Perceived employability and performance: moderation by felt job insecurity
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship perceived employability (the employee's perception about available job opportunities in the external labour market) and performance, accounting for felt job insecurity. Performance is conceptualized broadly in terms of optimal functioning (i.e. in-role performance and helping behaviour) and malfunctioning (i.e. organizational and interpersonal counterproductive work behaviour).
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected among 433 Romanian workers.
Findings
The authors hypothesize and demonstrate that perceived employability relates positively to optimal functioning, but less so when workers feel insecure: highly employable workers may be high achievers, but withdraw from the organization when they feel insecure. Furthermore, the authors hypothesize that perceived employability relates positively to malfunctioning, the more so when workers feel insecure. Highly employable workers may care less about organizational norms, particularly when they see reasons to violate these norms: felt job insecurity may be such a reason. However, the interaction between perceived employability and felt job insecurity was not significantly related to malfunctioning. Instead, the authors established a main effect of perceived employability on both organizational and interpersonal counterproductive work behaviour.
Originality/value
The paper concludes that perceived employability contributes to optimal functioning when workers feel secure, but it may also bring along some costs in the form of malfunctioning.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant from the Research Fund KU Leuven (OT/11/010), the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen G0987.12), and the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-RU-PD-2011-3-0162.
Citation
De Cuyper, N., Sulea, C., Philippaers, K., Fischmann, G., Iliescu, D. and De Witte, H. (2014), "Perceived employability and performance: moderation by felt job insecurity", Personnel Review, Vol. 43 No. 4, pp. 536-552. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-03-2013-0050
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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