DOWNSIZING, JOB INSECURITY, JOB SATISFACTION AND SAFETY PROMOTION

摘要

Risk management theorists, as well as practitioners, emphasise the importance of employee risk perception as well as commitment and involvement in accident prevention and safety promotion. The drive to secure these goals has been advanced alongside organisational change through restructuring, involving downsizing. Downsizing is defined as a constellation of stressor events centring around pressures towards work reductions which place demands upon the organisation, work group and individual employees (Shaw and Barrett-Power, 1997). The present paper aims at measuring employee judgements of their own job insecurity caused by downsizing as well as analysing the associations between job insecurity, job satisfaction and occupational risk behaviour. Employees at seven Norwegian plants have answered a self-completion questionnaire (n=254). All the plants belonged to the same company. The company is one of the worlds' greatest gas suppliers. The data was collected in 1998. The results showed that job insecurity was significantly correlated with job satisfaction. The more dissatisfied employees were with their jobs, the more risky was also their on-the-job behaviour. Employees who were dissatisfied with their working conditions also reported behaviour that may cause ill health more frequently compared to those who were satisfied. The implications of the results for accident prevention and safety promotion are discussed.