The impact of job insecurity on organisational citizenship behaviour and task performance: Evidence from robotised furniture sector companies

Abstract

Over the past decade, in the light of intensive robotisation, job insecurity referring to the employees’ overall concern about the continued availability of their jobs in the future has become a hot topic. A general assumption supported by the findings is that job insecurity causes far-reaching negative consequences for the employee well-being and health, attitudes towards the job and organisation, and behaviours at work. However, the focus on behavioural outcomes, especially on employee performance at work, is still scant. Trying to narrow the gap, the paper aims at revealing the linkage between job insecurity and two dimensions of performance, namely task performance and organisational citizenship behaviour. Building on the hindrance stressor dimension of the stress model, the paper claims that a negative relationship exists between the constructs. Quantitative data were collected in a survey of robotised production lines operators working in the furniture sector in Lithuania. As predicted, the results revealed that job insecurity had a negative impact on both the task performance and organisational citizenship behaviour. These findings affirmed that job insecurity was a hindrance stressor, which needed to be considered when managing human resources in a robotised production environment.