Across the world, job insecurity plays a critical role in organisations. This insecurity affects
not only the individual, but also the organisation. In South Africa, the Employment Equity
Act (No. 55 of 1998), and the Broad-Based Socio-Economic Empowerment Charter for the
South African Mining Industry (Mining Charter), brought changes to the mining industry
policies and decision-making process in terms of selection and recruitment, which could in
turn lead to feelings of job insecurity. Other factors such as the availability of gold left to be
mined, restructuring and strikes increase work-related stress.
The objectives of this study were to investigate the role of job insecurity in predicting health related
behaviours, and to determine whether coping moderates the effect of job insecurity on
health behaviours for a group of managers in a South African gold mining company. A cross-sectional
design was used. The study population (n = 206) consisted of managers in a gold
mining company in South Africa The Job Insecurity Scale, Cybernetic Coping Scale and
Health Complaints Questionnaire were used as measuring instruments. Descriptive statistics
(e.g. means, standard deviations and kurtosis) were used to analyse the data. Hierarchical
multiple regression analysis was used to test for the hypothesized moderating effect of coping
on the relation between job insecurity and health-related behaviours.
The results of the regression analyses showed that qualitative job insecurity was a significant
predictor of health complaints. Qualitative job insecurity was also a significant predictor of
health complaints in employees who smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol, and exercised at
least once a week. Quantitative job insecurity did not play a role in predicting health-related
behaviour. Coping did not moderate the effects of job insecurity for employees with health
complaints. Rather, it is suggested that using negative coping behaviours may actually
contribute to health complaints.
Recommendations for future research are made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/899 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Fourie, Angelique Marie |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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