Worker Uncertainty in the “New Risk Economy”: the Context of Perceived Job Insecurity around a Merger Announcement

Jack Lam, University of Minnesota
Kimberly Fox, University of Minnesota

This study investigates job insecurity among employees in an information technology unit around the announcement of an upcoming merger, with 58% of the sample interviewed prior to and 42% interviewed following the announcement. Using survey responses from 633 employees and their managers nested in 142 work teams, we investigated whether employees’ social context (team and manager characteristics) has direct effects on job insecurity or moderates the association of the merger announcement with job insecurity. We find managers’ own job insecurity to be associated with higher employee insecurity, while working in different locations from managers and having Asian managers were associated with employees’ lower job insecurity. We also find managers’ tenure and job insecurity moderate the association between the merger announcement and employees’ job insecurity.