Supervisor-focused impression management and social undermining as self-enhancing responses to perceived job insecurity

Job insecurity has become a more prevalent and harmful issue across many advanced economies. The present study was designed to investigate two ways in which employees may respond to perceived job insecurity. We hypothesized that employees experiencing job insecurity engage in impression management tactics directed at their supervisor (SFIM) or social undermining tactics directed at their coworkers. We further hypothesized that these processes or effects were moderated by employees’ core self-evaluations (CSE). Data were gathered through targeted sampling to workers in the federal government (Sample 1, N = 91), as well as convenience sampling (Sample 2, N = 146). Results from hierarchical regression indicate that the type of job insecurity plays a role. In Sample 1, quantitative job insecurity positively predicted SFIM and negatively predicted social undermining, while qualitative job insecurity negatively predicted SFIM and positively predicted social undermining. We did not find support for the moderating effect of CSE.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Wiley, J. Luke

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cunningham, Christopher J. L.
• Deepak; Pratibha; Black, Kristen Jennings, 1991-
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Job security
• Self-evaluation
• Supervision of employees
• United States--Officials and employees--Attitudes

Licence

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/1069

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-2250