Employability and job insecuritysupporting individuals to achieve career success in the whitewater work environment

Resumen

The rapid pace of today's 4th industrial revolution, together with economic instability and global competitiveness, have resulted in pervasive organizational changes and increasing job insecurity. Recognizing that job insecurity will continue to intensify in years to come, this research, through three studies, aims to update the role of employability on subjective career success in the contemporary world of work, and to uncover conditions that can prompt performance when experiencing job insecurity. Study 1 have demonstrated that employability is still a relevant concept in today's labor market despite the rising attention on career adaptability and that employability and career adaptability share a satisfactory amount of commonality when predicting subjective career success. Study 1 further demonstrated that employability might have a larger role because its predictive role is more dependable than career adaptability. Study 2 demonstrated that the moderation model is more relevant in describing the role of employability and job insecurity in predicting subjective career success in the harsh labor condition while the mediation is more relevant in normal labor condition. Lastly, Study 3 demonstrated that employees might attempt to secure their job by increasing their performance when they realize that their ordinary performance or the lack of organizational fairness may put them at great risk of losing their job. Although the result reflected a positive relationship between job insecurity and job performance, Study 3 did not clearly indicate that job insecurity could prompt performance when performance is instrumental in securing one’s job. Instead, Study 3 seemed to have uncovered conditions that can plausibly facilitate impression management. This research highlighted an opportunity to merge and refine employability and career adaptability into a single more parsimonious construct. It also highlighted the need to present the macroeconomic context from which data are drawn when conducting research, such that consumers of science can be informed and hence, make the appropriate inferences and application. In addition, the research added some evidence to the minority view that showed that job insecurity could lead to an increase in job performance. Practical implications include the possibility to apply the merged concept in employability training, hence developing employability and career adaptability resources simultaneously. It also underscored the importance and benefits of developing employability regardless of labor conditions. Organizations too, are encouraged to invest in the continual development of employees' employability to reap the dual benefits of employability. Organizations are also advised to be more visible on their organizational practices and be careful of possible impression management tactics in the form of enhanced performance when making human resource decisions in times of organizational change.