Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2007.

The object of this project is to investigate people’s fear of crime. By means of three studies, the dissertation illustrates how the fear of crime is understood in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic research, by a group of interview subjects and also how this fear is depicted in Stockholm’s daily press. In the research, fear of crime is viewed as an individual problem that is not linked to exposure to crime. Instead the fear is explained by reference to individual factors, situational factors and societal conditions. The views described in the research have changed over time, with inter alia an increasing number of groups being described as experiencing fear. The interview study is based on 28 in-depth interviews with persons living in different areas of Stockholm. In summary, the interview subjects are not afraid of crime, and they say they do not think about crime in the course of their daily lives. They may perceive fear in certain situations, in specific locations and when faced with unknown people. These situations are characterised by a lack of control, which tends to be linked to the fear of crime. This fear also appears clearly to be influenced by the media. In the press, the fear of crime is not only depicted in relation to public places, but also in the home and at the workplace. The absence of police is described as one of the reasons for this fear. It is also acceptable for men to express a fear of crime in the newspaper articles. The descriptions expressed in the interviews and in the press reflect some of the theories propounded on the risk society. Risk appears to be perceived as separate from fear. A reduction in crime would therefore be likely to lead to a reduction in the risk of exposure to crime, but not always in the fear of crime. This fear may instead probably be reduced by measures that increase people’s sense of control.

The study investigated the relationship among supervisor's job insecurity, job stress, abusive supervision, employee¡¦s job engagement and innovative behavior. The author distributed 90 questionnaires for supervisors and 270 questionnaires for employees who work in research and development department. In all, questionnaires were completed by the 83 supervisor and 133 employees and analyzed by factor analysis, internal consistency analysis, regression analysis and path analysis to measure the relationship among the constructs. Research results found that: (1) Supervisor¡¦s job insecurity and work stress was positively related to employee¡¦s perception of abusive supervision. (2) Employee¡¦s perception of abusive supervision was negatively related to their job engagement. (3) Employee¡¦s job engagement was positively related to their innovative behavior. The results provide an idea that encourages researchers to explore other possible factors which cause abusive supervision in the future.

This study is mainly working on the influence of the staying employees¡¦ citizenship behaviors and working attitude under corporate merger, under the background of integration upstream parts and components by optoelectronic company. The subjects to study are organizational commitment, job insecurity and job satisfaction.. This study aimed to understand employees¡¦ mentality and coworker relations by interviewing 3 management members and 7 employees by adapting qualitative analysis Those who accept to stay in the merged company usually feel unsafety in their mind and show bad interaction with employees of the merger. The job insecurity will affect employees¡¦ organizational commitment, job involvement, and job satisfaction. The most important is that the support from the direct supervisor will strongly influence the job satisfaction and performance of subordinators. The better interaction, the stronger support from the direct supervisor which subordinators will feel.

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As the downward movement in the economy, many corporations still remains high expense on the debit. In order to lower the personnel expenses, technically, most corporations will directly lay off employees, or compress the working requisite, such as: unpaid leave, or deduction on the salary. After the downsize method has been conducted, there are some negative impacts on the employees (both to lay off and the remaining employee), this research will probe into the impact on the insecurity and commitment to the organization on remaining employees after the conduction of the downsizing method. According to the research result, it concluded the impacts from the downsizing method on increasing the insecurity at work, it will also affects remaining employees¡¦ trust to the company and further diminish the commitment to the organization. This research has examined the downsized corporations¡¦ remaining employees (to both general and managerial position employees) during July 2008 to February 2009 on the degree of insecurity and commitment to the organization. According to the examined result, this research has the following conclusion: 1.The downsizing method¡¦s actual impact on remaining employee¡¦s insecurity at work will be varied by the procedure, so the hypothesis is not approved. 2.The hypothesis on the remaining employees¡¦ insecurity at work has the negative impact on commitment to the organization, disapproved. 3.The hypothesis on downsizing by lay off and unpaid leave has the negative impact on commitment to the organization, approved; managerial and non-managerial position employee has the negative impact on the commitment to the organization, disapproved. 4.Insecurity from the downsizing method has a moderate effect on commitment to the organization; nevertheless, it can¡¦t approve the moderate impact on the insecurity at work from the downsizing method, so the result is insignificant.

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Work is an essential part of most people’s lives. With increasing flexibility in work life, many employees experience job insecurity – they perceive that the future of their jobs is uncertain. However, job insecurity is not just an individual experience; employees can perceive that there is a climate of job insecurity at their workplace as well, as people collectively worry about their jobs. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate the job insecurity climate construct and how it relates to work- and health-related outcomes and to individual job insecurity. Three empirical studies were conducted to investigate this aim. Study I investigated the dimensionality of the job insecurity construct by developing and testing a measure of job insecurity climate − conceptualized as the individual’s perception of the job insecurity climate at work − in a sample of employees working in Sweden. The results indicated that individual job insecurity and job insecurity climate are separate but related constructs and that job insecurity climate was related to work- and health-related outcomes. Study II examined the effects of individual job insecurity and job insecurity climate on work- and health-related outcomes in a sample of employees working in a private sector company in Sweden. The results showed that perceiving higher levels of job insecurity climate than others in the workgroup was associated with poorer self-rated health and higher levels of burnout. Study III tested the relationship between individual job insecurity and job insecurity climate in a sample of Flemish employees. The results indicated that individual job insecurity is contagious, as individual job insecurity predicted perceptions of job insecurity climate six months later. In conclusion, by focusing on perceptions of the job insecurity climate, the present thesis introduces a new approach to job insecurity climate research, showing that employees can perceive a climate of job insecurity in addition to their own individual job insecurity and, also, that this perception of the job insecurity climate at work has negative consequences for individuals and organizations. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

Research has shown that criminal justice policy in Western democratic societies has become increasingly punitive (e.g. Wilson and Petersilia 2010), and that the public largely supports these policies, despite the fact that crime rates have been declining (e.g. Roberts 2003). However, few studies have attempted to explain this paradox in the context of neoliberalism, and within a Canadian context. Using the 2011 and 1997 Canadian Election Study, this project employs logistical regression and a comparative analysis to examine the extent to which neoliberal governance has produced prejudicial attitudes towards racialized “Others,” social and economic insecurity, and attitudes that individualize causes of poverty, and the extent to which these factors predict support for punitive treatment of violent young offenders. The results of this study show that the advent of neoliberalism has precipitated racialized “othering” towards Aboriginal people, which has increased punitive attitudes, but that insecurity and individualization, in relations to punitive attitudes, was present previous to 1997. / October 2015

Security about one's economic future is something that is valued by risk-averse individuals and its absence may decrease their economic well-being. Therefore, rich societies have social protection mechanisms in place to guard people against potential economic hazards. However, such mechanisms may be absent in poor countries where people are not only poorer but exposed to significant economic risks. Under this context, this paper inquires if there is a comparable way to measure an Index of Economic Security for a sample of three South Asian and seven OECD countries. We provide a theoretical framework to articulate why economic security is important in the measurement of well-being. We also discuss the human rights perspective on economic insecurity and its implications for measurement of economic security. After constructing a basic index, we conduct sensitivity analysis to determine how much impact methodological choices have on country performance.