Survivors of layoffs : attitudes and behaviors of employees

Previous research have shown that survivors of layoffs are affected by so-called survivor syndrome, meaning negative feelings in the form of job insecurity, decreased morale, guilt, less job satisfaction and even envy towards the laid off employees. The objective of this thesis is to explore how survivors of layoffs in Icelandic companies have experienced these feelings mentioned above in the wake of the economic crisis in 2008. Many companies have had to resort to group layoffs in the past four years and this research focuses on the time that has elapsed since then. Participants were gathered together with the use of the social network page Facebook and people were asked to participate independent of their current employment status. Participants were divided into three groups dependent on their previous experience with layoffs, namely survivors, victims and those having no experience with layoffs. Comparison was then done between these groups to get better feeling for the survivors’ perspectives on the research topic. The results do not indicate that survivors of Icelandic companies are experiencing any of the researched factors of the survivor syndrome. The research did on the contrary reveal that the victims are experiencing more negative feelings after layoffs than the survivors. There were also some differences found between men and women in relation to how they see their position in the labor market. Furthermore, do the findings in this research contribute to the already researched topics of similar fields in Iceland.

Author dc:creator

• Sigurbjörg Gunnarsdóttir 1978-

Contributors dc:contributor

• Háskólinn í Reykjavík

• Alþjóðaviðskipti
• Starfsfólk
• Uppsagnir
• Meistaraprófsritgerðir
• Downsizing of organizations
• Employees Dismissal of
• Survivors
• International business

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1946/16920

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:skemman.is:1946/16920