Repeated Downsizing: Attitudes and Well-being for Surviving Personnel in a Swedish Retail Company

Abstract

The study evaluates consequences of the major restructuring and downsizing of a large Swedish retail company. Efforts were made to investigate the impacts of perceived job insecurity, influence over the restructuring process, and perceived fairness of the process on well-being of remaining personnel, "survivors" of the process. A second aim was to investigate effects of repeated downsizing on work perceptions, attitudes and health of "survivors". Data were collected by means of a questionnaire on two occasions with a 12-month interval. The response rate was 71% for survivors at Time 1 (n=555), and 71% again for survivors at Time 2 (n=395). Results indicated that the most important predictors of distress at Time 1 was perceived job insecurity and perceived participation in the process. Furthermore, that a new wave of organizational change between measurement occasions was associated with higher personal ratings of workload and lower ratings of job satisfaction, whereas mean distress scores remained unchanged. At Time 2 perceived insecurity together with experience from repeated downsizing were critical factors predicting distress symptoms.