Job Insecurity and Intention to Leave, from a Job Insecurity Climate Perspective

Abstract

Outcomes of job insecurity have in recent years attracted a lot of scholarly interest. 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 for this thesis was to investigate job insecurity climate and intention to leave during COVID-19 and to see if this relationship could be mediated by individual job insecurity. The data collection was conducted at the beginning of 2021, in the middle of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. The results of our analysis give support for individual job insecurity as a mediator between perceived job insecurity climate and turnover intention. Thus, the findings suggest that perceived job insecurity climate is contagious and increases individual job insecurity, which leads to turnover intentions. The results are discussed through general stress theories such as appraisal theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory. A common feature of these theories is that they all highlight the critical role of resources, though in different forms. In addition, the crossover model is discussed, as it explains how stress transmits from one person to another. Implications and limitations and directions for future research are discussed.