Times of uncertainty: employment uncertainty’s psychological and behavioral impacts on furloughed workers and the moderating effects by work orientations
Mr. Jack H. Zhang
Ph. D. Candidate in Organizational Behavior
Washington University in St. Louis
In my dissertation, I study employment uncertainty (inability to predict the future of the employment relationship)’s psychological and behavioral impacts on furloughed workers along with factors that could affect the strengths of these impacts. Through a qualitative study with 28 employees who were furloughed in 2020, I found that employment uncertainty could bring higher intensities of negative emotions and lower occupational commitment. The occupational commitment could then positively associate with hedging behaviors (preparing for a permanent job loss) and negatively associate with “live like working” behaviors (living one’s life during furlough as if one is still working). Moreover, work orientations might moderate these impacts, with a job orientation (seeing one’s work as a way to make money) strengthening uncertainty’s impacts, whereas a calling orientation (seeing one’s work as personal enjoyment and socially meaningful experience) weakening uncertainty’s impacts. Results of a quantitative survey study with 141 furloughed workers generally supported the hypotheses from the emergent theory. These results reveal the particular harm that employment uncertainty can do to furloughed workers and how employees’ perceived meaning of their work may affect their coping with uncertainty.
