Cultural Values as Moderators of Employee Reactions to Job Insecurity: The Role of Individualism and Collectivism

TLDR: This paper explored the hypothesis that cultural values moderate employee reactions to job insecurity and found that employees with collectivist cultural values were more negatively affected by the perception of job insecurity than their individualist counterparts.

Abstract: Cette recherche part de l’hypothese que les valeurs culturelles sont l’un des determinants des reactions des salaries face a l’insecurite professionnelle. Dans la premiere investigation, les valeurs culturelles ont ete apprehendees au niveau de l’individu a partir des reponses de 141 salaries de diverses origines ethniques appartenant a une grande entreprise agro-alimentaire americaine qui reduisait ses effectifs. Les repondants ont rempli des questionnaires evaluant leurs valeurs culturelles, leur perception de la securite au travail, leurs attitudes professionnelles, leurs reactions affectives vis-a-vis de la reduction des effectifs et leur niveau de stress lie au travail. Les resultats ont montre que le sentiment d’insecurite professionnelle avait un impact generalement negatif sur les employes. Toutefois, les salaries presentant des valeurs culturelles communautaires ressentaient plus negativement que leurs homologues individualistes le sentiment d’insecurite professionnelle. Dans le second volet de la recherche, la culture a ete definie au niveau national. On a propose aux salaries de sept organisations, quatre chinoises et trois americaines, de remplir des questionnaires appreciant leurs reactions a leur perception de l’insecurite professionnelle. Il apparut que les Chinois (mentalite communautaire) reagissaient plus negativement que les Americains individualistes face a la menace constituee par l’insecurite professionnelle. Les resultats sont analyses a la lumiere du developpement de pratiques organisationnelles qui comprennent la reduction des effectifs et autres procedures qui impliquent une moindre stabilite des emplois. This research explored the hypothesis that cultural values moderate employee reactions to job insecurity. In the first study, cultural values were measured at an individual level of analysis based on responses from one hundred and forty-one ethnically diverse employees of a large US-based food-processing company undergoing a downsizing. Participants completed surveys assessing their cultural values, perceptions of job security, job attitudes, affective reactions to the downsizing, and job-related stress levels. Results indicated that the perception of job insecurity had a generally negative impact on employees. However, employees with collectivist cultural values were more negatively affected by the perception of job insecurity than their individualist counterparts. In the second study, culture was operationalised at the national level of analysis. Employees from seven organisations (four based in China; three based in the US) completed surveys assessing their reactions to perceived job insecurity. Results suggest that Chinese (i.e. collectivist) employees reacted more negatively to the threat of job insecurity than their US counterparts (i.e. individualist employees). These results are discussed in light of growing organisational trends that include the use of downsizing and other techniques that herald a decrease in job stability.