Job insecurity in Germany vs. China 1 Job insecurity: Cross-cultural comparison between Germany and China One lingering effect of the 2008 financial crisis is increased job insecurity among workers (Van Gyes and Szekér, 2013). Job insecurity has been associated with various negative outcomes both for employees and organisations (e.g., De Witte, 1999), including increased burnout (De Witte, 2000), reduced work engagement (Bosman et al., 2005), reduced work health and wellbeing among employees (Dongdong et al., 2008; Siu, 2013), increased turnover intention (Probst, 2008), reduced job performance (Wang et al., 2014), specifically with regards to organisational citizenship behaviour (Reisel et al., 2010), and decreased safety motivation and compliance (Probst and Brubaker, 2001). The perception of job insecurity tends to be more negative in collectivistic than individualistic cultures (Probst and Lawler, 2006). Researchers argue that collectivistic cultures place higher emphasis on the value of security than individualistic cultures. Yet the research was conducted before the recent economic crisis broke out in 2008. This crisis affected and continues to affect Western individualistic countries more than Eastern collectivistic cultures (Garrett, 2010). Thus, the question arises whether the change in the global economic environment may have caused a shift in the negative influence of job insecurity from mostly affecting Eastern to Western countries. The present study aims to clarify this question by comparing the influence of job insecurity in samples from China (i.e., an Eastern culture) to Germany (i.e., a Western culture). Being able to understand the nature and influences of job insecurity in those two national contexts is necessary for organisations to thrive and be effective. Employee job performance comprises the major contribution of individuals to the effectiveness of the organisation (Schat & Frone, 2011). Two important aspects of job performance are innovative work behaviour (IWB) and attention-related cognitive errors (ARCES). On the one hand, employees' IWB can create novel and useful products, ideas and procedures (De Spiegelaere et al., 2014). By enhancing employees' creative performance

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties (i.e., factorial validity, measurement invariance, and reliability) of the Grit-Original scale (Grit-O) within the Netherlands. The Grit-O scale was subjected to a competing measurement modeling strategy that sequentially compared both independent cluster model confirmatory factor analytical-and exploratory structural equation modeling approaches. The results showed that both a two first order, bi-factor structure as well as a less restrictive two factor ESEM factorial structure best-fitted the data. The instrument showed to be reliable at both a lower-(Cronbach's alpha) and upperlevel (composite reliability) limit. However, measurement invariance between genders could only be established for the B-ICM-CFA model. Finally, concurrent validity was established through relating the GRIT-O to task performance. The linear use of the Grit-O scale should therefore carefully be considered.

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There has been less research on the costs of occupational stress attributed to certain job stressors in Chinese contexts. This study identified and validated common job stressors and estimated the economic cost in Hong Kong. The role of positive emotions in alleviating the economic costs of job stressors was also examined. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adopted. The findings obtained from five focus group discussions and a survey validated five common job stressors: Job insecurity; quantitative workload; organizational constraints; interpersonal conflicts; and work/home interface. A total of 2511 employees were surveyed, with 2032 valid questionnaires returned (925 males, 1104 females, and 3 unidentified, whose ages ranged from 18 to 70 years). The economic costs were estimated by combining the costs of absenteeism, presenteeism, and medical expenses. Absenteeism mainly caused by job stressors of the work/home interface, job insecurity, and quantitative workload accounted for an annual economic cost of HK$550 million to HK$860 million. The annual economic cost due to presenteeism mainly caused by job stressors of job insecurity, interpersonal conflict, quantitative workload, and organizational constraints ranged from HK$1.373 billion to HK$2.146 billion. The cost of medical treatments associated with occupational stress was HK$2.889 billion to HK$4.083 billion. Therefore, the total annual economic cost of occupational stress was approximately HK$4.81 billion to HK$7.09 billion. Positive emotions, representing a less explored individual factor in the cost of occupational stress studies, was found to be negatively correlated with presenteeism and buffered the negative impact of job stressors on absenteeism. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of findings are discussed.