Job insecurity and unsafe behavior: Exploring curvilinear and moderated relationships.

There are two conflicting opinions regarding job insecurity in current literature: that it exacerbates unsafe behaviors, and that it discourages unsafe behaviors.This demonstrates the theoretical confusion over the exact nature of the relationship between job insecurity and unsafe behaviors.To clarify this confusion, this study proposes a curvilinear relationship between job insecurity and unsafe behavior, and situates the study among frontline workers in high-risk industries.Drawing from conservation of resources theory, we develop hypotheses that explain safety-related behaviors among workers with different levels of job insecurity.We collected data from coal miners in China at three different time points in two independent field studies, and obtained 209 and 248 valid questionnaires, respectively.We find support for a U-shaped relationship between job insecurity and unsafe behavior.Furthermore, we find that psychological detachment, but not self-control, moderates the curvilinear relationship, such that the curvilinear relationship is weaker among workers with higher psychological detachment.We also discuss some theoretical and practical implications of this research.