Perceived job insecurity and task performance: what aspect of performance is related to which facet of job insecurity

Abstract

Employee task performance is considered to be of crucial importance for organizational survival and growth, at the same time, the struggle for organizational survival and growth most especially in the current economic climate gives rise to perceptions of job insecurity among employees thereby making the perception of job insecurity a relevant topic. This study examined the effect of perceived job insecurity on task performance. In addition, the effect of both quantitative and qualitative facets of job insecurity on the different components of task performance, was investigated. By making use of the multi-stage sampling technique, a total of 342 employees with age range of 23 to 46 years were proportionately selected from the cluster that represents each bank. Furthermore, the close ended and structured questionnaire was utilized in a descriptive cross-sectional research design to elicit responses from these employees. Based on the regression analysis conducted, it was revealed that while perceived job insecurity as a uni-dimensional construct exercise a significant and negative effect on task performance, both quantitative and qualitative job insecurity also have a significant and negative effect on this performance with the later, found to exercise a stronger negative impact. Furthermore, results also indicate that while quantitative job insecurity is more negatively related with the job quality component of performance, both job quantity and job time limit are more negatively related with qualitative job insecurity. To conclude, recommendations were made on the need for organizations to focus intervention on antecedents of job insecurity which have been classified as macro level, micro level and personality factors with the view of reducing the incidence of perceived job insecurity. It was also recommended that managers should endeavor to concentrate more resources on those employees who suffer from qualitative job insecurity whenever there is a need to make use of these interventions, while also being in cognizant of the fact that a different level of intervention is required for employees with different level of job quality, job quantity and job time limit.

Introduction

In response current transformation in global demography, labor market, technology, economy, politics, in addition to the economic damage that may likely emanate from the Corona-virus pandemic which has the potential to result in the loss of over 55 million jobs worldwide (International Labor Organization, 2020); there has been a radical shift from secured type of employment situation to that in which workers are increasingly being exposed to insecurity concerning the continuous existence of their jobs and the quality of other aspects of employment situation: promotion, employment relationship, working conditions, career opportunities and economic benefits (Yeves et al., 2019). Based on the latest statistics released by Euro-found, and International Labor Organization (2019) which involves 1.2 billion members of world labor force, it was revealed that perceived job insecurity is of concern across many countries in the sense that 1 out of 6 workers in the European Union and 1 out of every 10 workers in the United States are worried that they might lose their job in the next six months; while a sizeable proportion of the employed population in Africa, South East Asia and the pacific are working in arrangements characterized by insecurity, low pay and lack of social protection (ILO, 2019).

Consequently, this has served as an encouragement for researchers to pay attention to this work stressor in industries and organizations, to identify its nature and impact and to control its negative impact both on employees and the organization (Shin, et al., 2019). Based on the definition of Kinnunen et al. (2014) job insecurity refers to the experienced threat of involuntarily losing one’s job, or the conditions associated with the job; and it is considered as one of the strongest hindrance stressors that is closely associated with the workplaces (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017).

According to Pilipiec (2020) while the effects of job insecurity on (1) health and well-being, (Selenko et al., 2013); (2) managerial styles, (3) leadership type (Cascio & Aguinis, 2011); (4) training, (5) intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Kuruppuge & Gregar, 2017); (6) role perception, (7) employee engagement (Chei et al., 2014); (8) family involvement, (9) empowerment and team work (Wanza & Nkuraru, 2015); (10) change management (Feili et al., 2018); (11) employee attitude, (12) perceived organizational support, (13) quality of work life (Nanzushi, 2015) have all been studied extensively, its impact on task performance which comprises of job outcome in terms of quality, quantity and time limit (Na-Nan et al., 2018); continues to be an under-researched topic (Fischmann et al., 2019; Niesen et al., 2018; Shin et al., 2019); and far less is known about the true nature of this impact even though the psychological contract theory advanced by Rousseau (1989) have shown that employees who are of the opinion that the important terms enshrined in their employment contract have not been violated by the organization are likely to reciprocate through thoughts and behaviors that positively contribute to organizational performance vice versa and Greenhalgh’s (1983) job insecurity theory have also averred that employees who experience threats to their job security will have poorer work attitudes, diminished adaptability and productivity.

Apart from being an under-researched topic with a need for further investigation (Niesen et al., 2018), it is also clear that most of the studies that focused on this relationship concentrated on addressing other facets of job performance: contextual performance and counter-productive work behavior (Lee et al., 2018). This is even more worrisome as the effect of job insecurity on performance outcome differs according to the strategic value that employee attaches to specific facets of performance (De-Cuyper et al., 2018).

While Hellgren et al. (1999) distinguished between quantitative job insecurity, commonly defined as “the perceived threat of job loss and the worries related to that threat” (De Witte, 2005, p. 1) and qualitative insecurity, relating to the prediction of qualitative worsening of various aspects of work such as working conditions (e.g., pay cuts, work overload, lack of development opportunities) and the character of the work performed (e.g., the requirement to learn new skills), the few researches that investigated the impact of this stressor on task performance have not adequately separated these two facets (Fishmann et al., 2019; Chirumbolo et al., 2020); in the sense that lots of attention have been only paid to quantitative job insecurity in the last ten years while the qualitative aspect of it has remained understudied (Brondino et al., 2020; Fishmann et al., 2019; De-Angelis et al., 2021); even though previous studies have suggested that both of these facets have detrimental effects on employees and organizations (e.g., De-Witte et al., 2010), and research have also shown that differences in antecedents, outcomes, predictor and effect moderators occur for the two (Fischmann et al., 2019). Hence, this tends to indicate that more research is needed to identify the ways in which both facets of job insecurity behave in a similar manner, and the cases when they do not in that providing this kind of information would not only help enrich the existing literature on felt job insecurity but also enable practitioners to devise the best-fitting answers when they identify the presence of either of these types of job insecurity (Fischmann et al., 2019).

Arising from the issues raised above, the present research answers several calls and fills some important research gaps. First, due to the non-uniform way in which both job insecurity and performance have been measured in previous studies (Chirumbolo, et al., 2020) it provides an answer to the call by Charkhabi (2017), Fishmann et al. (2019) on the need for researchers to separate the different facets of both job insecurity and performance as precisely as possible to be able to safely compare and correctly aggregate results on what exact aspect of decrease in performance is related to which facet of job insecurity. By so doing, it introduces both qualitative and quantitative job insecurity as separate facets of perceived job insecurity while also introducing task performance as an aspect of employee performance, which comprises of job quality, job quantity and time limit, in an effort to unravel the nature of the interrelationship among them.

Also, it enriches the scarce literature on qualitative job insecurity as most previous studies focused on only quantitative job insecurity (see; Okurame, 2014; Wang et al., 2015; Piccoli et al., 2017a, 2017b; Shin et al., 2019; Adekunle & Adegoroye, 2021; Pilipiec, 2020; Dahiya, 2021; De-Angelis et al., 2021); or used the umbrella term job insecurity while actually measuring quantitative job insecurity (e.g., Chirumbolo & Areni, 2010).

Furthermore, since the few empirical studies that focused on perceived job insecurity as it relates with task performance were conducted in Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy, North America, Australia, China, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, with limited number of these studies found in African settings (Lee et al., 2018); this study, therefore, provides an answer to the call by Lee et al. (2018) that more researches in this area are needed particularly in African countries where lack of inadequate social security policies, and employment contract may pose as a potent driver for felt job insecurity among employees, and that of Pilipiec (2020) who is of the view that a cross national replication of a research model focusing on the perceived job insecurity task performance relationship is urgently needed.

Altogether, given the role of the Nigerian banking industry as the financial pace for other sectors to follow (Adekunle & Adegoroye, 2021); its instrumentality to the development of any functional economy (Adekiya et al., 2020), coupled with the mass job loss being witnessed in the Nigerian banking industry recently (Ajani & Adisa, 2013; Ugwu & Asogwa, 2017; Oguegbe et al., 2017; The Cable, August 26, 2020); and the fact that this mass loss has the potential for the intensification of perceived job insecurity among surviving employees (Borra & Gomes-Garcia, 2014; Lee et al., 2018); (Mashi et al., 2019; Adekunle & Adegoroye, 2021), an investigation that focuses on the effect of two facets of perceived job insecurity on task performance among the employees in this sector would not only aid in building theories for job insecurity literature but also aid practitioners in crafting the best fitting intervention strategy that aligns with each facets when the presence of either type of job insecurity is identified (Charkhabi, 2017; Fischmann et al., 2019).

theoretical background and literature review

Quantitative job insecurity

Based on the submission of Vander Elst et al. (2011) quantitative job insecurity may be conceptualized as the overall concern of an employee about the continued existence of the present job in the future. This is even more so as Sverke et al. (2002) hinted that it is “the subjectively experienced anticipation of a fundamental and involuntary event related to job loss, and the worries related to the threat”, and the concern about the future permanence of the job (Lucia & Denisa, 2015). Accordingly, it has been defined by Vander Elst et al. (2014) as “the subjectively perceived and undesired possibility to lose the present job in the future, as well as the fear or worries related to this possibility of job loss”. Thus, in line with this view, Ellonen and Nätti (2015) have presented it as Individual’s evaluation of how likely it is that the current job will be lost in near future. Thus arising from these, the present study presents the construct as the perceived uncertainty of keeping the job among the employees of the Nigerian banking industry, in addition to the fear or worries that emanates from this perception.

According to Niesen et al. (2018), this type of job insecurity can be found between employment and unemployment; and tends to makes in-secured employees to become uncertain as to whether a perceived job loss will actually take place, thereby manifesting in strain, with a consequential outcome on employee’s attitudes and work behaviors (Ashford et al., 1989). For example, the consequential strain associated with quantitative job insecurity aggravates various forms of psychological distress (Hellgren & Sverke, 2003); which in-turn trigger coping responses that could be in form of making efforts to distance oneself from the source of the stressor, or directing work energy towards the regulation of emotions rather than the advancement of job outcome (Folkman, 1984). Thus, while a clear cut evidence has been obtained for the negative impact of this type of job insecurity against job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and wellbeing (Berntson et al., 2010); job burnout and life satisfaction (Richter et al., 2010), it is still unclear regarding its actual link with task performance (Stankevičiūtė et al., 2021), thereby prompting a need for further investigation on the true nature of this effect (Niesen et al., 2018; Shin et al., 2019).

Qualitative job insecurity

Since the face and content of many jobs and organizations are dramatically changing (Sender et al., 2016); such changes have required that organizations provide a smoother and more efficient services to customers which in turn requires the need to make use of advanced technological innovations and non-conventional work arrangement (Schaufeli, 2016). Meanwhile, while these innovative gestures may aid in achieving customer satisfaction and viable competitive positioning, it may nevertheless make employees feel insecure about the future of their job content, job features and job conditions (Bidwell, 2013). Thus in this respect, the numerous scientific evidence obtained from countries all over the world (e.g., László et al., 2010), United States of America. (e.g., Hamad et al., 2015), Australia (e.g., Turner & Lingard, 2016), and Africa (e.g., De-Beer et al., 2016) have provided evidences that a large number of employees are psychologically and physically suffering from such feelings in their working life.

Arising from this kind of situation, authors, such as, (e.g.; Ashford et al., 1989; Niesen et al., 2018) have identified the perception of job insecurity from the qualitative point of view and described the construct as the perception of threats to the quality in other aspects of employment situation some of which may exist in the form of employment relationship, working conditions, career opportunities and economic benefits (Hellgren et al., 1999). Based on the opinion of Shoss (2018) this aspect of job insecurity is a threat of future deterioration in job conditions and may manifest when job conditions such as the nature of job tasks, methods of accomplishment, existing organizational culture, and the availability of desired opportunities for advancement are threatened, resulting in feelings of uncontrollability. Thus in qualitative job insecurity, the perceived feelings of uncontrollability reside in both the importance that is attached to a job feature, the probability of losing this feature, in addition to the fear associated with this situation (Charkhabi et al., 2017).

According to Hellgren et al. (1999) while this type of job insecurity seems to be a milder form of insecurity, as it does not imply the job loss but rather some unwanted changes in it or the loss of its valued features, it is nevertheless, considered a particularly relevant aspect of job insecurity in today’s changing world of work (Lee et al., 2018) as it has been shown to trigger a wide range of detrimental effects on employee attitudes and behaviors with similar underlying psychological mechanisms as those of quantitative job insecurity (Stynen et al., 2015). Making inference from Hellgren et al. (1999), the present study also presents the construct as the perceived uncertainty about the existence of promotional opportunities, career opportunities, and economic benefits.

Task performance

Employee performance is defined as the total expected value that is contributed to the organization by employees through their behavior (Motowidlo, 2003). Based on the conceptualization by Chapparo and Ranka (1997), it is the ability to perceive, desire, recall, plan and carry out roles, routines, tasks and subtasks for the purpose of self-maintenance and productivity in response to demands of the internal and/or external organizational environment. By extending this line of conceptualization, Campbell et al. (1993) maintained that performance is related to that which organization hires the person to do and do well. In their opinion, any job related activities that can be examined and measurable are reflected as performance. In tandem with this view, Schyns and Sczesny (2010) highlighted it as the extent to which an individual completes the required duties in a position which she/he assumes within an organization while Bernadin et al. (1995) argued that performance should be measured in term of the work related behavior. Based on the conceptualization of Pradhan and Jena, (2017), task performance is defined as aspect of employee performance that comprises of the behaviors channeled towards fulfilling fundamental job responsibilities that are enshrined in employee’s job description; and has a direct connection to those set of actions that are part of the reward system (Sonnentag et al., 2008).

Accordingly, Na-Nan et al. (2018) employed a more pragmatic approach by giving their own definition as “the behaviors that employees display at work that amount to the delivery of outcomes desired by the organization in terms of job quality, job quantity and job time”. Job quality is the degree to which employee meets up with the set criteria and standards with regard to the procurement, production, quality inspection and delivery of goods and services (Liu & Xu, 2006), and it’s useful as a process control and quality determinant in activities relating to quality control and inspection (Chen et al., 1997). Job quantity on the other hand, is an objective measure of the units of output produced by employees and also encompasses product quantity, waste quantity and sales figure (Petsri, 2014) while Job time concerns the amount of time expended by employees, in completing work-related tasks, relative to the difficulty of the tasks (Na-Nan et al., 2018). Following this comprehensive approach, the current study defined task performance as the degree to which job tasks meets organizational requirements in terms of quality, quantity and time limit.

Perceived job insecurity and task performance

Based on the opinion of (Lee et al., 2018), there are two schools of taught who have conflicting view concerning the influence of job insecurity on task performance. Those who view it as a hindrance stressor and those who are in support of its ability to act as a challenge stressor, and ability to command motivation for increased task performance (Selenko et al., 2013). First, while viewing this perception as a hindrance with a corresponding negative job attitude, Cheng and Chan (2008) lamented that it typically lead to a state of lassitude that results in lack of energy thereby making employees to withdraw from work efforts.

Basically, the idea behind this reasoning is that job insecurity can be viewed as a perception of losing other valuable resources that are associated with the job: (1) economic live -hood (2) opportunity to contribute to a higher collective purpose, (3) societal status and recognition, (4) an enlarged scope of the social network, (5) a structure to daily activities (Jahoda, 1982; Niesen et al., 2018; Shoss, 2017). Accordingly, De Witte (1999) and Probst (2005) stated that whenever employees are confronted with this type of feeling on one side, on the other side, it causes feelings of not being in control and a sense of powerlessness which lead to low motivation and negative work behavior.

Thus in line with this view, the perceived control theory by Vander-Elst et al. (2016) stated that in the event that an individual’s control over a situation is perceived to be at low level, this may lead to negative affective and behavioral reactions and consequently, some forms of withdrawal behavior such as reduced performance may be devised as a coping strategy (Piccoli et al., 2017a, 2017b). The implication here is that while job insecurity may be detrimental for both individual and organizational outcomes, these detrimental outcomes may be in form of feelings of job and career uncontrollability.

Furthermore, an insecure workforce may pose problems for firms since insecurity may well cause employees to identify less with corporate objectives and may impact adversely on motivation and willingness to innovate and hence on productivity (Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984). This impaired performance may be explained by citing the work of Van-Hootegem et al. (2018) who expanded on the psychological contract theory as proposed by Rousseau (1989) to explain that the relationship between employees and employers could be defined as an idiosyncratic set of reciprocal expectations concerning various obligations and entitlements. In this regard, it is expected that job security, salary, appreciation, challenging work or prospects for promotion should be provided by the employer (Rousseau & Mc-Lean Parks, 1993); in exchange for commitment, efforts, work attitude and favorable work outcome on the part of the employee.

Hence, when one or both parties feel that the other has not fulfilled its obligations, psychological breach occur (Robinson & Morrison, 2000); and can impede negatively on their willingness to contribute to organizational goals (De-Keyser et al., 2011). In line with this view, Khattak et al. (2018) reconciled by lamenting that employees will tend to exert their sincere efforts for the accomplishment of organizational goals if they perceive that their legitimate needs are fulfilled wholeheartedly by their employers and would tend to reciprocate through impaired performance if they have other perception that is contradictory.

Based on the appraisal of stress perspective, due to the fact that job insecurity has been highlighted by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) as a threat to job related resources that aid in promoting human well-being: identity, income, social connection, and social status (Jahoda, 1982) and the perceived lack of control over this threat, the underlying mechanism is that perceived job insecurity is a product of interaction between job demand and the availability of resources to take care of these demands. Thus, in situation when employees are faced with high level of perceived job insecurity, they may be forced to take stock of the available resources at their disposal with a view to using this to counter the threat associated with the perception. However, when these resources are perceived to be insufficient, they tend to experience feelings of uncontrollability over the threat, resulting in intense stress (distress) and a consequential negative job outcomes some of which may be in form of job quality, job quantity and time limit (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

Thus, in accordance to Jeon and Shapiro (2006), firms are advised to become aware that uncertainty about the possibility of being laid off tomorrow affects workers performance today; which tends to suggest that job insecurity de-motivates workers and thus impedes negatively on their performance. For instance, de-motivation as a consequence of downsizing is well known among managers (Jeon & Shapiro, 2006); and it has been reported by Bewley’s (1999) survey that 41 percent of businesses responded that layoffs hurt the morale of survivors for a long time; thereby implying that decisions regarding such change must optimize job security to minimize dysfunctional worker response (Goksoy, 2012).

Within the framework of those studies that have view job insecurity as a challenge rather than a hindrance, Shoss (2017) indicated that employee may decide to reframe their perceptions of insecurity as an exciting challenge, or may control and redirect their job insecurity induced anxiety into productive behavior that would help to make their job more secure. In this regard, they may be tempted to embrace all sorts of job preservation strategies such as increased work effort in a bid to demonstrate their value to the organization and thus secure good recommendations from high-ups (Hewlin et al., 2016; Shoss, 2017); or may also pursue training and educational opportunities (Shoss, 2017). Though the initial motive for doing this may be as a result of the need to enhance job opportunity (Shoss, 2018), however, it can be argued that this act of skill acquisition and its resulting expertise would enable employees to become more efficient in acts that relate to task performance. This is even more so as increased job insecurity may prove to be beneficial to organizations as it may prompt employees to more readily embrace organizational change which may be directed at increasing job performance (Adekiya, 2015).

Thus based on the above sets of assumptions, Wang et al. (2015) in their attempt to find out the true nature of the relationship between the two variables make use of their empirical study to prove that perceived job insecurity impacts negatively on job performance through the work engagement of 140 Chinese employees, in a three wave cross-lagged study. Also, the research by Setti et al. (2015) provided evidences that perceived job insecurity act as a harmful stressor with negative strain reactions which translate to behavioral withdrawal and low performance while the research by Shin et al. (2019) demonstrated that job insecurity has a negative effect on the job performance of 152 Research and Development professionals of a South Korean manufacturing company by harming their intrinsic motivation. Nevertheless, with a sample of non-managerial workers in Germany, Staufenbiel and Konig (2010) uncovered that the direct relationship of perceived job insecurity to self-rated performance is insignificant but that to supervisor-rated performance is positive.

Quantitative and qualitative job insecurity and employee outcomes

With respect to the individual impact of the two facets of perceived job insecurity on employee outcomes, though, pioneer researchers (e.g.; Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984) have highlighted qualitative job insecurity as being less severe compared to quantitative aspects, contemporary researchers have however found that its association with most employee attitude is stronger (Charkhabi et al., 2017; Fischmann et al., 2019) while quantitative job insecurity on the other hand had a stronger positive association with health-related outcomes (Hellgren et al., 1999). This is even more so as some other authors (e.g.; De-Witte et al., 2010) have found similarities in these associations both in terms of health related outcomes and job related attitude and behavior. Thus, based on the opinion of Hellgren et al. (1999) that qualitative and quantitative job insecurity evoke dissimilar reactions, it has been indicated by Fischmann et al. (2019) that differences occur in antecedents, outcomes, predictor and effect moderators for these two facets of job insecurity; which tends to suggest that both facets of perceived job insecurity should be considered as important as the other by organizational researchers.

In terms of their effect on employee attitude, though the research by Arnold and Staffelbach (2012) showed that the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and perceived employability is buffered by trust in employer, such buffering effect was not found for quantitative job insecurity. Also at the individual employee level, while a negative relationship was uncovered for quantitative job insecurity in its effect on job satisfaction, such relationship was not found for self-related health whereas qualitative job insecurity relates negatively to self-rated health but not to job satisfaction (see; De Cuyper et al., 2010). This is even more so as the same type of relationship has been uncovered by De-Witte et al. (2010) for the two types of job insecurity on hand, and the composition of job satisfaction and burnout dimensions on the other hand.

Furthermore, after making use of the Cognitive appraisal theory (see; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), Charkarbi (2017) found that increase in quantitative job insecurity lead to an intensified level of emotional exhaustion and reduced job satisfaction among Belgian and Iranian employees while these association was amplified by the hindrance appraisal. For qualitative job insecurity, while a positive and significant relationship was also uncovered in its relationship with wellbeing psychological outcomes such as job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion, it was only associated with presenteeism and not absenteeism both of whom were classified as well-being behavioral outcome in their study.

Concerning the few studies that focuses on employee performance as an outcome variable, Fischmann et al. (2019) examined the effect of the two facets of job insecurity on nine types of performance outcomes: individual task proficiency, individual task adaptivity, individual task proactivity, team member proficiency, team member adaptivity, team member proactivity, organizational member proficiency, organizational member adaptivity and organizational member proactivity. In their findings, a negative relationship was uncovered for qualitative insecurity in its influence on team member and organizational member proficiency at individual and organizational level adaptivity.

Meanwhile with respect to quantitative job insecurity, its negative influence was more vivid on task proficiency both at individual and at team level which tend to suggests that employees having concern about keeping their jobs are likely to be less proficient in how they carry out their tasks both at individual and team level. Overall, while both facets of job insecurity seems not to be related to proactivity facet of performance at all levels, a major point that could be deduced from their study is that compared to quantitative job insecurity, qualitative job insecurity is more negatively associated with performance outcome both in terms of beta value and across the different facets of performance. Nevertheless, despite the important findings from this investigation, the submission by Stankevičiūtė et al. (2021) is that the link between these facets of job insecurity and task performance is still unclear.

Theoretical underpinning

Cognitive appraisal theory

This theory, which was advanced by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), is built on the notion that high level of stress exerts a consequent negative impact on employee attitude and behavior. In particular, the theory posit that the level of stress that individuals perceive depends on evaluations of the degree of threat to their wellbeing (primary appraisal) and on the beliefs about the likelihood of being able to counteract the negative consequences of the threat (secondary appraisal). According to this theory, the experience of strain in stressful situation is an outcome of interaction of perceived threat and perceived control. It is assumed by this theory that in the event that an employee perceives himself/herself as having the required resources to exercise control over a stressful situation, then such, would lead to low intensity in the experience of strain. While on the other hand, when the stressful situation is appraised and perceived to be uncontrollable, such situation would lead to aggravation of this psychological strain. The effects of psychological strain are generally negative in that high levels of stress are associated with reductions in emotional and physical well-being, as well as with a decrease in important work attitudes, such as, organizational commitment and behaviors, such as, task performance (Piccoli et al., 2011).

Following this theoretical model, it is expected in this study that (1) since the high rate of unemployment in the Nigerian labor market as at the third quarter of 2021 is 33 percent according to National Bureau of Statistics (2022), and the unfair labor practices in banking sector which have done little or none in addressing the protection of social security and labor law (Okurame, 2014; Oguegbe et al., 2017), it is likely that this would create feelings of job insecurity among those that are presently employed in the sector, and (2) the high level of uncontrollability and powerlessness that employees may experience as a result of the perceived inability of securing a comparable job in another organization due to the present unfavorable Nigerian economic environment and the high level of job scarcity that predominate in this environment, should translate into psychological strain, and consequently manifest in impaired task performance both in terms of job quality, job quantity, and job time limit.

Hypotheses

Based on the literature review and the theoretical background presented above, the following hypotheses are hereby presented.

• H1: Perceived job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on task performance

• H2: Quantitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on task performance

• H3: Qualitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on task performance

• H4a: Quantitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on job quality as a component of task performance

• H4b: Qualitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on job quality as a component of task performance

• H5a: Quantitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on job quantity as a component of task performance

• H5b: Qualitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on job quantity as a component of task performance

• H6a: Quantitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on job time limit as a component of task performance

• H6b: Qualitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on job time limit as a component of task performance

Method

Participants and procedure

The participants of this study were full time employees, working in the customer services section of 3 Money Deposit Banks in Nigeria, and being drawn from 3 major cities of Lagos, Kano and Abuja. Since the selection of employees from customer service section tends to give assurance that participants do carry out the same task and job function, this tends to allow for a significant level of generalization as per the nature of job task, and also allows for linking variability in performance outcome to other factors different from job task. Concerning the restriction of sample selection to employees who are permanently employed by the banks, excluding others who are engaged on a temporary basis, this is done based on the fact that evidences have shown that these two categories of employees differs regarding the perception of job insecurity in relation to performance outcome (Blackmore & Kuntz, 2011). In total, 385 employees of this category were selected through the probability and proportionate sampling technique and were asked to complete a survey questionnaire in the period covering December 2020 to May 2021. After getting an approval from the management of these banks, an informed consent was acquired from the employees and it was brought to their awareness that they are free to withdraw from the study at any time as it may be deemed fit, and that there would be no financial or any other form of compensation for participation. Of the 385 participants, only 348 returned their copies of questionnaire.

Furthermore, another 6 questionnaire were discarded due to 3 copies which are badly filled and the other 3 copies for presence of multivariate outlier thereby leaving a total usable copy of 342 and a usable response rate of 90 percent. In total, 49.7 percent of the respondents are single while 50.3 percent are married. Also, more of the employees are males (60.8%) while 39.2 percent females. The average age of the participants are 30.5 (SD = 9.10) years with majority of them ranging from 26 to 35 years (68.6%) while 16.3 percent of them are were found to be between the ages of 18 years and 25 years. Also, 13.1 percent are between 36 to 45 years old, while 1.5 percent are from 46 to 55 years old. In educational attainment, majority of them have first degree (59.6%), 23.7 percent have either National Education Certificate (NCE) or Ordinary National Diploma (OND), 14.3 percent have various forms of Post Graduate qualifications, while 2.3 percent have the Senior Secondary School Certificate.

Research instrument

Task performance was measured using 13 item scale adopted from the work of Na-nan et al. (2018). An illustrative item in this scale includes “In this organization, I performed my job task attentively and correctly”, “I take quality into consideration in the discharge of services to customers” etc. from a previous investigation by Na-nan et al. (2018) among auto-part assembly workers, an internal consistency value Cronbach alpha value of 0.952 was observed for these items.

Quantitative job insecurity, is measured by an 8 item scale adapted from Francis and Barling (2005) and Borg and Elizur (1992). It is a one-dimensional scale that measures the quantitative in addition to the affective and cognitive aspects of perceived job insecurity. In a previous study by Smith (2013) they reported an internal consistency reliability value of 0.88 for the combination of these 8 item scale. Some of the items in the scale ask questions, such as, “I am concerned about the possibility of being laid off”, “I always feel the danger of joblessness while working in this organization”.

Qualitative job insecurity is measured by 4 item scale adapted from De-Witte et al. (2010). The scale was previously used by Van den Broeck et al. (2014) and has been the most popular item among authors investigating qualitative job insecurity (Urbanaviciute et al., 2015). In a previous study by Charkhabi (2017), Rolls (2015) each reported Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.85 and 0.76 respectively. Also, in a three wave cross-lagged study by Van-Hootegem and De-Witte (2019) a cronbach alpha value of 0.86, 0.89, and 0.88 was reported for time 1, time 2 and time 3 respectively. Items on this scale are “I feel insecure about the characteristics and conditions of my job in the future”, “I am worried about how my job will look like in the future”.

Gender, age, and marital status are included as control variables as these variables have the potential to exercise an influence on the relationship between perceived job insecurity and its outcome variables (Richter et al., 2013). Also, the type of bank was included as control variable to confirm homogeneity and provide reasons for explaining result as a consequence of individual scores rather than between group variances in accordance with the recommendation by Sora et al. (2009); whenever research data on job insecurity were acquired from multiple companies. All measure on continuous scale are presented in a form through which respondents are expected to respond by showing their degree of agreement or disagreement on a five point Likert scale which range from (1) strongly disagree (2) disagree (3) undecided (4) agree (5) strongly agree.

Analysis

First, a missing value analysis was carried out across variables (column-wise approach) and it is uncovered that there is no missing value both in terms of count and percentage (Jakobsen et al., 2017). Also, as the dimensionality of the instrument employed in this study has been verified in previous researches, we find it imperative to make use of the confirmatory factor analysis to verify how well this structure fits in with the data in this study (Bollen, 1989). Before embarking on this type of analysis, efforts were made to ensure that all relevant assumptions such as adequacy in sample size (> 200), normality of data set, linearity, absence of outliers, and multi-collinearity (Brown, 2015) were adequately complied with. Thus, in this regard, we made use of the Mahalanobis procedure (see; Mahalanobis, 1930) and detected 3 multivariate outliers which were deleted from the dataset. To comply with the assumption of normality, the Kurtosis and Skewness values for all three variables under consideration are between ‐3 to + 3 and ‐7 to + 7 respectively and in line with the recommendation by Bryne (2010). With respect to multi-collinearity, the tolerance statistics for both facets of perceived job insecurity are well over 0.50 which indicates that over 50 percent of the variance in each given predictor can be explained by the predictor in the absence of other (Koop, 2005). This is even more so as the residual plot for the data set indicate a non-linear pattern which seems to comply with the requirement set out by Norusis (2004). Thus, based on the recommendation by Arbuckle (2005) an analysis on the measurement model was conducted by employing Amos 23.

According to Browne and Cudeck, (1993), Hu and Bentler, (1999) and Byrne (2010) Root-Mean-Square Error of values smaller than 0.08 indicates good fit. Values greater or equal to 0.90 on the CFI and the TLI also indicate good fit (Hoyle, 1995), and less than 0.70 as acceptable fit for RMSR (Diamantopoulos & Siguaw, 2000). Hence following this line of reasoning, three models: 1 factor model, in which all three variables were considered as one factor, 2 factor model in which the 3 variables were considered as 2 factor, and 3 factor model where all three variables were considered as a separate variables were compared. Through this comparison, it was shown that the hypothesized 3 factor theoretical model consisting of task performance, quantitative job insecurity and qualitative job insecurity has the better fit, in comparison to the other two alternative models.

By making use of Chi-square statistic χ2; Comparative fit index (CFI); Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI); Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA); Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) as fit indices (Byrne, 2001), we obtained 2.469 for Chi-square statistic (CMIN/df), 0.995 for Comparative Fit Index, a value of 0.066 for Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), 0.896 for Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), and 0.541 for Root Mean Square Residual (RMSR) all of which demonstrates a good fit for the 3 factor model (see; Hoyle, 1995; Hu & Bentler, 1999). Though, the Tucker Lewis Index (TLI) is slightly below the threshold of > 0.90, Charkhabi (2017) has however suggested that researcher can proceed into the main analysis while also taking strives to provide caution to readers. Furthermore, the standardized factors loading for the latent variables are quite high and within the range of 1.00 to 0.694 and are highly significant (p < 0.01) which demonstrates that the 3 measures were empirically distinct from one another (Awang, 2014).

With respect to discrimanant validity, the square root of Average Variance Extracted (AVE) of all variables is higher than the correlation of that variable with other variables while Composite Reliability statistics for the 3 constructs were shown to be above the 0.70 threshold as prescribed by Hair et al. (1997). Thus in terms of the internal consistency and reliability statistics of the variables, coefficient values of 0.944, 0.827 and 0.849 were respectively obtained for task performance, quantitative job insecurity and qualitative job insecurity respectively which seems to be in line with the prescription by Nunnally (1978). Furthermore, Common Method Variance was assessed by employing Herman Single Factor analysis (see; Kock et al., 2021). In this regard, we obtained a value of 38 percent as a variance accounted for by one single factor which seems to suggest that this form of variance do not constitute a serious issue in the dataset (Baumgartner et al., 2021). Table 1 displays the fit indices of the variables while Table 2 displays the means, standard deviations, square root of Average Variance Extracted and correlations for the 3 variables. Based on the correlation analysis, there is a small, insignificant and negative association between quantitative job insecurity and task performance, r = -0.047, p = 0.387, (p > 0.05). Also, a small, but significant negative association exists between qualitative job insecurity and task performance with r = -0.038, p = 0.04 (p < 0.05).

Table 1.

Goodness of fit indices of variables

χ2	dF	P-value	X2/df	RMSEA	TLI	CFI	SRMR
135.793	55	0.000	2.469	.066	.851	.995	.541

Source: Field Survey, 2021

Table 2.

Mean, Standard Deviation, Correlation, and Square root of average variance extracted

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3
1 TP	3.80	.88	(.818)
2 QTJI	3	1.14	-.047	(.787)
Sig			.387
3 QLJI	2.88	.95	-.038**		(.808)
Sig			.04

^**. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

TP = Task Performance, QTJI = Quantitative Job Insecurity, QLJI = Qualitative Job Insecurity

Source: Field Survey, 2021

Hypotheses testing

The analysis in this study was performed by making use of the linear regression analysis in estimating the effect of perceived job insecurity on task performance. In addition, the effect of the two facets of perceived job insecurity on task performance, and the effect of these facets on the three components of task performance which are classified as job quality, job quantity and job time limit were estimated by the multiple regression analysis. Hypothesis 1 proposed that perceived job insecurity would exercise an effect on task performance. Thus, after controlling for age, gender, marital status and bank membership, task performance was regressed on perceived job insecurity. As shown in Table 1, quantitative job insecurity exercise a significant and negative effect on task performance with a standardized beta value of -0.260, p = 0.000, (p < 0.05) meaning that a support is obtained for this hypothesis.

With respect to hypothesis, 2 and 3 which predicted that both quantitative and qualitative job insecurity would respectively exercise a negative effect on task performance, both age, gender, marital status, bank membership and educational level were also treated as control variables. Holding the effect of these variables constant, quantitative job insecurity and qualitative job insecurity were included in the second step (see; Baron & Kenny, 1986). Thus, in Table 2, results show that quantitative job insecurity has a significant and negative effect on task performance b = -0.2140, p = 0.0090, (p < 0.05) thereby signifying the acceptance of hypothesis 2. In a similar vein, a support was also obtained for hypothesis 3 based on the negative and significant effect that qualitative job insecurity exercise on task performance b = -0.2243, p = 0.0144, p < 0.05. Thus, a decrease of 21.4 percent and 22.4 percent in task performance is associated with a unit increase in quantitative and qualitative job insecurity respectively.

In a bid to ascertain what exact aspect of task performance is related to which facet of job insecurity, a separate multiple regression analysis that encompasses the two facets of job insecurity and each components of task performance comprising of job quality, job quantity and job time limit was carried out. As expected, Table 3 shows that quantitative job insecurity exercise a significant and negative effect on job quality b = -0.241, p = 0.000, p < 0.05. Hence a support is obtained for hypothesis 4a meaning that every unit of this facet of perceived job insecurity would lead to a reduction of 24.1 percent in job quality. For qualitative job insecurity, it also exert a negative effect on job quality with a beta value of -0.188, p—0.002, p < 0.05 thereby also leading to the acceptance of hypothesis 4b. With respect to hypothesis 5a which predicted that quantitative job insecurity would exercise a negative effect on job quantity as a component of task performance, results in Table 4 also provides a support for this hypothesis in the predicted direction, with a beta value of -0.184, p = 0.01, p < 0.05. This is even more so as the result in the table also lend a support to hypothesis 5b by revealing that qualitative job insecurity exercise a similar but more pronounced negative effect b = -0.288, p = 0.01, p < 0.05 on the job quantity component of task performance. As per the effect of these two facets of job insecurity on time limit, results in Tables 5, 6, and 7 indicates that quantitative job insecurity indeed exercise a negative effect on job time limit b = -0.177, p = 0.02, p < 0.05 thereby lending a support to hypothesis 6a. Remarkably, the table also showed a significant and negative impact of qualitative job insecurity on job time limit b = -0.290, p = 0.00, p < 0.05 which tend to suggest that a support is also obtained for hypothesis 6b.

Table 3.

Effect of perceived job insecurity on task performance

Model Summary
Model		R		R-square		Adjusted R Square		Std Error of the estimate
1		.260		.067		.065		9.43175
a. Predictors: (Constant), JOBINSE
Regression Coefficient
Model	Unstandardized				Standardized
	B		std. error		Beta		t		sig
Constant	49.837		1.768				28.192		.000
Gender	1.069		1.069				1.000		.318
Age	.082		.990				.083		.934
Education	.784		.808				.970		.333
Bank	.340		.624				.544		.587
Marital Status	.357		1.182				.302		.763
JOBINSE	-.360		.073		-.260		-4.960		.000

a. Dependent Variable: Task Performance

JOBINSE = Perceived Job Insecurity

Source: Field Survey, 2021

Table 4.

Effect of Quantitative Job Insecurity and Qualitative Job Insecurity on Task Performance

Model Summary
Model		R		R-square		Adjusted R Square		Std Error of the estimate
1		.261		.068		.063		9.44271
a. Predictors: (Constant), QTJI, QLJI
Regression Coefficient
Model	Unstandardized				Standardized
	B		std. error		Beta		t		sig
Constant	42.70135		2.2483				18.9925		.000
Gender	-.1038		.7093				-.1464		.8837
Age	.1332		.6509				.2046		.8380
Bank	.3861		.4136				.9334		.3513
Marital	.9855		.7884				1.2500		.2122
Education	-.6170		.5434				-1.1354		.2570
QLJI	-.429		.166		-.2243		-2.581		.0144
QTJI	-.312		. 129		-.2140		-2.581		.0090

a. Dependent Variable: Task Performance

QTJI = Quantitative Job Insecurity, QLJI = Qualitative Job Insecurity

Source: Field Survey, 2021

Table 5.

Effect of quantitative job insecurity and qualitative job insecurity on job quality

Model Summary
Model		R		R-square		Adjusted R Square		Std Error of the estimate
1		.379		.144		.126		5.00258
a. Predictors: (Constant), QTJI, QLJI
Regression Coefficient
Model	Unstandardized				Standardized
	B		Std. error		Beta		t		Sig
Constant	27.564		2.040				13.512		.0000
Gender	.216		.564				.383		.702
Age	.456		.522				.872		.384
Bank	-.312		.329				-.947		.344
Marital	.383		.624				.614		.539
Education	-.130		.427				-.304		.761
QLJI	-.284		.089		-.188		-3.181		.002
QTJI	-.282		.068		-.241		-4.117		.000

a. Dependent Variable: Job Quality

QTJI = Quantitative Job Insecurity, QLJI = Qualitative Job Insecurity

Source: Field Survey, 2021

Table 6.

Effect of quantitative job insecurity and qualitative job insecurity on job quantity

Model Summary
Model		R		R-square		Adjusted R Square		Std Error of the estimate
1		.426		.182		.165		2.23276
a. Predictors: (Constant), QTJI, QLJI
Regression Coefficient
Model	Unstandardized				Standardized
	B		Std. error		Beta		t		Sig
Constant	10.857		.910				11.924		.000
Gender	.012		.252				.047		.963
Age	.139		.233				.596		.551
Bank	.071		.147				.481		.631
Marital	.175		.279				.626		.531
Education	.274		.190				1.437		.152
QLJI	-.199		.040		-.288		-4.985		.000
QTJI	-.098		.031		-.184		-3.216		.001

a. Dependent Variable: Job Quantity

QTJI = Quantitative Job Insecurity, QLJI = Qualitative Job Insecurity

Source: Field Survey, 2021

Table 7.

Effect of quantitative job insecurity and qualitative job insecurity on job time limit

Model Summary
Model		R		R-square		Adjusted R Square		Std Error of the estimate
1		.417		.174		.156		2.15434
a. Predictors: (Constant), QTJI, QLJI
Regression Coefficient
Model	Unstandardized				Standardized
	B		Std. error		Beta		t		Sig
Constant	11.211		.878				12.762		.000
Gender	.103		.243				.422		.673
Age	-.116		.225				-.514		.607
Bank	.066		.142				.464		.643
Marital	.345		.269				1.284		.200
Edu	.038		.184				.205		.838
QLJI	-.192		.038		-.290		-4.997		.000
QTJI	-.091		.029		-.177		-3.088		.002

a. Dependent Variable: Job Time Limit

QTJI = Quantitative Job Insecurity, QLJI = Qualitative Job Insecurity

Source: Field Survey, 2021

Discussion

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived job insecurity and employee task performance as well as to determine the nature of effect of the two facets of job insecurity on this performance outcome. In addition, it is our aim to safely compare and correctly aggregate results on what exact aspect of decrease among performance components (job quality, job quantity and job time limit), is associated to which facet of job insecurity. Consequently, the results obtained generally lends supports to the hypotheses earlier formulated. First, perceived job insecurity exercise a significant and negative effect on task performance. This finding seems to be in line with assumption of psychological contract theory (see; Rousseau, 1995), that job insecurity impedes on employees felt obligation to organizational outcomes due to a perception of psychological contract breach, and a perceived imbalance in exchange relationship with the organization, culminating in a state of dissonance and an urge for them to reciprocate by engaging in counterproductive work behavior designed to pay back the organization to restore equity (e.g., Reisel et al., 2010). The finding also replicates previous findings (e.g.; Staufenbiel & Konig, 2010; Wang et al., 2015; Van-Hootegem et al., 2018; Shin et al., 2019) where evidences suggests that felt job insecurity can manifest in hindrance stressor, leading to employee de-motivation and negative work behavior.

Second, quantitative job insecurity exercise a negative and significant impact on task performance thereby lending supports to the cognitive appraisal theory, by strengthening the notion that uncontrollable stressful situation would lead to aggravation of psychological strain thereby manifesting in impaired emotional and physical well-being, as well as a decrease in important work attitudes, such as, organizational commitment and behaviors, such as, task performance (Piccoli et al., 2011). By extension, it replicates some other researches (e.g.; Wang et al., 2015; De-Cuyper, et al., 2018; Shin et al., 2019; Fischmann et al., 2019; De-Angelis et al., 2021; Adekunle & Adegoroye, 2021; Dahiya, 2021) where significant main effect were found for the relationship between these two variables.

For the qualitative facet of job insecurity, result indicates that this component of job insecurity also exercises a negative and significant impact on task performance thereby confirming the assertion by De-Witte et al. (2010) that both quantitative and qualitative job insecurity have detrimental effect on employees and organizational outcomes. The result gives an insight that employees not only react negatively to the threat of losing out on their job position but also tend to show more reaction when faced with the perceived threat of losing valued features of the job such as working conditions, career opportunities, wages and salary, overtime salary, rewards, higher workload, and lower payment (De-Witte, 2005; Hellgren et al., 1999).

From the social exchange perspective (e.g.; Rousseau, 1995; Wong et al., 2005), employees experiencing uncertain job conditions are inclined to view job security as a reward for their contribution to the organization (Piccoli & De-Witte, 2015). Hence, a perceived imbalance in the reciprocity of the exchange may result in diminished work efforts and motivation (Piccoli et al., 2017b). Thus, in relation to the Nigerian banking sector where perceived job insecurity continues to be a predominating issue, the result from this study consolidates the assumption that employees who have feelings of threat to the conditions associated with their job, and a perceived lack of control over this threat may tend to reciprocate through withdrawal behaviors and reduced work efforts (Wang et al., 2015).

Remarkably, as the effect exercised by qualitative job insecurity seems to be stronger compared to quantitative job insecurity, our finding seems to be in contrast with suggestions from pioneer researcher (e.g.; Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984) that consequences of qualitative job insecurity might be less severe compared to those of quantitative job insecurity. Nevertheless, it is however in line with the view of Charkhabi et al. (2017), Fischmann et al. (2019) that the effect of qualitative job insecurity is quite stronger for most employee outcome. A possible reason for this is that qualitative job insecurity may be more related to hindrance appraisal compared to quantitative job insecurity, at least, among the respondents and context in this study.

According to cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), when individuals are faced with a situational stressor they may preliminarily appraise it as either a hindrance or a challenge. Hindrance appraisals are mainly associated with the appraisal of threats as “losses or harms” that are predicted to happen but still have not occurred, whereas challenge appraisals are associated with the appraisal of threats as opportunities and source of motivation (Debus et al., 2019). Thus, in a developing nation like Nigeria, where unemployment rate is quite high, and securing new job seems not to be an easy task, it is likely that most employees would rather choose to lose some important features of their job than losing out on the overall job position. For example, those employees that are faced with a threat of complete job loss and complete income loss (quantitative job insecurity) are more likely to see this as a challenge and thus make effort to increase performance outcome in an attempt to decrease the like-hood of job loss. By classification, this aspect of job insecurity has been termed by Shoss (2017) as “job preservation motivation.” in which employee tries to demonstrate their high value to the organization by working hard, attracting supervisor’s attention to safeguard themselves from job loss.

On the contrary, those experiencing threat to valued features of the job (qualitative job insecurity) may tend not to view such threat as a life threatening phenomenon compared to their counterpart who are faced with possible job loss situation. For instance as employees in low income countries such as Nigeria are more likely to be motivated by basic economic needs being provided by any form of paid job (e.g.; Maslow, 1943), it means that employees who suffer from qualitative job insecurity (loss of promotion, loss of career opportunities, increased workload and lower wages/salary) in this environment without a threat of complete income loss may find it unnecessary making use of these strategies to reduce the effect of job insecurity and maintain performance. Accordingly, those who see job insecurity as a threat to their overall economic livelihood and a pathway to poverty are expected to follow the motivation path by putting in effort to reduce negative job attitude (Charkabi, 2017); compared to others who fail to see job insecurity in the light of this threat (qualitative job insecurity) and thus see job preservation strategies as an un-necessity.

Furthermore, our analysis also revealed that while the two facets of job insecurity exercise a significant and negative effect across all three components of task performance (job quality, job quantity and job time limit), job insecurity in terms of quantitative manifestation seems to be more related to the job quality component of task performance. This result tend to suggest compared to employees who view themselves as victims of qualitative job insecurity, employees who have any reason to belief they are in danger of job loss are more likely to make use of substandard process and materials in task execution, less likely to perform tasks in accordance to specification, and are less likely to meet up with customer expectations. Meanwhile, on the contrary, it is noted in our result that employees who feels that some important aspects of their job (e.g., pay cuts, work overload, lack of development opportunities and the character of the work performed).is being threatened by change would tend to exhibit less of the ability and willingness to execute their own share of job tasks, produce unit of job outputs that meets organizational expectations, complete job task on schedule and conduct the delivery of goods/services in a timely fashion in comparison to their counterparts who experience fear of potential job loss. This is evidenced in the stronger negative effect that qualitative job insecurity exercise on both job quantity and job time limit, as two components of employee task performance. All in all, these results have demonstrated that while quantitative job insecurity is more related to job quality, the qualitative facet of job insecurity tends to have stronger effect on both job quantity and job time limit.

Taken together, the outcomes of this study represent some key contributions. First, it suggests that while the detrimental effect of perceived job insecurity on task performance outcome is context-free and can be found world-wide, it also suggests that this outcome seems to be more vulnerable when employee worries about the important features of the job (qualitative job insecurity) than when the worry is about losing the job position itself (quantitative job insecurity). Thus, by doing so, it is among the few studies to determine the extent to which each of the job insecurity types may negatively influence task performance outcomes. More importantly, by decoupling the two types of perceived job insecurity and their impact on task performance, these results further enrich the scarce literature on qualitative job insecurity/task performance relationship as most studies that have previously examined this relationship only focused on quantitative job insecurity (see; Okurame, 2014; Wang et al., 2015; Piccoli et al., 2017a; Shin et al., 2019; Adekunle & Adegoroye, 2021; Pilipiec, 2020; Dahiya, 2021; De-Angelis et al., 2021).

Moreover, by safely comparing and correctly aggregating results on what exact aspect of decrease among performance components (job quality, job quantity and job time limit) is associated to which facet of job insecurity, our research provide an answer to the call by Fischmann et al. (2019) by providing the leeway to enable both theorists and practitioners to devise the best-fitting answers when they identify the presence of either type of job insecurity, in an atmosphere of dwindling job quality, job quantity and job time limit.

Furthermore, another notable strength of the present research is the recruitment of participants from several Money Deposit Banks which has the tendency for improved generalizability of the findings to the entire money deposit banking industry. For instance, by uncovering the nature of the effect of job insecurity and its different components on performance outcomes in terms of its different components, the study offers insight into how best to manage the different aspects of job insecurity among employees in the banking industry.

Limitations and future research directions

Due to the fact that the research make use of a cross-sectional design to elicit responses from the respondents, this makes it difficult to determine the causal impact of the predictors on the outcome variables, or the direction of causality. Hence this poses as a limitation to the outcome of the study. In fact, the relation between perceived job insecurity and task performance may in fact be reversed in which under-performing employees may become demoralized and less confident in their ability to keep on maintaining their job position with the organization. As such, it will be particularly useful for future researchers to investigate the model in this study by making use of data that are acquired through a longitudinally designed research.

Another limitation is the reliance of this study on self-report as a measure of employee task performance. Although, evidence has been found to support the high level of validity of this type of measure (Uziel, 2010). But as self-reported measures of job performance may also be susceptible to social desirability and rater biases, organizational researchers have recommend the use of other-ratings (e.g., supervisor ratings, peer ratings, and 360-degree feedback) and objective performance (e.g., sales revenue and customer evaluation) as compensatory measures of job performance. Hence, future researchers are encouraged to make use of these alternative evaluation methods to assess task performance more rigorously.

Third, as qualitative job insecurity exercises a more significant negative relationship with the task performance of the employees in this study when compared with quantitative job insecurity, a probable reason for this may be that qualitative job insecurity is more associated with hindrance appraisal as compared with quantitative job insecurity. For instance, it has been argued by previous researchers that when job insecurity is appraised by employees as a hindrance, the outcome may be more detrimental as compared to outcomes that are associated with challenge appraisal. Thus, an avenue for future researcher may be to make use of cognitive appraisal theory in examining the role that both hindrance and challenge appraisal may likely play in the association between the two components of job insecurity on one side and task performance on the other side.

Fourth, though, a significant and negative relationship has been uncovered for the two facets of job insecurity on one hand, and task performance on the other hand. However, as it has been suggested that the nature of performance outcome is contingent on the moderating influence of task complexity (see; Judge et al., 2007), it may be worthwhile for future researchers to examine the research model in this study among professionals, such as, researchers and innovators, software programmers and developers, architects and building engineers whose job tasks are characterized by more complexity than that of those in the banking industry (McGrath et al., 1995); or manufacturing, car assembly workers or machine operators who are deemed as having job tasks that are characterized by lower complexity (Jung et al., 2020).

Lastly, as the varying length of job experience held by employees was not included in this study but have the potential to exercise an influence on task performance outcome and thus the ability to confound the nature of the relationship between perceived job insecurity and task performance thereby leading to the tendency of a study characterized by an omitted variable bias, it is suggested that future researcher should replicate our model by including this crucial variable as a control variable.

Practical implications

Based on the crucial importance of employee performance to overall organizational outcome and its sustainability, it is advised based on the result in this study that managers should focus on reducing job insecurity (both quantitative and qualitative) by focusing on its antecedents, which have been segmented into macro level, in the form of legislation, standards, economic environment (De-Witte, 2005), micro or individual background characteristics, in the form of education, income, age, gender, family role expectation, size of firm, type of Industry, and personality factors in the form of self-esteem, self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, anxiety, optimism, locus of control (see; Adekiya, 2015). The intervention strategies for the micro factors may take the form of social security benefits provision for citizens, and stringent regulations against the retrenchment of workers. For micro level intervention strategies, this may be in form of equipping employees with relevant skill sets to enhance employability, promoting equal employment opportunities for males and females, setting up family insurance packages, and taking steps to make use of less contract employees (Erlinghagen, 2007; Adekiya, 2015); while personality factors intervention can be implemented by increasing social support, promoting training in emotional intelligence, increasing self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-care and taking steps to reduce anxiety among employees.

Second, since the outcome of this investigation has shown the task performance outcome to be more vulnerable when employee worry about the important features of the job (qualitative job insecurity) than when the worries is about losing the job position itself (quantitative job insecurity), it is therefore advised that managers should endeavor to concentrate more resources on those employees who fall into the former category, whenever there is a need to make use of intervention in reducing the negative impact of job insecurity on task performance.

Lastly, as the negative effect of quantitative aspect of job insecurity seems to be more pronounced on the job quality component of task performance while qualitative job insecurity is more negatively related to both job quantity and job time limit, managers should endeavor to concentrate more resources on employee social security benefits, regulations against the retrenchment of workers, family insurance packages, and emotional intelligence training when employees are faced with increasing threat of job loss in organizations that emphasizes quality as the cornerstone for sustainability. For those organizations that emphasizes output quantity and quick delivery of goods and services, managers should strive to promote the principle of organizational justice in terms of pay, wages, promotion, while also taking step to ensure that employees are well equipped with all necessary and requisite skills to function effectively and efficiently in both present and future job tasks.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability

The datasets analyzed and generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethical statement

In accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards, an approval of this study and the data collection instrument was obtained from the ethical committee of the Department of Business Administration, Bayero University, Kano. In addition, the management of the Money Deposit Banks under focus were informed of the nature of the study and were made to grant their approval before the administration of questionnaire.

Informed Consent

Before making tthem to participate in the study, an informed consent was acquired from all the employees in the study and it was brought to their awareness that they are free to withdraw from the study at any time as it may be deemed fit, and that there would be no financial or any other form of compensation for participation.

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.