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APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 2013, 62 (4), 558–570 doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2012.00499.x

Does Positive Affect Buffer the Associations between Job Insecurity and Work Engagement and Psychological Distress? A Test among South African Workers Tinne Vander Elst* University of Leuven, Belgium

Jacqueline Bosman Industrial psychologist, South Africa

Nele De Cuyper and Jeroen Stouten University of Leuven, Belgium

Hans De Witte University of Leuven, Belgium and Vanderbijlpark Campus, North-West University, South Africa

This study aims to respond to earlier calls to study well-known concepts, more specifically, job insecurity, in less traditional (i.e. non-European, non-US) settings, as well as factors that may mitigate the aversive consequences of job insecurity for employees’ work-related functioning. We investigate (1) the relationship between job insecurity and work engagement and psychological distress, and (2) the moderating role of positive affect in these relationships.

Cross-sectional data from 296 employees in a South African government organisation were used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that job insecurity was negatively related to work engagement and positively to psychological distress. These relationships were buffered by positive affect.

INTRODUCTION Studies in the realm of job insecurity research have proliferated, plausibly owing to profound economic and societal changes. Most of these studies are similar in at least two respects. First, the studies mostly focused on European * Address for correspondence: Tinne Vander Elst, Research Group on Work, Organisational and Personnel Psychology (WOPP), University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Box 3725, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. Email: Tinne.VanderElst@ppw.kuleuven.be © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: An International Review © 2012 International Association of Applied Psychology.

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and US samples (for an exception see e.g. Lee, Bobko, & Chen, 2006: Asian sample). Surprisingly, except for some national publications (e.g. Stander & Rothmann, 2010; van Wyk & Pienaar, 2008), studies from the African continent are virtually absent, a finding that can be generalised to Occupational Health Psychology research in general (Kang, Staniford, Dollard, & Kompier, 2008). Second, most studies have concerned direct associations between job insecurity and potential outcomes (Sverke & Hellgren, 2002).

However, more recent studies have attempted to examine possible moderators of these relationships, such as organisational participation and communication (e.g. Vander Elst, Baillien, De Cuyper, & De Witte, 2010) and personality characteristics (e.g. Näswall, Sverke, & Hellgren, 2005). These moderators are important in view of identifying ways to buffer potential costs associated with job insecurity.

Against this background, the present study’s aims are to place job insecurity research in an African context, in particular South Africa, and to add to the search for potential moderators by investigating the buffering role of positive affect in the job insecurity–outcome relationship. The context of South Africa is interesting because only few studies on job insecurity have been conducted in this country (Botha & Pienaar, 2006), and it would be a claim too far to generalise Western studies to the African context. Moreover, it seems important to look for possible buffers of job insecurity outcomes, especially in this context, because of the relatively high unemployment rate and the lack of a solid social security system as a financial safety net in case of job loss (Bosman, 2005; National Planning Commission, n.d.).

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES Job insecurity is defined as the worker’s overall concern for the continued existence of the future job or as the worker’s perception of potential involuntary job loss (De Witte, 1999; Sverke & Hellgren, 2002). It has been portrayed as one of the most important stressors in contemporary work life, with detrimental effects on employees’ work-related functioning (for overviews, see Cheng & Chan, 2008; Sverke, Hellgren, & Näswall, 2002). Several theoretical explanations have been proposed for these aversive consequences (for an overview, see De Witte, 2005). Job insecurity may invoke feelings of powerlessness or perceived lack of control, resulting in impaired work-related well-being (Vander Elst, De Cuyper, & De Witte, 2011). Furthermore, feelings of job insecurity may be experienced as a breach of the relational psychological contract: Job insecurity may violate employees’ expectations for security in exchange for loyalty (De Cuyper & De Witte, 2007). Finally, job insecurity is said to be harmful because it compromises the different functions that can be fulfilled by work, such as social contacts outside the family and time structuring (De Witte, 1999; Jahoda, 1982). © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: An International Review © 2012 International Association of Applied Psychology.

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Most studies on the outcomes of job insecurity established a positive relationship between job insecurity and strain-related outcomes, such as ill-health and psychological distress (e.g. D’Souza, Strazdins, Lim, Broom, & Rodgers, 2003; Ferrie, Shipley, Marmot, Martkainen, Stansfeld, & Smith, 2001). Psychological distress may involve somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction, and severe depression (Goldberg & Hillier, 1979). Furthermore, studies have also demonstrated the negative relationship between job insecurity and more positive outcomes, such as work engagement (e.g. Mauno, Kinnunen, & Ruokolainen, 2007; Vander Elst et al., 2010). Work engagement refers to a positive fulfilling, work-related state of mind, which is characterised by vigour, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli & Salanova, 2006). In keeping with this evidence, we hypothesise: Hypothesis 1: Job insecurity relates negatively to work engagement.

Hypothesis 2: Job insecurity relates positively to psychological distress (i.e. somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction and severe depression).

Given the detrimental consequences of job insecurity for employees, it is crucial to gain understanding of the possibilities to buffer the costs associated with job insecurity, in terms of reduced work engagement and psychological distress. We propose positive affect as one such possible mechanism. In this study positive affect is defined as general happiness and encompasses general positive feelings and beliefs (e.g. Kammann & Flett, 1983). The moderating role of positive affect in the relationship between job insecurity and its outcomes can be predicted based on the Conservation of Resources theory (COR; Hobfoll, 2001; Botha & Pienaar, 2006): Hobfoll’s (1989) COR suggests that people strive to obtain and protect valued resources and minimise any threats of resource loss. COR’s protection mechanism is activated when people face situations that threaten personal or social resources (e.g. job insecurity), which may lead them to invest other resources (e.g. positive affect) to counter the resource loss. COR states that persons with high resources are better able to proactively cope with stressful situations making them less vulnerable for the aversive consequences of stressors. For this reason, workers scoring high on positive affect may suffer less from the aversive consequences of job insecurity. Indeed, following appraisal theories (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), positive affect encourages people to perceive a situation as challenging, and find it easier to cope with difficult situations, such as job insecurity.

Few studies have included positive affect as a moderator in the relationship between job insecurity and employees’ work-related functioning. The studies that exist focus on positive affectivity, but do not establish a significant interaction between job insecurity and positive affectivity in relation to © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: An International Review © 2012 International Association of Applied Psychology.

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psychological and physical strain (Mak & Mueller, 2000; Näswall et al., 2005). The moderation of the relationship between job insecurity and work engagement by positive affect has not, to our knowledge, been so far investigated. Based on the presented theoretical arguments, we hypothesise: Hypothesis 3: Job insecurity and positive affect interact, so that the relationship between job insecurity and work engagement is less negative under the condition of high versus low positive affect.

Hypothesis 4: Job insecurity and positive affect interact, so that the relationship between job insecurity and psychological distress is less positive under the condition of high versus low positive affect.

METHOD

Respondents Two hundred and ninety-six workers (out of 500 workers who were invited to participate; giving a response rate of 59%) of a public organisation in Gauteng (South Africa) were invited to complete the survey in Afrikaans.1 The organisation’s main activities concern architectural and engineering activities and public administration. The organisation went through a period of restructuring, creating an objectively uncertain work situation for the employees regarding their future work prospects.

Forty-nine per cent of the workers were male. Sixty-two per cent of the participants were Africans, 19 per cent were white South Africans, and 11 per cent were from the “other” category, including Indian and coloured participants (8% did not provide information regarding cultural group). Nine per cent of the respondents were younger than 24 years, 35 per cent were between 25 and 35 years, 23 per cent between 36 and 45 years, 16 per cent between 46 and 55 years, and 6 per cent were 56 years or older (11% did not provide age information). Almost half of the respondents (47%) had an educational grade between 10 and 12 (i.e. the first and the last year of the “further education and training” (FET) phase, respectively; FET being the final phase of secondary education), 26 per cent had a higher, 19 per cent an academic and 8 per cent a postgraduate degree. Sixteen per cent of the respondents had worked for the organisation less than 1 year, 25 per cent between 2 and 5 years, 23 per cent between 6 and 10 years, 20 per cent between 11 and 20 years, and 13 per cent had worked longer than 20 years (3% did not provide tenure information).

1 The translation of the questionnaire from English to Afrikaans and from Afrikaans to English (i.e. back-translation) was done by two bilingual people, after which the Afrikaans translation was language edited.

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Measures All research variables were measured with internationally validated scales.

Table 1 presents descriptives and intercorrelations. All scales showed sufficient internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients > .70 for existing scales; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).

Job insecurity was measured with 10 items of the Job Insecurity Questionnaire (JIQ; De Witte, 2000) on a 5-point scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). A sample item is “I fear that I might lose my job”.

Work engagement was measured with the 17-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002) on a 7-point frequency scale ranging from 0 (never) to 6 (daily). The UWES contains items concerning vigour (six items; e.g. “I am bursting with energy in my work”), dedication (five items; e.g. “I find my work full of meaning and purpose”), and absorption (six items; e.g. “When I am working, I forget everything around me”). All items were aggregated into one engagement scale (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003; Sonnentag, 2003).

Psychological distress was measured with the 28-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28; Goldberg & Hillier, 1979) on a 4-point scale (0 = not at all; 3 = much more than usual). The scores of the items were recoded into dichotomous scores (0 = not at all & no more than usual; 1 = rather more than usual & much more than usual), and then aggregated into four continuous subscales,2 as suggested by Goldberg and Hillier (1979): TABLE 1 Descriptives and Intercorrelations of Job Insecurity, Work Engagement, Somatic Symptoms, Anxiety and Insomnia, Social Dysfunction, Severe Depression, and Positive Affect

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Job insecurity Work engagement Somatic symptoms Anxiety and insomnia Social dysfunction Severe depression Positive affect

Scale

M

1–5 0–6 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 1–5

2.67 3.84 0.29 0.35 0.27 0.25 3.57

SD

1

0.73 (.82) 1.38 -.36 0.28 .41 0.39 .32 0.29 .44 0.29 .37 0.72 -.34

2

3

4

5

6

7

(.94) -.46 (.70) -.40 .59 (.74) -.50 .59 .59 (.75) -.48 .60 .58 .67 (.80) .48 -.45 -.36 -.42 -.43 (.79)

Note: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients are shown in parentheses. All correlations were significant at p < .001, two-tailed.

2 The items “Felt that you are ill”, “Been getting panicky or scared for no reason”, and “Been taking longer over the things you do” were found to be problematic and were removed from further analyses.

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somatic symptoms (e.g. “Felt that you are ill?”), anxiety and insomnia (e.g.

“Lost much sleep over worry?”), social dysfunction (e.g. “Been managing to keep yourself busy and occupied?”), and severe depression (e.g. “Felt that life is entirely hopeless?”).

Positive affect was measured with a 10-item subscale of the Affectometer 2 (AFM 2; Kammann & Flett, 1983). The Affectometer 2 is a scale that assesses general happiness. Previous South African research has shown that the subscale acted as a psychological resource and proved to be a reliable and valid measurement (Botha & Pienaar, 2006). The respondents were asked to indicate how often they felt affective experiences during the past few weeks, on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (all the time). A sample item is “I have been smiling and laughing a lot”.

Control variables: Cultural group (1 = white South African; 0 = other), gender (1 = male; 0 = female), age (in years), education (1 = higher degree; 0 = grade 10 to 12), and tenure (in years) were controlled for in conducting the statistical analyses.

RESULTS Hierarchical regression analyses were used for work engagement and psychological distress separately. In the first step, we introduced the control variables. In the second step, job insecurity and positive affect were introduced, and the interaction term was added in the third step. The predictor variables (i.e. job insecurity and positive affect) were standardised before calculating the interaction term (Aiken & West, 1991). We investigated the direction of the significant interaction effects by calculating simple slopes for different scores on the standardised positive affect scale (i.e. 1 SD below the mean and 1 SD above the mean).

The results in Table 2 show that job insecurity was negatively related to work engagement (H1) and positively related to somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction, and severe depression (H2). Furthermore, the interaction between job insecurity and positive affect proved to be significant for work engagement (H3) and psychological distress (H4). The direction of the interaction was in line with our expectations: for example, the negative association between job insecurity and work engagement was less strong when positive affect was high (+1 SD; b = -.27, ns) versus low (-1 SD; b = -.57, p < .001) (Figure 1). The other interactions followed a similar pattern (e.g. see Figure 2 for somatic symptoms): The positive association between job insecurity and psychological distress was less strong when positive affect was high (+1 SD) versus low (-1 SD); b = .07, p = .018 versus b = .16, p < .001 for somatic symptoms; b = .08, p = .017 versus b = .19, p < .001 for anxiety and insomnia; b = .10, p = .001 versus b = .17, p < .001 for social dysfunction; b = .05, ns versus b = .14, p < .001 for severe depression. © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: An International Review © 2012 International Association of Applied Psychology.

a

-.03 .04 .10 .03 -.21** .42*** .12*

-.04 .02 .10 .03 -.20** .41***

.26***

.01 .04 .08 -.04

.01

.04

.28***

.05 -.16* .11 .15 .31*** -.35***

-.03

-.02 .01 -.18* .13 .22*

Step 2

Step 1

.04*** .35*** 13.57 (8, 198)

.04 -.18** .11 .14 .31*** -.36*** -.19**

-.02

Step 3

Somatic symptoms

.03

.03 -.11 .12 .09

.11

Step 1

.19***

.06 -.09 .10 .03 .25*** -.29***

.09

Step 2

.02* .24*** 7.70 (8, 195)

.05 -.11 .09 .02 .26*** -.30*** -.15*

.10

Step 3

Anxiety and insomnia

Dummies: The reference groups are African and other groups, female workers, and grade 10 to 12, respectively.

.02* .29*** 9.59 (8, 191)

.00

.01

.00

Step 3

Step 2

Step 1

* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

Note:

White South Africana Malea Age Higher educationa Tenure Job insecurity Positive affect Job insecurity * Positive affect D R2 Adj. R2 F-value df

Predictor

Work engagement

.02

-.03 -.08 .04 .00

.11

Step 1

.25***

.01 -.07 .02 .00 .32*** -.30***

.10

Step 2

.02* .29*** 10.15 (8, 199)

.00 -.08 .02 -.01 .32*** -.31*** -.13*

.10

Step 3

Social dysfunction

.03

-.05 -.09 .04 .21*

.03

Step 1

.21***

-.01 -.07 .02 .13 .24*** -.32***

.02

Step 2

.02* .26*** 8.58 (8, 195)

-.02 -.08 .01 .12 .25*** -.33*** -.15*

.03

Step 3

Severe depression

TABLE 2 Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analyses: Moderation by Positive Affect (Standardised Regression Coefficients)

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Positive affect Positive affectlow low Positive affect high

Work engagement

4,5

4

3,5

3

2,5

2 low

high Job insecurity

FIGURE 1. Interaction between job insecurity and positive affect on work engagement.

DISCUSSION In this study we showed that, in a sample of South African workers, job insecurity was related to reduced work engagement and increased psychological distress. This corroborates our reasoning that even in non-Western countries such as South Africa job insecurity is a work stressor having aversive consequences for employees’ functioning (cf. Cheng & Chan, 2008; Sverke et al., 2002). In addition, positive affect turned out to buffer the negative outcomes associated with job insecurity (i.e. reduced work engagement and increased psychological distress). These findings align with insights from COR (Hobfoll, 2001) and appraisal theories (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984): Positive affect can be considered a psychological resource that mitigates the negative outcomes associated with the stressor job insecurity, as it may stimulate proactive coping with job insecurity.

In practice, one could counteract the negative consequences of job insecurity by stimulating employees’ positive affective experiences at work (Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009). This may be done, for example, by fostering social interaction and support by colleagues and managers (Watson, 2002), by clearly outlining the organisational and job-related goals that give a sense of © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: An International Review © 2012 International Association of Applied Psychology.

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VANDER ELST ET AL. 0,6

Positive affect Positive affectlow low Positive affect high

Somatic Somaticsymptoms symptoms

0,5

0,4

0,3

0,2

0,1

0 low

high Job insecurity

FIGURE 2. Interaction between job insecurity and positive affect on somatic symptoms.

meaning at the workplace (Watson, 2002), and by fair treatment of the employees (Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009; Stouten & Tripp, 2009).

This study is one of the first South African studies on job insecurity that has investigated a possible buffer of the job insecurity–outcome relationship.

Given the overall precarious work situation in South Africa (e.g. high unemployment rate, lack of a solid social security system), it would be highly desirable to further this path of research by searching for other psychological resources that may mitigate the aversive job insecurity outcomes for workers’ functioning (see Hobfoll, 2001, for examples of COR resources). In this respect, Probst (2008) called especially for a search for organisational-level moderators, such as organisational participation, as these are changeable and thus may facilitate preventive interventions at the workplace.

As any study, this study also has some limitations. First, the sample was not representative of the South African working population, as it did not include, for example, workers from the private sector and South African provinces other than Gauteng. Although this research is among the first to study the hypothesised relations in the South African context, future research is needed to further explore the generalisability of our findings. Second, all © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: An International Review © 2012 International Association of Applied Psychology.

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data were based on self-reports, which may cause inflated relationships owing to common method variance. However, specifically when testing interactions, common method variance is likely to attenuate rather than to strengthen interaction effects (Conway & Briner, 2002), meaning that the interactions found may be quite robust. Finally, we relied on cross-sectional data, meaning that we cannot make causal inferences. Our hypotheses, however, align with general theoretical frameworks and with earlier empirical findings (e.g. Hellgren & Sverke, 2003).

CONCLUSION This study has contributed to the literature in two distinct ways: First, it responded to earlier calls to test hypotheses in samples with workers from non-European, non-US countries; in particular, we showed that job insecurity is a topical issue also in South Africa. Second, we proposed positive affect as a psychological resource that may help employees in dealing with feelings of job insecurity and therefore may mitigate the aversive outcomes associated with job insecurity.

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