Understanding and Exploring the Concept of Fear, in the Work Context and Its Role in Improving Safety Performance and Reducing Well-Being in a Steady Job Insecurity Period

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments on “Fears and job insecurity in the work context as relvant factors for wellbeing and safe performance”

This paper examines the link between worker fears and worker accidents, mistakes, duration of employment, wellbeing, and safety performance. The paper concludes that, other than a weak association with safety behaviors, fear has very little impact on these other outcomes.

I had a lot of questions about what this paper actually accomplishes, and most are due to a very incomplete description of the data.  The first issue is the definition of fear. As I began to read the paper, I thought fear involved job security. However, as I came to the empirical section, the actual definition of fear became very difficult to pin down. In Table 1, Fears include company closure, but many other elements that seem completely unrelated to job insecurity. Guilt, incomplete information, and inability to help the company respond to external shocks are not the same as fear of job loss. In fact, the list of items in Table 1 suggest that fear is subject to considerable measurement error. The finding that fear does not affect the various outcome could be driven by attenuation in the estimated effect toward zero due to the measurement error.

Safety behaviors are also defined vaguely. In table 2, safety behaviors include worker gratification, work assignments, written information, and storing equipment. Perhaps these are related to safety, but they could be completely unrelated to safety and are just compensation and ways to maintain efficiency or to keep equipment functioning.

Other variables are not defined. The paper does not define how accidents are measured, how mistakes are quantified, or what is meant by wellbeing. Normally, we would have access to copies of the questionnaire so that we have a way to interpret the results. Perhaps there is no relationship between fear and all these outcomes, but it is equally possible that these concepts are so poorly defined that the estimates give no meaningful incite into the true effect.

In much of the discussion of the results, the authors attempt to explain why the results are inconclusive by appealing to ad hoc explanations such as, “although [workers] are in a negative emotional state related to the fear of job loss, people are forced to think ‘positively’ by accepting fears … and by taking risks to help their organization … as well as themselves to feel less negative emotions and thus reduce the related emotional stress” (page 21). Effectively, this ‘explanation’ says that workers who are in a negative state force themselves not to be in a negative state. There is nothing in the data that supports this explanation, and I am not sure the explanation makes any sense.

Later on that page, the authors state the failure to find a relationship between fear and accidents or mistakes can be attributed to interactions between co-workers and social support that promote positive emotions. Even if I understood what this meant, there is no supporting data backing these conjectures.

In the end, an empirical paper needs to define its variables well enough to allow for replication by other researchers. That is not done here.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

we send attached our reply.

Thank you very much for inidicating way to improve our paper.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Title -Probably you need to make some changes. At the moment it sounds very average. 

Key words- add some in order to specify the research.

Please, add, why you have chosen only 13 companies. 217 employees -is it the proper number for such kind or the research?

References- 115-118 not sighted in the text

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We send attached our reply.

Thank you very much for indicating ways to improve our paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors

While the topic is interesting, the construct and language of the manuscript is not completely satisfactory and academic. The authors seem to use pre-judgemental and hasty language. An example of that may be as following in the abstract part (the same is found throughout the paper):

Quote

"Job insecurity may be generated in employees by an economic crisis, which is attributable to their fear of being exploited by the organization. It may have negative effects on them—for example, it may lead employees to adopt counterproductive behaviours and safety behaviours that harm them and the organization."

Unquote

1. Use of word "generated" is a bit inappropriate and may be misleading

2. which is attributable seems prejudgement in the very first sentence of the paper

3. employees to adopt counterproductive .... is too eager a comment without much substance here

These may be indicative of  issues with the language or may also be an indication of academic laxity with which the paper is written. I should like to suggest a thorough revision of the paper with careful consideration to such issues that are prevalent throughout the paper.

While the hypothesis may be appropriate to begin with, but the limited scope of the data source (only 13 companies and only from two sectors, i.e. construction and heavy industry, make the study too limited in its nature. for hypothesis of this nature, I should like to suggest a wider based data source. This may be a big limitation of the practical scope and use of the study.

Same laxity of thought and selection is apparent regarding selection and application of qualitative and quantitative variables used in the analysis. While, the technical side of analysis is more or less appropriate, the incongruity and mismatch of variables across the qualitative and quantitative regimens is bound of lead to misleading conclusions.

Hope authors will take this review and advice contained herein in good faith and would agree to rewrite the paper. I earnestly hope that acting upon the advice rendered here will increase the value of the paper significantly.

Goodluck!

Referee

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for indicating ways to increase the value of our paper.

We believe to adequately addressed all the comments.

Thank you again.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The article is interesting, but not very revealing. The topic of fear and job insecurity has already been raised many times, if not literally, while studying motivation to work or pathology at work. However, the Authors put a lot of effort into its preparation, which is visible both in the literature research and in their own research. However, I have a few comments.

First of all, the abstract does not have the clearly stated purpose of the paper. Secondly, the Authors start with an extensive description to finish (what they previously described in a few sentences, for example, when describing hypotheses) with one sentence. It's hard to read sometimes. Thirdly, the authors in line 78 indicate that that they will use the Lazarus appraisal model of emotions theory, but they do not just mention it. Besides, this model was created in 1966, it is rather a distant time. Fourth, in Methods, there are no specified research tools, and the Authors used the Likert scale or calculated the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. Fifth, in item 2.1.1. the Authors write: "During the discussion, the participants identified the fears (or 339 factors) that emerged in the crisis period in the 2015 - 2017", why do you think it was a crisis period? In the 21st century, the crisis period was 2007-2009.

Language errors: "well-being" not "wellbeing", "non-compliant" not "noncompliant".

"Having evaluative information available tell us what is good or bad and which are the right reactions to the events." is this sentence correctly written?

Verse 136: "(61) (Collins, Lawrence, Troth, & Jordan, 2013)" the second citation should be numbered.

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We send attached our reply.

Thank you very much for indicating ways to improve our paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Responses and changes are satisfactory

Author Response

Thank you very much

Reviewer 3 Report

Appreicate authors careful observance of referee's instructions.

It seem authors have taken good care in following most instructions.

Accept after minor language corrections, as there are still some linguistic ambiguities present in the paper.

Goodluck!

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank your very much.

Please, find attached our response.

All the best.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc