Abstract: In recent years, with the increasing uncertainty of the competition environment, the stability of the employment environment has sharply decreased, and the job insecurity of employees is rapidly increasing. Employees trapped in a fierce battle for secure jobs may suffer from a work and life imbalance. However, previous studies mainly focused on examining the effects of job insecurity in work or family field, and paid less attention to its effect on the overall balance of the work and life. With the development of society, it has become a new pursuit for employees to fulfill their diverse roles from work, family, leisure, health, personal development, and social relations. Hence, the present study tried to propose a moderated chain mediation model to investigate the effect and inner mechanism of job insecurity on work-life balance.
First, drawing on the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory, the present study indicated that when employees face the threat of job loss and experience job insecurity, they are very likely to invest more resources (e.g., overtime work) in the first place to avoid continued resources loss, which may trigger the reduction of their resources in non-work areas and break the work-life balance. Second, based on the loss cycles in the COR Theory and individual cognitive perspective, the present study proposed that workplace cognitive failure and negative work rumination may act as serial mediators between job insecurity and work-life balance. When employees fall into worries about job security, they may be restricted in their cognitive functions (i.e., attention, memory, and action), resulting in workplace cognitive failure. Then, as an obvious negative work experience, workplace cognitive failure could easily stimulate employees’ negative work rumination after work, further weaken the personal cognitive resources that employees can utilize in non-work fields, and aggravate the imbalance of work-life. Lastly, this study also examined the boundary effect of perceived superior support between the chain mediation model proposed above, as supervisor support is an important social support for employees in the workplace and previous studies have confirmed that it can buffer the negative effects of job insecurity.
Based on a sample of 346 Chinese employees, data were collected at two time points with an interval of one month. This study used Structural Equation Model, Bootstrap and Latent Moderate Structural Equations for empirical test, with the use of Mplus8.0. The analysis results revealed that job insecurity not only had a significantly direct negative effect on work-life balance but also had a significantly indirect negative effect on work-life balance via the chain mediating effect of workplace cognitive failure and negative work rumination. The results did not support the moderating effect of perceived supervisor support between job insecurity and workplace cognitive failure but showed that perceived supervisor support acted as an amplifier, not a buffer between the relation of workplace cognitive failure and negative work rumination. Therefore, although the opposite direction was expected, perceived supervisor support moderated the chain mediation relationship proposed above. Specifically, for employees with higher perceived supervisor support, the indirect negative effect of job insecurity on work-life balance via workplace cognitive failure and negative work rumination was stronger than that of employees with lower perceived supervisor support.
This study enriched the limited research on the non-work field outcomes of job insecurity through exploring how and when job insecurity influence employee work-life balance under the Chinese organizational background. In terms of practical implications, this study suggested that to reduce the negative impact of job insecurity on work-life balance, enterprises should take various cognitive interventions (e.g., mindfulness training) to avoid job insecure employees from falling into negative cognitive states and help supervisors to give employees appropriate social support through management competency (e.g., coaching) training.

Key words: job insecurity, work-life balance, workplace cognitive failure, negative work rumination, perceived supervisor support

摘要： 基于资源保存理论,考察工作不安全感对工作-生活平衡的影响机制。对346名企业员工进行两阶段纵向追踪调查,结果表明：（1）工作不安全感对工作-生活平衡有直接负向影响;（2）工作认知失败和消极工作反刍在工作不安全感对工作-生活平衡的负面影响间起到中介作用以及链式中介作用;（3）主管支持感强化工作认知失败与消极工作反刍之间的关系从而调节以上链式中介。研究结果有助于为改善由工作不安全感引发的工作和生活失衡提供启发和对策。

关键词: 工作不安全感, 工作-生活平衡, 工作认知失败, 消极工作反刍, 主管支持感