Construct breach and outcomes : the role of job insecurity

Abstract

In the last 25 years or so the employment relationship has evolved dramatically and employment deals have become more individualized. In order to capture the type of evolving relationship between employer and employee the term "Psychological Contract" has been introduced. The PC refers to the perceived beliefs of the set of obligations between employer and employee. Further more these changes have brought forward a series of other relevant variables, such as job insecurity. The study is based on previous study conducted by De Cuyper and De Witte (2006). In this particular study it will be hypothesized that perceptions of job insecurity will moderate the relationship between the PC (Transactional vs. Relational). It is suggested that employees with a relational contract will score significantly different on outcomes when perceiving job insecurity than those with a transactional contract. Also, it is suggested that people will score differently on outcomes depending on the type of employment relationship. The study investigated this premise using a survey design amongst a moderately large sample (N= 100) of full time employees who have been in their organization for one year. To compute the results ANOVA's were used to find the interactions between low/high contract type and low/high job insecurity differences. It was found that there was no significance when these two are tested together but when tested independently of each other there was a certain degree of significance. For the second research question an independent T-test sample was conducted and it was found that only organizational commitment showed significance with the transactional employees scoring high.