Previous studies have suggested that leadership style may have an impact on job insecurity among employees. Authentic leaders encourage the development of the people around them by practicing real values, beliefs and behaviours, being subordinate oriented and making honest evaluations of the behaviour and performance of employees. Authentic leadership, often considered the ‘root construct’ of other positive leadership forms, conforms to Chinese culture and hence, may be the most suitable leadership style for organizations following this culture. As the effect of authentic leadership on job insecurity is unclear, this study aimed to examine the mechanism between job insecurity and authentic leadership and further explore the mediating effect of psychological empowerment and psychological capital. The results of this study, involving 451 employees from 68 departments of a communications enterprise in China, revealed that authentic leadership has a cross‐level negative impact on employees' job insecurity. Moreover, psychological empowerment and psychological capital played a multiple mediating role between authentic leadership and job insecurity.

From the perspective of resource conservation theory, this study selected 568 enterprise employees as subjects and conducted data collection using a random sampling method to explore the relationship between job insecurity and safe behaviours as well as the role of insomnia and job engagement in this relationship. The results show that (1) job insecurity is negatively correlated with safety behaviour, (2) insomnia mediates the relationship between job insecurity and safety behaviour, (3) work engagement plays a mediating role in the relationship between job insecurity and safety behaviour, and (4) insomnia and work engagement play a serial mediating role in the relationship between job insecurity and safety behaviour.

This paper explores the impact of abusive supervision on job insecurity under the frameworks of the social cognitive theory and the leader-member exchange theory; additionally, it explores the mediating role of leader-member exchange (LMX) and the moderating role of power distance. In this study, 944 employees from two state-owned enterprises located in China were surveyed via questionnaires. Results of the correlation analysis and statistical bootstrapping showed that (i) abusive supervision was significantly and positively related to job insecurity, (ii) LMX played a mediating role in the impact of abusive supervision on job insecurity, and (iii) power distance played a moderating role in the relationship between LMX and job insecurity. Based on the social cognitive theory, this study broadens the perspective of studies regarding job insecurity. It also provides practical suggestions for avoiding abusive supervision and for alleviating employees’ insecurities about management.

This study examines the psychometric properties of a new multidimensional job insecurity measure (JIM) by O'Neill and Sevastos in a Chinese context. Overall, the results corroborate the construct validity, reliability and criterion‐related validity of the JIM. Based on the results of the exploratory factor analysis, the new scale has 15 items and three items were removed from the dimensions of job loss and job change because of differences in culture and understanding between Chinese and Western employees. Additionally, the relationship between job insecurity and theoretically viable antecedents (three different types of conflicts) and outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction and counterproductive work behaviour) were also examined, and the results show that the three conflicts are effective predictors of job insecurity and job insecurity is predictor of outcomes variables. All findings show that this new JIM is more parsimonious and more effective in assessing job insecurity in the Chinese context.

We investigated the impact of work–family conflict on job insecurity according to conservation of resources theory, and examined the mediating role of core self-evaluation in this relationship. In addition, we investigated if men and women show differences in their levels of work–family conflict. Participants were 378 employees of a stateowned enterprise in China, and we analyzed the data using correlation analysis and the bootstrapping method. Results show that work–family conflict was positively correlated with job insecurity and negatively correlated with core self-evaluation, with men experiencing greater work–family conflict than women did. Further, core self-evaluation was negatively correlated with job insecurity, and also mediated the relationship between work–family conflict and job insecurity. We have used conservation of resources theory to broaden understanding of job insecurity. Suggestions are provided for ways managers can alleviate employees' job insecurity.