Preprint version. Later Published as Emotional intelligence as a moderator of emotional and
behavioral reactions to job insecurity in Academy of Management Review 2002, Vol. 27, No. 3,
361-372.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS A MODERATOR OF EMOTIONAL AND
BEHAVIORAL REACTIONS TO JOB INSECURITY
Peter J. Jordan
Griffith University
School of Management
Nathan, QLD, 4111, Australia.
Phone: 011-617-3875-3717
Fax: 011-617-3875- 3887
e-mail: Peter.Jordan@mailbox.gu.edu.au
Neal M. Ashkanasy
The University of Queensland Business School
School of Management
St.Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia
Phone:011-618-3365-7499
Fax:011-617-3365-6988
e-mail:N.Ashkanasy@gsm.uq.edu.au
Charmine E.J. Härtel
Monash University
Department of Management
Caufield East, Vic, 3145, Australia
Phone: 011-613-9903-2674
Fax: 011-613-9903-2178
e-mail:Charmine.Hartel@buseco.monash.edu.au
Acknowledgement. This research was funded in part by a grant of the Australian Research
Council (ref A79801016).
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS A MODERATOR OF EMOTIONAL AND
BEHAVIORAL REACTIONS TO JOB INSECURITY
ABSTRACT
We present a model linking perceptions of job insecurity to emotional reactions
and negative coping behaviors. Our model is based on the idea that emotional
variables explain, in part, discrepant findings reported in previous research. In
particular, we propose that emotional intelligence moderates employees’
emotional reactions to job insecurity, and their ability to cope with associated
stress. In this respect, low emotional intelligence employees are more likely than
high emotional intelligence employees to experience negative emotional reactions
to job insecurity, and to adopt negative coping strategies.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS A MODERATOR OF EMOTIONAL AND
BEHAVIORAL REACTIONS TO JOB INSECURITY
Job insecurity is defined by Hartley, Jacobson, Klandermans, and Vuuren (1991) as a
discrepancy between the security employees would like their jobs to provide and the level they
perceive to exist. Although job insecurity is a common feature of organizational life in the
developed economies of the world (Feldman, 1995), its effect on individual employees and on
organizational outcomes continues to generate controversy (e.g., see Jalajas & Bommer, 1999;
Van Dyne & Ang, 1998). Some researchers (e.g., Galup, Saunders, Nelson & Cerveny, 1997)
have reported that job insecurity results in increased work effort and work involvement, while
others (e.g., O’Driscoll & Cooper, 1996) have found that job insecurity produces stress and
decreased performance. In this article, we aim to reconcile these discrepant findings by
examining the effect of emotional and dispositional variables not previously considered. In
contrast to previous research, which has focused solely on cognitive reactions to job insecurity
(e.g. Ashford, Lee & Bobko, 1989), the present article considers how emotional reactions to job
insecurity might explain the varying outcomes associated with perceived job insecurity. First, we
examine the emotional aspects of organizational commitment and job-related tension and argue
that these have a direct influence on employees’ workplace behaviors. Then, we propose that the
dispositional variable, emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995, 1998; Mayer & Salovey, 1997;
Salovey & Mayer, 1990) moderates the effect of these variables on individual behavior. This is
because emotional intelligence incorporates a broad range of abilities that explain the way
individuals manage emotion. Thus, we argue that emotional intelligence moderates the direct
effects of employees’ perceptions of job insecurity on emotional reactions and behaviors.
In this article, we present a two-stage model of the link between job insecurity and
workplace behavior that conforms to Ortony, Clore, and Collins’ (1988) theory of the cognitive
processes involved in generation of emotions. Our model, illustrated in Figure 1, is predicated
on an emotional trigger that emanates from an employee’s perception of job insecurity.
Cognitive evaluation of this perception (Ortony et al., 1988) results in two inter-related emotional
reactions: lowered affective commitment and increased job-related tension (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn,
Snoek & Rosenthal, 1964). These two emotional reactions then lead to negative behaviors,
conceptualized in our model as negative coping behaviors. As illustrated in Figure 1, we propose
that these relationships are moderated by emotional intelligence.
Figure 1: A model liking job insecurity to behavior
Our model also aligns with Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1975) theory regarding the consistency
of attitudes with behavior, and Zajonc’s (1966) notion that individuals under threat revert to
familiar strategies that determine subsequent behavior. We have, in effect, applied these general
frameworks to the specific instance of the link between employees’ experience of job insecurity
and the utilization of negative coping behaviors. In general, coping behaviors are intended to
reduce the stress that ensues from perceptions of job insecurity (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). We
note, however, that coping behaviors can have either negative or positive outcomes in terms of
addressing the employee’s perceptions of job insecurity. Specifically, we define negative coping
as coping behaviors that are either unsuccessful or serve only to avoid or to temporarily reduce
perceptions of job insecurity, thereby instituting a dysfunctional cycle.
Finally, we argue that emotional intelligence is a moderator (see Baron & Kenny, 1986)
of affective reactions to job insecurity, and that this interaction may explain the contradictory
findings in the research to date. Mayer & Salovey (1997, see also Salovey & Mayer, 1990)
define emotional intelligence as the ability to detect and to manage emotional cues and
information. Emotional intelligence incorporates a number of abilities including the ability to be
aware of own and other’s emotions, to be able to manage those emotions and to understand the
complex relationships that can occur between emotions and likely emotional transitions (Mayer
& Salovey, 1997). We expand on these abilities later in this article and outline their contribution
to managing perceptions of job insecurity, but note at this point that our central proposition is
that employees with high emotional intelligence are better equipped than employees with low
emotional intelligence to deal with the affective and behavioral implications of job insecurity.
Finally, we note that emotional intelligence, included in our model as a moderator variable, is an
individual difference. As such, our position reflects the view of House, Shane, and Harold
(1996) that dispositional variables continue to be important in organizational behavior research.
Job insecurity and its effects
Dekker and Schaufeli (1995) note that job insecurity is an internalized perception. It
