975), the Over-commitment scale of Näswall, Baraldi, Richter, Hellgren and Sverke (2006) and a scale measuring Perceived performance (Hall & Hall, 1976) were administered. The results indicated significant relationships between job insecurity, over-commitment and perceived performance. The regression analysis confirmed that job insecurity (qualitative and quantitative), social support and their interaction predict over-commitment. Perceptions of performance were only predicted by social support. This study offers assistance to organisations that are going through adjustments and are striving for a healthy work organisation. In closing, recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Cette thèse se propose d'analyser les effets des ruptures dans les trajectoires professionnelles sur l'état de santé des individus en Europe. Nous considérons ici deux ruptures : l'une en début de carrière -- l'entrée sur le marché du travail dans une économie dégradée -- et l'autre en fin de carrière -- le passage à la retraite. Entre ces deux périodes critiques, nous portons un intérêt spécifique à l'impact sur la santé d'une rupture cette fois anticipée : la peur de perdre son emploi. Nos analyses empiriques combinent des données d'enquêtes Européennes et Britanniques. Afin de pallier les problèmes d'endogénéité propres à toute analyse empirique du lien entre santé et trajectoire professionnelle, nous exerçons des chocs exogènes sur la carrière des individus. Nous utilisons ainsi une expérience naturelle (la crise pétrolière de 1973) et les caractéristiques institutionnelles telles qu’elles sont définies dans la législation de chaque pays Européen (âges légaux de passage à la retraite, degrés de protection de l’emploi, règles de scolarité obligatoire). Les résultats soulignent l'effet néfaste des ruptures au cours de la vie professionnelle sur la santé des individus, à la fois à court et à long terme.Notre projet se propose d’identifier un lien causal entre l'activité professionnelle des individus et leur catégorie d'obésité via l’utilisation de techniques économétriques spécifiques tenant compte de l'endogénéité et l'utilisation des données de la cohorte GAZEL (qui suit depuis 1989 20 000 volontaires employés chez EDF-GDF). / The main objective of this thesis is to analyse the health consequences of career shocks in Europe. It considers two actual career shocks over the lifecourse: leaving full-time education in a bad economy, and, at the other end of the age spectrum, retiring. In-between these two critical periods, it investigates how an anticipated career shock -- i.e. anticipated job loss -- damages health. Empirical analyses are conducted using large European and British surveys. We use institutional features and natural experiments to find neat instruments for causal identification~: the existence of compulsory schooling laws, the cross-country variation in employment protection legislations, the cross-country variation in retirement systems and the 1973 oil crisis. The results emphasise the causal and health-damaging impact of career shocks, both in the short and in the long-term.

Sjuknärvaro är ett globalt fenomen som har negativa följder för individer och organisationer. Under Covid - 19 pandemin har även konsekvenser som smittspridning på grund av sjuknärvaro aktualiserats. Studien syftade till att undersöka hur anställdas attityder, säkerhetsspecifikt ledarskap, anställningsotrygghet, personliga ekonomiska svårigheter och anställningsform kan tänkas leda till anställdas sjuknärvaro. Enkätundersökning (N = 177) visade att normativa attityder till sjuknärvaro kan leda till starkare intentioner för att komma till arbetet trots sjukdom. Emellertid visade studien att det inte fanns något samband mellan individers attityder till smittorisker med Covid -19 på deras arbetsplats och intentioner för sjuknärvaro. Inte heller personliga ekonomiska svårigheter eller anställningsform hade någon relation med intentioner för sjuknärvaro. Anställningsotrygghet var positivt associerad med normativa attityder medan säkerhetsspecifikt ledarskap hade en negativ relation med upplevelser av smittorisker.

Provisionsbaserad lön är ett lönesystem som i de allra flesta fall används i fastighetsmäklarbranschen. Denna typ av lönesystem kan upplevas som motiverande men kan även bidra till en högre stressnivå. Idag är det vanligt förekommande att fastighetsmäklare väljer att avsluta sin karriär efter bara några år, vilket kan bero på lönesystemets påverkan på fastighetsmäklaren. Studiens bidrag är därför att undersöka flera faktorer kring hur provisionslönen påverkar fastighetsmäklaren, både ur en positiv och negativ synvinkel. Bostadsmarknaden är konjunkturkänslig vilket bidrar till att fastighetsmäklaren får ut väldigt olika inkomster varje månad. Detta gör i sin tur att fastighetsmäklaren kan behöva handskas med arbetsosäkerhet och stress under exempelvis ekonomiska nedgångar. Kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med sex olika fastighetsmäklare där det vid urvalet har tagits hänsyn till arbetserfarenhet, kön och ålder. Resultatet visar att provisionslönen leder till en ökad motivation hos fastighetsmäklaren som i sin tur leder till en bättre prestation. Vidare visar resultatet att fastighetsmäklaren upplever en ökad stressnivå och arbetsosäkerhet under perioder beroende på hur marknaden ser ut samt beroende på vilken livssituation fastighetsmäklaren befinner sig i. Som ny fastighetsmäklare i branschen kan arbetsosäkerheten vara stor, särskilt om man startar sin karriär under en ekonomisk nedgång. Hur en fastighetsmäklare påverkas av provisionslönen beror på vilken typ av personlighet denne har och därför har detta tagits hänsyn till. Fastighetsmäklarens personlighet påverkar bland annat hur lätt man har för att handskas med stress samt hur pass motiverad man är. / Commission based salary is a salary system that in most cases is used in the real estate industry. This type of pay system can affect the motivation but can also contribute to a higher level of stress. At present, it is common for real estate agents to choose to end their careers after only a few years. The study's contribution is therefore to examine several factors about how the commission based salary affects the real estate agent, both from a positive and negative point of view. The housing market is cyclically sensitive, which contributes to the fact that the real estate agent receives very different incomes every month. In most cases this means that the real estate agent has to deal with job insecurity and stress during for example financial downturns. Qualitative interviews have been conducted with six different real estate agents, where work experience, gender and age were taken into consideration in the selection of the candidates. The result of the study shows that the commision based salary leads to a greater motivation for the real estate agent, which leads to a better performance. Furthermore, the results show that the real estate agent experiences an increased level of stress and job insecurity during some periods depending on what the market looks like and depending on the life situation the real estate agent is in. As a new real estate agent in the industry, job insecurity can be higher, especially if you start your career during a financial downturn. How a real estate agent is affected by the commission based salary depends on what type of personality you have and therefore this has been taken into consideration. The real estate agent’s personality affects, among other things, how you handle stress and how motivated you are.

El presente estudio tiene como objetivo determinar si las variables satisfacción e inseguridad laboral explican la intención de renunciar al trabajo en jóvenes. Se evaluó a 150 jóvenes de edades entre 20 a 35 años que trabajan en una empresa del rubro de telecomunicaciones. Se aplicó la Escala de Intenciones de Renunciar al Trabajo, Escala de Inseguridad Laboral y, por último, el Índice Breve de Satisfacción Laboral Afectiva, los cuales fueron validados en el contexto peruano. Finalmente, se obtuvo como resultado, mediante el Modelo Explicativo Latente, que la Satisfacción Laboral y la Inseguridad Laboral explican en un 90% y un 100%, respectivamente, la Intención de Renunciar al Trabajo. Estos resultados contribuirán a que se puedan formular estrategias para la retención del personal y reducción de las tasas de rotación en las organizaciones, así también, las escalas validadas podrán ser usadas en futuras investigaciones. / The objective of this study is to determine if the variables job satisfaction and insecurity explain the intent to quit job in young people. 150 young people between 20 and 35 years old who work in a telecommunications company. The Intentions to Quit Work Scale, the Job Insecurity Scale and, finally, the Brief Index of Affective Job Satisfaction were applied, which were validated in the Peruvian context. Finally, it was obtained as a result, through the Latent Explanatory Model, that Job Satisfaction and Job Insecurity explain by 90% and 100%, respectively, the Intention to Quit Work. These results will contribute to the formulation of strategies for staff retention and reduction of turnover rates in organizations, as well as, the validated scales can be used in future. / Tesis

Recent research into job insecurity (JI) features a greater tendency to undertake target group-specific investigations into the construct, in view of the growing diversity in the world of work. The present doctoral thesis focuses on a group that previous research into JI has so far failed to investigate fully, namely apprentices. The past disregard of this group is surprising, considering that young adults are at greater risk of unemployment than the average gainfully employed person (cf. de Witte, 2007). To meet the research objective of the present study, a JI tool validated by Staufenbiel et al. (2009), used to distinguish between four JI components within a 2*2 design, was modified for the target group of apprentices. In line with Borg and Elizur (1992), a differentiation was made between a cognitive and an affective JI component; furthermore, in line with Hellgren et al. (1999), quantitative JI involving the complete loss of employment was separated from qualitative JI, involving the aversive change of valued job features. In the first study, a survey was conducted amongst apprentices (a total of n = 392, from vocations requiring training in the areas of trade, crafts, industry and health care) at various vocational schools in the City of Osnabrück. Within the longitudinal design, potential antecedents and consequences of JI were gathered from these apprentices on two survey dates (T1: one year before completing the apprenticeship; T2: three to four months before completing the apprenticeship). Confirmatory analysis revealed the best fit for a two-factor model that differentiated between a cognitive and an affective JI component. Since qualitative items failed to be established on separate subcomponents within the structural analyses, as conceptually planned, these items were neglected, and further work was conducted using quantitative items only. The two-factorial structure of JI (cognitive versus affective) determined in the first study was replicated in the other two studies undertaken within the doctoral thesis. The longitudinal analyses conducted by structural equation modelling demonstrated that occupational self-efficacy and employability are the best predictors of cognitive and affective JI components, respectively. In the second study, an exhaustive survey was conducted amongst the apprentices of a large industrial group operating in the metal-working industry. These apprentices were practising various craft occupations that require training. In contrast to the preliminary study, the apprentices were at different stages of their apprenticeship at the time of the survey, enabling potential differences in levels of JI in the course of training to be determined. Furthermore, the second study focused solely on JI consequences. In addition to data provided by the apprentices, behavioural data such as absence data and the apprentices’ performance appraisals by their respective company trainer were also drawn on. The trajectory of JI in the course of the apprenticeship showed that JI was felt the least in the first year of training and the most in the penultimate year. In the third study, the focus on JI amongst apprentices was extended to the international context. To this end, around 100 wholesale trade apprentices were surveyed in each of three European countries that feature very different training systems, namely, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. While vocational training in Germany is traditionally offered as a dual system in which apprentices attend vocational school and work at the company in roughly equal parts, practical elements are less predominant in the Netherlands and are substituted fully by full-time school education in Spain. In addition to demonstrating the psychometric adequacy of the JI tool, its metric measurement invariance for samples taken amongst apprentices from the three countries was also shown in the international comparative analyses. Furthermore, employability was established as the most significant predictor of both JI components in all three countries. All in all, the results of the doctoral thesis confirm that JI is a considerable stressor for apprentices in the national and international context. The doctoral thesis concludes with a summary of the topic’s relevance in international education policy in view of the prevailing sustained high youth unemployment. With regard to methodology, diary studies are recommended for future study designs to enable the better estimation of JI covariations over time.