Job Insecurity as a Predictor of Job Satisfaction – Mediating Effect of Organizational Justice
Abstract
This paper discusses the effects of ubiquitous job insecurity on job satisfaction. This relationship is seen through the role of organizational justice. Therefore, the mediating effect that organizational justice has on the relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction was examined. The sample consisted of 306 employed persons with an average length of service of 17 years and 6 months. A statistical method of parallel mediation was used. The results showed that all four cases of organizational justice measurement have a mediating effect. The greatest effect is in the case of interpersonal and informational justice. These two factors of organizational justice relate to interpersonal relationships and communication between management and employees, as well as employees with each other, i.e. availability, timeliness, completeness, and transparency in the placement of information within the organization. One of the explanations for this finding is the need of people who find themselves in uncertain situations to communicate and seek information about their position. Distributive and procedural justice are also statistically significant mediators. The results of the research show that organizational justice is an important factor in reducing the negative effects of job security on job satisfaction.
References
Ђорђевић, Б., Петковић, М. и Ђукић, С. (2018). Организациона правда: средство за управљање преосталим запосленима у процесу смањења предузећа. Tеме, XLII, 143–163. https://doi.org/10.22190/teme1801143d
Ahmad Dar, M. (2020). Organizational justice: The transpiring journey from relative deprivation to integrative justice. The IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, XIX(1), 23–42.
Al-Douri, Z. (2020). Organizational justice and its impact on job satisfaction: Evidence from transportation industry. Management Science Letters, 10(2), 351–360.
Ali, S. A. M., Said, N. A., Abd Kader, S. F., Ab Latif, D. S., & Munap, R. (2014). Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model to job satisfaction. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 129, 46–52.
Anderson, C. J., & Ponttuson, J. (2007). Workers, worries and welfare states: Social protection and job insecurity in 15 OECD countries. European Journal of Political Research, 46(2), 211–235. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2007.00692.x
Berenbaum, H., Bredemeier, K., & Thompson, R. J. (2008). Intolerance of uncertainty: Exploring its dimensionality and associations with need for cognitive closure, psychopathology, and personality. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22(1), 117–125.
Bothma, C. F. C., & Roodt, G. (2013). The validation of the turnover intention scale. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(1), а507. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajhrm.v11i1.507
Brahmannanda, S., & Dewi, I. G. A. M. (2020). Work insecurity and compensation on turnover intention mediated by the job satisfaction of employees. International Research Journal of Management, IT and Social Sciences, 7(5), 89–98.
Çalışkan, N., & Özkoç, A. (2020). Organizational change and job insecurity: The moderating role of employability. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 32, 3971–3990. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-05-2020-0387
Chung, H., & van Oorschot, W. (2011). Institutions versus market forces: Explaining the employment insecurity of European individuals during (the beginning of) the financial crisis. Journal of European Social Policy, 21(4), 287–301. https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928711412224
Cohen-Charash, Y., & Spector, P. E. (2001). The role of justice in organizations: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86(2), 278–321. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.2001.2958
Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 386–400. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.386
Cottini, E., & Ghinetti, P. (2018). Employment insecurity and employees’ health in Denmark. Health Economics, 27(2), 426–439. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3580
Cropanzano, R., Bowen, D. E., & Gilliland, S. W. (2007). The management of organizational justice. Academy of Management Perspectives, 21(4), 24–48. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMP.2007.277895338
De Witte, H. (2005). Job insecurity: Review of the international literature on definitions, prevalence, antecedents and consequences. Journal of Industrial Psychology, 31(4), 1–6.
Ellonen, N., & Nätti, J. (2015). Job insecurity and the unemployment rate: Micro- and macro-level predictors of perceived job insecurity among Finnish employees 1984–2008. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 36(1), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X13495720
Gallie, D., Felstead, A., Green, F., & Inanc, H. (2017). The hidden face of job insecurity. Work, Employment and Society, 31(1), 36–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017015624399
Gori, A., Topino, E., Palazzeschi, L., & Di Fabio, A. (2020). How can organizational justice contribute to job satisfaction? A chained mediation model. Sustainability, 12(19), 7902. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12197902
Greenberg, J. (1994). Using socially fair treatment to promote acceptance of a work site smoking ban. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(2), 288–297. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.79.2.288
Hayes, A. F. (2012). PROCESS: A Versatile Computational Tool for Observed Variable Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Modeling 1. http://www.afhayes.com
Helbling, L., & Kanji, S. (2018). Job insecurity: Differential effects of subjective and objective measures on life satisfaction trajectories of workers aged 27–30 in Germany. Social Indicators Research, 137(3), 1145–1162. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1635-z
Hochwarter, W. A., Ferris, G. R., Perrewé, P. L., Witt, L. A., & Kiewitz, C. (2001). A note on the nonlinearity of the age‐job‐satisfaction relationship. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31(6), 1223–1237.
Holzwarth, S., Gunnesch-Luca, G., Soucek, R., & Moser, K. (2020). How communication in organizations is related to foci of commitment and turnover intentions. Journal of Personnel Psychology, 20(1), 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1027/1866-5888/a000261
Ignjatović, M. (2022). Zadovoljstvo poslom i organizaciona pravda kao prediktori namere za napuštanje organizacije kod zaposlenih u privatnom sektoru (odbranjen master rad). Filozofski fakultet, Niš.
Ilić-Koderman, Đ. (2021). Organizational commitment of employees as a result of job satisfaction. Trendovi u poslovanju, 9 (1), 16–24. https://doi.org/10.5937/trendpos2101017i
Jaśko, K., Czernatowicz-Kukuczka, A., Kossowska, M., & Czarna, A. Z. (2015). Individual differences in response to uncertainty and decision making: The role of behavioral inhibition system and need for closure. Motivation and Emotion, 39, 541–552. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9478-x
Judge, T. A., Zhang, S. C., & Glerum, D. R. (2020). Job satisfaction. In: V. Sessa & N. Bowling (Eds.), Essentials of Job Attitudes and Other Workplace Psychological Constructs (pp. 207–241). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429325755
Lebert, F., & Antal, E. (2016). Reducing employment insecurity: Further training and the role of the family context. SAGE Open, 6(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016671769
Locke, E. A. (1969). What is job satisfaction? Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4(4), 309–336. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(69)90013-0
Martins, H., & Proença, T. (2012). Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire—Psychometric properties and validation in a population of Portuguese hospital workers. Investigação e Intervenção Em Recursos Humanos, 471(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.26537/iirh.v0i3.1825
Mauri, C. (2019). Formulating the academic precariat. In: F. Cannizzo & N. Osbaldiston (Eds.), The Social Structures of Global Academia (pp. 185–204). Routledge.
Mirković, B. (2015). Psihometrijska provjera i validacija skale organizacijske pravde na srpskom uzorku. Primenjena psihologija, 7 (4), 599–619. https://doi.org/10.19090/pp.2014.4.599-619
Mirković, B. (2016). Socio-psihološki činioci odgovornog organizacionog ponašanja (odbranjena doktorska disertacija). Filozofski fakultet, Niš.
Nemteanu, M.-S., Dinu, V., & Dabija, D.-C. (2021). Job insecurity, job instability, and job satisfaction in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Competitiveness, 13(2), 65–82. https://doi.org/10.7441/joc.2021.02.04
Purnama, Y. H., Tjahjono, H. K., Assery, S., & Dzakiyullah, N. R. (2020). The relationship of organizational justice on job satisfaction and job performance in banking company. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research, 9(3), 4012–4015.
Reisel, W. D., Probst, T. M., Chia, S.-L., Maloles, C. M., & König, C. J. (2010). The effects of job insecurity on job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, deviant behavior, and negative emotions of employees. International Studies of Management & Organization, 40(1), 74–91. https://doi.org/10.2753/IMO0020-8825400105
Shoss, M. K. (2017). Job insecurity: An integrative review and agenda for future research. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1911–1939. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206317691574
Silbereisen, R. K., Pinquart, M., Reitzle, M., Tomasik, M. J., Fabel, K., & Grümer, S. (2006). Psychosocial resources and coping with social change. SFB 580 Mitteilungen, 19. Jena, DE: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität.
Simić, I. (2013). Koncepti građanskog ponašanja i organizacione pravde u savremenoj nauci o organizaciji. Teme, 37 (1), 223–240.
Standing, G. (2011). The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Bloomsbury Academic.
Standing, G. (2018). The precariat: Today’s transformative class?. Development, 61, 115–121.
Tayfur Ekmekci, O., Bayhan Karapinar, P., Metin Camgoz, S., Ozsoy Ozmen, A., & Kumbul Guler, B. (2021). Academics’ responses to job insecurity: The mediating effect of job satisfaction. Higher Education Policy, 34(1), 218–237.
Taylor, G. (2015). Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model. Teaching Business & Economics, 19(2), 7.
Tyler, T., & Blader, S. (2003). The group engagement model: Procedural justice, social identity, and cooperative behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 7(4), 349–361. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0704_07
Weiss, D. J., Dawis, R. V., & England, G. W. (1967). Manual for the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire. Minnesota Studies in Vocational Rehabilitation, 22, 120.
Widyanti, R., Irhamni, G., & Silvia Ratna, B. (2020). Organizational justice and organizational pride to achieve job satisfaction and job performance. Journal of Southwest Jiaotong University, 55(3), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.35741/issn.0258-2724.55.3.47
Zheng, X., Diaz, I., Tang, N., & Tang, K. (2014). Job insecurity and job satisfaction: The interactively moderating effects of optimism and person-supervisor deep-level similarity. Career Development International, 19(4), 426–446. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-10-2013-0121
The details about the publication policy, including copyright and licensing, are available at: