The findings on the relationship between job demands and job performance have been inconsistent in previous studies. Drawing on social exchange theory, we examined the moderating effect of job security on the job demands–job performance relationship. Three studies with cross‐sectional and time‐lagged designs were conducted. The results of Studies 1 and 2 consistently demonstrated that job demands significantly improved employee performance in the context of higher job security, whereas job demands impaired performance to some extent when job security was lower. Study 3 replicated these findings and also showed that the positive moderating effect was stronger for employees with lower rather than higher levels of traditionality. The importance of job security to improving employees’ performance in stressful workplaces was affirmed. These findings contribute to theories linking job demands to job performance and have practical implications for managers in high‐stress environments, especially in developing countries.
Practitioner points
Job demands may lead to good performance when employees’ job security is high.
Appropriate human resource practices should promise employees’ perceived job security rather than only reducing job demands.
Employers should pay more attention to maintaining the social exchange relationships with employees having lower traditional values.
The aim of this research is to verify the two-dimensional challenge-hindrance stressor framework in the Chinese context, and investigate the moderating effect of general self-efficacy in the stress process. Data were collected from 164 Chinese employee-supervisor dyads. The results demonstrated that challenge stressors were positively related to job performance while hindrance stressors were negatively related to job performance. Furthermore, general self-efficacy strengthened the positive relationship between challenge stressors and job performance, whereas the attenuating effect of general self-efficacy on the negative relationship between hindrance stressors and job performance was nonsignificant. These findings qualify the two-dimensional challenge-hindrance stressor framework, and support the notion that employees with high self-efficacy benefit more from the positive effect of challenge stressors in the workplace. By investigating the role of an individual difference variable in the challenge-hindrance stressor framework, this research provides a more accurate picture of the nature of job stress, and enhances our understanding of the job stressor-job performance relationship.
The experience of justice is a dynamic phenomenon that changes over time, yet few studies have directly examined justice change. In this article, we integrate theories of self-regulation and group engagement to derive predictions about the consequences of justice change. We posit that justice change is an important factor because, as suggested by self-regulation theory, people are particularly sensitive to change. Also consistent with self-regulation, we posit that experiencing justice change will influence behavior via separate approach and avoidance systems. Across three multiwave and multisource field studies, we found that justice change predicts employees’ engagement in work via perceived insider status along an approach path, whereas it predicts employees’ withdrawal from work via exhaustion along an avoidance path, after controlling for the effects of static justice level. Moreover, these approach and avoidance effects are bounded by employees’ perception of their employment situation, consistent with a regulatory fit pattern. As expected, employees’ perceptions of employment opportunity, which correspond to gains, strengthen the effects along the approach path. Meanwhile, their perceptions of threat of job continuity, which correspond to losses, strengthen the effects along the avoidance path. Importantly, our set of studies highlight the unique influence of justice change incremental to static justice level.
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