This study investigates how individual- and group-level openness to organizational change, concerning change content and process, affects intervention outcomes. The intervention aimed to improve primary health care employees' competence in and use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Employees' (n = 1,042) ratings of their openness to the change content and process as well as of their workgroup's openness to the change content before the intervention were used to predict ICT competence and its use 18 months later. Openness to the change process predicted both ICT competence and use of competence, while openness to the change content and group openness predicted use of competence only. These results show that individual- and group-level openness to organizational change are important predictors of successful outcomes. Furthermore, employees should be open both to the content of the change and to the process by which the intervention is implemented in order to maximize outcomes.

Despite an overall agreement on the negative effects of job insecurity, more knowledge needs to be generated addressing the mechanisms of why and for whom job insecurity has these negative effects. The present study aims to investigate the mechanisms of job insecurity on burnout by studying the intervening influences of performance-based self-esteem (PBSE), an individual’s self-esteem that is contingent on good performance. The participants were 13,185 twins from the Swedish Twin Registry. In order to test two potential mechanisms, PBSE was tested as a moderator as well as a mediator of the relation between job insecurity and burnout. The results showed that job insecurity was significantly associated with burnout. Moreover, PBSE slightly moderated this association; burnout increased more during job insecurity for individuals with high PBSE than for individuals with low PBSE. PBSE also partially mediated the association between job insecurity and burnout, in that experiences of job insecurity to some extent triggered PBSE, which in turn was related to burnout. It is suggested that the rather episodic character of job insecurity and its role-changing consequences contributed to the rather modest moderating and mediating effects of PBSE.

Despite agreement on the negative effects of job insecurity, more knowledge needs to be generated on the health effects in terms of burnout and depressive symptoms and for whom job insecurity has these negative effects. The present study aims to investigate the associations between job insecurity and burnout and depressive symptoms respectively, by studying the moderation influences of performance-based self-esteem (PBSE), a form of contingent self-esteem. A population-based sample with 4145 twins was used. The results showed that job insecurity was significantly associated with both burnout and depressive symptoms, and that PBSE acted as a moderator, so that the associations were stronger for individuals with high PBSE than for individuals with low PBSE. The study contributes by including a personality characteristic to gain more knowledge about the mechanisms of job insecurity on mental ill-health, and by illustrating that job insecurity has an impact on severe health outcomes in terms of burnout and depressive symptoms.

Anställningsotrygghet – en oro för att mot sin vilja förlora jobbet – är något som de flesta anställda idag upplever under sina yrkesliv. Den beteendevetenskapliga forskningen inom detta område har skjutit fart sedan millennieskiftet, vilket motiverar behovet av en uppdaterad litteraturöversikt. Översikten omfattar prediktorer och konsekvenser av anställningsotrygghet samt vilka faktorer som har identifierats som viktiga när det gäller att mildra anställningsotrygghetens konsekvenser.

Purpose: A rapidly growing body of literature has shown that perceptions of job insecurity are related to negative outcomes, but less is known about the relative importance of different societal contexts. It has for instance been argued that the consequences of job insecurity may be more negative in countries that have a high level of social protection, because of the social stigma of unemployment. On the other hand, the lack of unemployment insurance programs may aggravate the negative consequences. The aim of this meta-analysis was to investigate if work- and health-related consequences of job insecurity vary between cultural and welfare contexts.

Design/Methodology: A literature search with the search terms “job insecurity”, “job uncertainty”, “job security”, and “job security satisfaction” in Psycinfo, Web of Science, and EBSCO produced a sample of 523 peer-reviewed papers published between 1980 and July 2016. Economic and social development, national welfare system, and tolerance for ambiguity were tested as moderators in the relationship between job insecurity and outcomes.

Results: The results indicate that the magnitudes of effects of job insecurity differ depending on the choice of classification system.

Limitations: The literature search was limited to published, peer-reviewed papers. This demarcation may have introduced a publication bias to the study.

Research/Practical implications: In addition to being an important individual and organizational concern, job insecurity is also intimately linked with societal level factors.

Originality/Value: This study contributes to an increased understanding of the importance of macro-level factors in the association between job insecurity and outcomes.

The present report presents data collected within a project focusing on salaried employees, among whom we have witnessed profound changes both in the conditions under which work is carried out and in the reported frequencies of psychological health complaints. The aim has been to capture traditional and new demands that have previously not been the focus of empirical studies, as well as to investigate what factors related to attitudes, behavior, and well-being among salaried workers. The project has consisted in a longitudinal data collection among white-collar workers in four Swedish organizations. Documentation on the procedure, samples, and questionnaire items is presented in the present technical report, along with measurement properties and descriptive statistics at both time points for the scales used. The results indicate that the measures are for the most part satisfactory, and the report provides a solid basis for future research on the data collected in this project.

The present study focuses specifically on how change in job insecurity relates to change in mental health complaints. This is done using growth curve modelling, allowing for the analysis of both intra- and inter- individual variation. Data from a questionnaire study on 282 employees in a Swedish organisation, collected over four waves, is used. The results showed that there was inter-individual variation in initial levels of both job insecurity and mental health complaints, but that the growth trajectories did not vary significantly between individuals. In addition, it was found that higher job insecurity levels were related to higher levels of mental health complaints, but also that higher initial levels of mental health complaints were related to a larger increase in job insecurity over the course of the study, suggesting that the direction of the relationship may be the reverse to what has been identified in previous studies.

This thesis focuses on the relations between job insecurity and its consequences by addressing several specific research aims. The first research aim focused on expanding the range of job insecurity consequences by studying the relation between job insecurity and work–family conflict over time. In Study 3 it was found that job insecurity affected work–family conflict one year later among men.

The second research aim addressed mechanisms involved in the job insecurity–outcome relations, focusing on factors that might make employees more vulnerable to, or buffer against the negative effects of job insecurity. Coping styles were investigated as potential moderating factors in Study 1, where it was found that problem-focused coping did not function as a buffer, nor did devaluation or avoidance coping. Avoidance coping was actually a vulnerability factor for men, and related to more negative reactions to job insecurity in terms of well-being. Two forms of job dependence as potential moderating factors of the relations between job insecurity and its outcomes were investigated in Study 2. It was found that the relative contribution to the household income functioned as a vulnerability factor for men. Higher levels of work centrality combined with either quantitative or qualitative job insecurity were related to higher levels of job satisfaction among women. Finally, in Study 3, workload was investigated as a mediating variable of the relation between job insecurity and its outcomes, where workload linked job insecurity to work–family conflict one year later among men.

The third research aim of this thesis addressed gender, where differences between men and women were found in all three studies. Overall men seemed to suffer more from job insecurity. The results of the thesis confirm the negative impact of job insecurity, but also provide information regarding important areas for future research to study, such as the investigation of mechanisms and the role of gender.

Major changes on the labor market, the work-life and the work-force contribute to increased job insecurity. This is followed by major negative consequences for the individual and the company. As a consequence the employee is suffering from mental health and physical complaints. For the employer it has been found that job satisfaction as well as work involvement decrease. Other factors which lead to a lowered work performance such as work withdrawal behavior, absenteeism and work task avoidance have been associated with job insecurity.

In the past, few authors separated job insecurity in the two dimensions of qualitative and quantitative job insecurity, which express the worries about losing valued job features or the employment. There is also very little research done on the outcomes of those two dimensions.

This study using Swedish data aims to further investigate the consequences of qualitative and quantitative job insecurity. It is expected that the dimensions will be differently related to outcomes, and that they will have different outcomes to some extent. Relations to other outcomes such as work-family balance shall also be tested.

Job insecurity has become more relevant during the last decades as more flexibility from the workforce and organizations is demanded in the labour market. It has frequently been suggested that job insecurity is a more severe stressor for those who are more dependent on their job. The present study investigates the association between job insecurity and employee well-being by focusing on how employees' dependence on the job moderates this relationship. Two types of financial dependence (subjective financial dependence and relative contribution to the household income) were studied, along with an indicator of a more psychological dependence on work in general (work involvement). In addition to this, both quantitative and qualitative job insecurity were included. The proposed relations were tested in a sample of Swedish accountancy firm employees. The results of moderated hierarchical regression analyses showed that subjective financial dependence, household contribution, and work involvement moderated the relation between both job insecurity dimensions and job satisfaction. No moderations were found with mental well-being as an outcome. This implies that the extent to which someone depends on their job is important for how job insecurity relates to job satisfaction.

Job insecurity and work–family conflict are increasingly prevalent in contemporary working life and numerous studies have documented their antecedents and negative consequences. The present study used longitudinal questionnaire data collected among teachers in Sweden to test the direction of the relation between job insecurity and work–family conflict using cross-lagged modeling. Multiple-group comparisons were conducted to account for the skewed gender composition in the teachers’ group. After controlling for baseline levels of job insecurity, work–family conflict, and four potential confounders (age, children under 12 living at home, university education, and relationship status), we found that the reciprocal relationship between job insecurity and work–family conflict over a 1-year time period fitted the data best for the men. For women, however, only the auto regression coefficients were significant. The results provide some empirical support for gender differences in the relation between job insecurity and work–family conflict. Moreover, this study partially supports theoretical assumptions suggesting that job insecurity and work–family conflict influence each other.

Previous research on the consequences of job insecurity has for the most part focused on individual as well as organizational outcomes, but rarely considered potential family consequences. Based on longitudinal data from Swedish teachers, the present study tests the relation between job insecurity and work-family conflict. In addition, workload was introduced as a mediator in order to contribute to the understanding of the mechanism relating the two phenomena. Gender differences were taken into account when testing this relation. The results provided partial support for workload as a mediator of the effects of job insecurity on subsequent work-family conflict. However, these results were found only for men, indicating gender differences in how job insecurity relates to workload and work-family conflict.

Previous decades of research on work and organizational psychology revealed, that job insecurity is one of the most stable and important work stressors in the ever-changing environment of today’s work (Mauno, Leskinen et al., 2001). A recent European study showed that 13 % of the employees are worried about losing their job within the next 6 months (Parent-Thirion, Marcías et al., 2007). In addition, around 40% of employed parents report to experience a conflict between work and family at some time point (Galinsky, Bond, & Friedman, 1993). Those numbers give rise to the question if and how job insecurity is related to work-family conflict.

Previous research has documented that job insecurity is associated with major negative consequences for organizational attitudes and work-related behaviors (Sverke et al., 2002, Sverke et al., 2004). However, not much research has been done on family related consequences of job insecurity. Still, some empirical results can be found, but no conclusion regarding to the direction of the relationship can be drawn from these, as cross-sectional data was used in most cases.

Job insecurity has been cross-sectionally linked to work-family conflict as a potential predictor. Antecedents of work-family conflict are primarily job related, such as job demands including job insecurity (Westman, Etzion, & Danon, 2001; Wilson, Larson, & Stone, 1993). For example, Voydanoff (2004) suggested job insecurity, as a strain-based work demand, being a potential predictor of work-family conflict. One study showed that the wife’s psychological strain increases with the husband’s job insecurity (Barling & Mendelson, 1999). Parents’ job insecurity has been associated with their children’s lower grades at school (Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000) due to the parent’s negative mood and belief in an unjust world. Alternatively, work-family conflict can be an antecedent condition of job insecurity. Meta-analytical results associated negative work-related consequences with work-family conflict (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992; Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998).

Due to these inconclusive findings, this study aims to investigate the causal relations between job insecurity and work-family conflict using a longitudinal data set with a time lag of one year. Cross-lagged models were used to investigate the nature of the association. As one year of time lag is quiet long if we are talking about an effect from either job insecurity to work-family conflict or the other way round, we also considered testing a mediation model, with work load as a mediating factor between job insecurity and work-family conflict.

Our results indicate that there was a difference for men and women in the cross-lagged effects. While we did not find any effects from or to job insecurity by work-family conflict for women, we found that for men there was a small reciprocal effect between job insecurity and work-family conflict. Our mediation analysis indicated that work load functioned as a mediating factor between job insecurity and work-family conflict for men only.

OBJECTIVES: The three constructs of work-family conflict, emotional exhaustion and performance-based self-esteem are all related to tremendous negative consequences for the individual, the organization as well as for society. Even though there are studies that connect two of those constructs, the prospective relations between all three of them have not been studied yet.

METHODS: We explored the prospective relations between the three constructs in a large Swedish data set representative of the Swedish workforce. Gender differences in the relations were investigated. Longitudinal data with a 2-year time lag were gathered from 3,387 working men and women who responded to the 2006 and 2008 waves of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health. Four different cross-lagged models were analysed.

RESULTS: In the best fitting model, higher levels of work-family conflict at time 1 were associated with an increased level of performance-based self-esteem at time 2, but not with emotional exhaustion, after controlling for having children, gender, education and age. Also, relationships between emotional exhaustion at time 1 and work-family conflict and performance-based self-esteem at time 2 could be established. Furthermore, relationships between performance-based self-esteem time 1 and work-family conflict and emotional exhaustion time 2 were found. Multiple-group analysis did not show any differences in the relations of the tested constructs over time for either men or women.

CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the three constructs are interrelated and best understood through a reciprocal model. No differences were found between men and women.

Background: Leadership is a key feature in implementation efforts, which is highlighted in most implementation frameworks. However, in studying leadership and implementation, only few studies rely on established leadership theory, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions regarding what kinds of leadership managers should perform and under what circumstances. In industrial and organizational psychology, transformational leadership and contingent reward have been identified as effective leadership styles for facilitating change processes, and these styles map well onto the behaviors identified in implementation research. However, it has been questioned whether these general leadership styles are sufficient to foster specific results; it has therefore been suggested that the leadership should be specific to the domain of interest, e.g., implementation. To this end, an intervention specifically involving leadership, which we call implementation leadership, is developed and tested in this project. The aim of the intervention is to increase healthcare managers’ generic implementation leadership skills, which they can use for any implementation efforts in the future.

Methods/design: The intervention is conducted in healthcare in Stockholm County, Sweden, where first- and second-line managers were invited to participate. Two intervention groups are included, including 52 managers. Intervention group 1 consists of individual managers, and group 2 of managers from one division. A control group of 39 managers is additionally included. The intervention consists of five half-day workshops aiming at increasing the managers’ implementation leadership, which is the primary outcome of this intervention. The intervention will be evaluated through a mixed-methods approach. A pre- and post-design applying questionnaires at three time points (pre-, directly after the intervention, and 6 months post-intervention) will be used, in addition to process evaluation questionnaires related to each workshop. In addition, interviews will be conducted over time to evaluate the intervention.

Discussion: The proposed intervention represents a novel contribution to the implementation literature, being the first to focus on strengthening healthcare managers’ generic skills in implementation leadership.

Employment conditions and psychosocial factors have been linked to various health-related outcomes in different occupational groups, but few studies focus on the conditions in academia. This study explores the effects of effort, reward, and their interaction to explain health-related outcomes, namely burnout, self-rated health, and work-family conflict among academic faculty in Sweden. We also explore these effects among those with permanent and fixed-term employment contracts. Questionnaire data, collected online in 2016, came from 2335 employees (57% women) with a doctoral degree, working at a Swedish higher education institution. Latent moderation analysis combined with multi-group analysis was conducted. Main effects of effort were found for all health-related outcomes revealing that effort was associated with higher burnout, poorer self-rated health, and greater work-family conflict. Reward was negatively associated with burnout and self-rated health revealing that reward reduced burnout and improved self-rated health. The interaction between effort and reward was significantly associated with all outcomes among permanent contract employees, but was non-significant among those with fixed-term contracts. This may suggest that fixed-term faculty are less affected by the presence or lack of reward. Overall, the findings emphasize the importance of the psychosocial work environment to understand health-related consequences for permanent and fixed-term faculty with a doctoral degree.

Quantitative job insecurity, relating to threat of job loss, has received considerable research attention, but relatively little is known about qualitative job insecurity. The latter relates to uncertainty regarding valued job characteristics, such as career and wage progression. The aim of this study was to investigate whether situational appraisals of control may account for the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and both job strain (depressive symptoms and upper musculoskeletal complaints) and psychological withdrawal (affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions). The hypotheses were tested by means of two-wave longitudinal data (time lag of 14 months) from 722 Swedish white-collar workers in four samples. The results of cross-lagged structural equation modelling showed that qualitative job insecurity was negatively related to subsequent perceived control. Furthermore, perceptions of high control over the job situation were associated with decreased depressive symptoms and increased affective organizational commitment over time. Formal tests pointed at a significant indirect effect of qualitative job insecurity on affective organizational commitment through perceived control. No effects of perceived control on upper musculoskeletal complaints and turnover intentions were found. This study indicates the importance of qualitative job insecurity for employees' functioning and highlights perceived control as an explanation of job insecurity outcomes.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether situational appraisals of control may account for the relationship between qualitative job insecurity (i.e. insecurity about valued job characteristics) and both job strain (depressive symptoms and upper musculoskeletal complaints) and psychological withdrawal (affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions). This prediction is based on the appraisal theory of Lazarus and Folkman. 

Two-wave longitudinal data (with a time lag of approximately 14 months) of 722 Swedish white-collar workers were used to test the hypotheses. The hypotheses were tested following a two-step procedure advanced by Cole and Maxwell (2003). Firstly, the results of cross-lagged structural equation modeling showed that qualitative job insecurity was negatively related to subsequent perceived control. Secondly, perceptions of control over the job situation were associated with decreased depressive symptoms and increased affective organizational commitment one year later. Formal tests pointed at a significant indirect effect of qualitative job insecurity on affective organizational commitment through perceived control. 

Finally, no cross-lagged relationships were found between perceived control and the outcomes of upper musculoskeletal complaints and turnover intentions. This study contributes to the search for theoretical explanations of the negative consequences of job insecurity for employees’ functioning.

Study Objectives: There is limited knowledge about the prospective relationship between major work characteristics (psychosocial, physical, scheduling) and disturbed sleep. The current study sought to provide such knowledge. Design: Prospective cohort, with measurements on two occasions (T1 and T2) separated by two years. Setting: Naturalistic study, Sweden. Participants: There were 4,827 participants forming a representative sample of the working population. Measurements and Results: Questionnaire data on work factors obtained on two occasions were analyzed with structural equation modeling. Competing models were compared in order to investigate temporal relationships. A reciprocal model was found to fit the data best. Sleep disturbances at T2 were predicted by higher work demands at T1 and by lower perceived stress at T1. In addition, sleep disturbances at T1 predicted subsequent higher perception of stress, higher work demands, lower degree of control, and less social support at work at T2. A cross-sectional mediation analysis showed that (higher) perceived stress mediated the relationship between (higher) work demands and sleep disturbances; however, no such association was found longitudinally. Conclusions: Higher work demands predicted disturbed sleep, whereas physical work characteristics, shift work, and overtime did not. In addition, disturbed sleep predicted subsequent higher work demands, perceived stress, less social support, and lower degree of control. The results suggest that remedial interventions against sleep disturbances should focus on psychosocial factors, and that such remedial interventions may improve the psychosocial work situation in the long run.