2.1. The Changing Nature of Work (in Manufacturing Industry) Due to Robotisation
Addressing our time as an era of conscious social change, Bowen and Mangum [
28] claim one of the predominant factors underlying current social changes is the advancement of technology. There are no doubts that the current wave of technological innovation, known as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” [
29], will have a far-reaching impact on the labour market [
4]. Technology is believed to effect economies, employment and nature of work dramatically [
30,
31,
32]; however, it is still controversial whether the new technologies substitute or create more and new jobs [
4,
33,
34,
35].
Turning to manufacturing industry, the use of robots is at the core of debates, as industrial robots are quite widely used in manufacturing [
7]. The word ‘robot’ was first introduced in 1921 and now refers to machines that can navigate through and interact with the physical world of factories, warehouses, battlefields, and offices [
36]. Playing a vital role in manufacturing industry’s efforts to be competitive, industrial robots are dominating in comparison to collaborative robots [
37]. Industrial robots are fully autonomous machines that do not need a human operator and that can be programmed to perform several manual tasks such as welding, assembling, handling materials, painting, or packaging [
38]. Moreover, robotic technologies are continuing to advance allowing them to perform various and increasingly difficult tasks [
9] making people worry that large-scale job losses are looming [
34]. There are many arguments why a company would prefer using robots rather than human employees. Here, only some of them are provided. Firstly, a robot can work 24/7, without the need to relax and recover. Next, robots can implement the same routine, tedious and/or dangerous work repeatedly, correctly and in a timely manner. Further, robots focus on work without negative emotions; they do not complain or require better working conditions. Finally, robots could be rented or bought easier than human employees get hired [
8]. Relying on the advantages of robots, it is not surprising that employees may feel insecure concerning the future existence of jobs [
11]. The insecurity might even be fueled by some empirical evidence, as for instance Acemoglu and Restrepo [
38] found that an increased use of robots has reduced the employment-to-population ratio. Naturally, technologies do not affect all work in the same way [see Acemoglu and Autor [
39] for an overview]; however, human employees working in manufacturing are in real danger, as “
those employees whose jobs include repetitive, tedious, and/or dangerous tasks, and are subject to strict algorithmisation” ([
8], p. 3) are on the road for some replacement or substitution. Drawing upon the detrimental consequences of job insecurity on employees and organisations, the question of the extent of job insecurity perceived by the manufacturing employees is highly relevant. The conceptualisation of this social phenomenon is provided below.
2.2. Job Insecurity
Job insecurity has been defined in various ways in the literature. One of the earliest and of most-quoted definitions was provided by Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt [
40], claiming that job insecurity was “
the perceived powerlessness to maintain desired continuity in a threatened job situation” (p. 438). Another highly-quoted definition belongs to De Witte [
13] arguing that job insecurity is “
the perceived threat of job loss and the worries related to that threat” (p. 1). The overview of definitions [
12] suggests that some researchers treat job insecurity as multi-dimensional, differentiating between quantitative (threats to the continuation or loss of the job itself) and qualitative (threats to continued existence of valued job features) job insecurity [
13,
41]. Further, another distinction often made is between the cognitive and affective job insecurity [
13,
22]. Cognitive job insecurity refers to the perceived threat to the continuity of one’s employment and/or to the features of the job (e.g., deterioration of working conditions), whereas affective job insecurity captures the emotional reactions to the perceived threat to one’s job (e.g., concern, worry, anxiety) [
42]. However, despite the diversity in definitions, some common characteristics could be underlined. First, job insecurity is a subjective experience implying that the same objective situation (e.g., a decline in demand for the goods the company is producing) may be interpreted in various ways by different workers. Some employees may feel insecure whereas their job continuity is (‘objectively speaking’) not in danger, while others may feel secure about their jobs, even though they will be laid off soon afterwards [
13]. Second, job insecurity is a future-focused phenomenon [
43]. Job insecurity reflects a forecast about a loss event, which might occur one day in the future [
12]. Consequently, employees are ‘groping in the dark’ as far as their future within the organisation is concerned [
13]. Third, job insecurity refers to involuntary nature; the feeling of powerlessness is also a part of many job insecurity definitions [
13]. Finally, job insecurity is about the stability and continuity of one’s current employment and accordingly differs from employability, as a related construct, which captures an individual’s perceived ability to obtain a new job [
13]. The current paper treats job insecurity as a global construct comprising a perceived, unwelcome threat to the current job, as suggested in a study of Sverke et al. [
22].
As mentioned earlier, job insecurity might generate a vast range of outcomes for individuals and organisations. Seeing that the paper limits its scope to a single outcome–performance, the next subsection describes employee performance, revealing the nature of task performance and OCB.
2.3. Task Performance and OCB
Employee performance refer to “
actions, behavior and outcomes that employees engage in or bring out that are linked with and contribute to organizational goals” ([
44], p. 216). In contemporary research, employee performance is treated as a phenomenon, which consists of several distinct types, or dimensions of performance behaviour [
45]. This paper limits its focus to two dimensions, namely task performance and OCB.
In work psychology literature, task performance is defined as the effectiveness with which job incumbents perform activities that contribute to the organisation’s technical core either directly by implementing a part of its technological process, or indirectly by providing it with the necessary materials or services [
46,
47]. Very similarly, Van Scotter [
48] claims that employees are engaging in task performance when they “
use technical skills and knowledge to produce goods or services through the organisation’s core technical processes, or when they accomplish specialized tasks that support these core functions” (pp. 80–81). Pradhan and Jena [
45] argue that task performance “
comprises of job-explicit behaviours which include fundamental job responsibilities assigned as a part of job description” (p. 71). As task performance is primarily facilitated through task knowledge, task skill, and task habits [
49], the primary antecedents of it include the ability to do the job and prior experience [
45]. Summing up, task performance refers to activities that contribute to the technical core and these activities are formally recognised as part of the job [
50].
OCB is a quite different dimension of employee performance representing contextual performance. OCB is a kind of prosocial behaviour demonstrated by individuals in a work set-up [
45]. Originally defined by Organ [
51], OCB is treated as “
individual behaviour that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognised by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organisation” (p. 4). Later, Organ [
52] provided a more precise understanding of OCB referring to the “
performance that supports the social and psychological environment in which task performance takes place” (p. 95). According to Bolino and Turnley [
53], employee efforts that go “
above and beyond the call of duty” (p. 60) reflect the nature of OCB. More precisely, employees are engaged in OCB, when they voluntarily help colleagues who are getting behind, act in ways that maintain good working relationships, put in extra effort to complete an assignment on time or carry out task activities that are not formally part of the job [
48]. In general, OCB is highly relevant because it contributes to the overall organisational effectiveness in ways that shape the organisational, social, and psychological context that might foster the task activities [
47].
Generally, both dimensions of performance, as much task performance as OCB, are significant for organisational survival leading to the demand to strengthen the employee performance. However, it seems likely that job insecurity might cause the opposite result with respect to employee performance. Thus, the next subsection provides a theoretical justification and the empirical evidence regarding the association between job insecurity and task performance and OCB.
2.4. Job Insecurity in Relation to Task Performance and OCB
Drawing upon previous literature, it seems that stress theory [
27], psychological contract theory [
54], and social identity theory [
55] are the main theoretical approaches used to explain the relationship between job insecurity and performance in terms of task performance and OCB. The current paper limits its focus only to the stress theory.
Recognisable technological innovations implemented by the manufacturing companies while installing increasingly more industrial robots cause some threats for the employees and act as a main stressor to employment and job existence [
11,
14]. Relying on the notion that job insecurity is a stressor, the explanation of the way the employees respond to job insecurity in terms of their performance is not so straightforward. The prior literature proposed a two-dimensional work stressor framework with respect to the stressors’ relationships with performance [
56]. Drawing upon this two-dimensional stressor model, any stressor reflects two basic dimensions, namely hindrance and challenge [
56]. A hindrance stressor is defined as excessive or undesirable work-related demands or circumstances that interfere with or hinder an individual’s ability to achieve goals [
57]. Contrary to the hindrance stressor, a challenge stressor is seen as a job demand creating the opportunity for better work achievements [
27]. Thus, on one hand, as a result of the hindrance stressor or “bad” stress [
56], job insecurity might lead to reduced task performance and reduced OCB. However, on the other hand, as a result of the challenge stressor or “good” stress [
56], job insecurity could trigger higher task performance and OCB when employees cope with job insecurity actively by exerting extra effort to demonstrate their worth, as a form of job preservation strategy [
27].
Having the context of the paper in mind, this research treats job insecurity as a hindrance stressor. Unquestionably, during the last decades, technological innovations have dramatically changed the nature of work [
11,
30], while some labour in terms of production of goods is performed by robots, meaning that humans will be increasingly marginalised from the production process [
7]. Alongside the initial high expectations of the robots’ potential to assist humans in the manufacturing process, people have become deeply concerned about the existence of their job in the future. Actually, work has extraordinary importance for individuals, as it fulfils various fundamental human needs, for instance the need for survival [
14]. In the meantime, job insecurity limits or makes it impossible to satisfy some of the fundamental needs. Moreover, humans might feel that robots are their competitors in terms of being employed in a particular industry or workplace. As the technological progress accelerates and displacement effect becomes an obvious reality with manufacturing companies using robots instead of humans [
31], employees might experience a feeling of powerlessness to change the current and future situations as regards their job existence. Hence, the growing use of robots raises stressful demands, which have the nature of a hindrance stressor. In general, hindrance stressor has the potential to harm personal growth, cause negative emotions, and trigger a passive style of coping [
56]. One way to emotionally cope with such a stressor is to behaviourally withdraw from the situation [
19]. Turning to performance, reduced task performance and reduced OCB are the perfect examples of such behavioural withdrawal [
19]. Referring to job insecurity as to an undesirable work-related demand, employees might demonstrate lower task performance and lower discretionary efforts.
Turning to empirical evidence regarding the linkage between job insecurity and task performance and OCB, no consensus exists. The majority of studies have found job insecurity to be negatively related to general and task performance [
20,
43,
58]; however, there are some studies that have found non-significant [
55] or even positive associations [
59]. Regarding OCB, the associations between job insecurity and OCB have also proved to be negative in most studies [
22], although some studies have found non-significant relationships [
20].
Looking to meta-analysis, Sverke et al. [
2] found no significant relationship between the job insecurity and performance. Subsequent meta-analyses [
25,
26,
42] found a rather weak, but nevertheless statistically significant negative relationship. A more recent meta-analysis of Sverke et al. [
22] demonstrated that job insecurity was associated with impaired task performance and OCB.
In summary, the core assumption of the current paper claims that the hindrance effect of job insecurity manifests itself through behavioural withdrawal (lower task performance and OCB), because it reflects a passive coping process. In line with this perspective, job insecurity makes it difficult for employees to devote their energy and attention to performing their duties or to demonstrating extra-role performance [
27]. Based on theoretical reasoning while treating job insecurity as a hindrance stressor, the paper hypothesises the following:
Hypothesis 1 (H1). Job insecurity will be negatively related to task performance.
Hypothesis 2 (H2). Job insecurity will be negatively related to OCB.
The theoretical model is provided below (
Figure 1).