Triggers of job insecurity: a latent transition approach to understanding how people construe threats to their jobs

Drawing from construal theory’s ideas about how individuals identify and mentally represent possible future events, this research examined the phenomenological genesis of job insecurity by examining profiles of triggers of job insecurity. Latent profile and latent transition analyses suggested that whereas some individuals perceive diffuse and general threats in their environments, others perceive job insecurity as a result of more specific combinations of threats. Those who perceived more specific combinations of threats, as compared to a general sense of uncertainty, experienced the greatest degree of insecurity about the future of their jobs. Moreover, combinations of salient threats reflecting personal concerns about ways that individuals may specifically be impacted by global threats (e.g., recession) or narrow organizational issues predicted greater job insecurity. Profile membership shifted over time in conceptually meaningful ways, suggesting that individuals gradually move toward profiles of triggers of job insecurity that are more specific in nature over time. These findings offer a cognitive perspective on job insecurity and suggest that the ways by which people attend to and perceive potential conditions in their environment play an important role in shaping the degree of job insecurity they experience.