Employee Psychic Distress

ATTITUDES TOWARD THEIR ORGANIZATION AND JOB TASKS

In the years since 1980, during periods of financial stress and in several labor/management negotiations, the employees at Acklin Stamping (a stamping plant owned by a Fortune 500 Company) have been threatened with a plant closing. This means that their job security has been threatened for over 15 years. The proposed study is designed to examine whether the long term psychic distress associated with the factor of job insecurity has had a negative impact on employees' attitudes toward their organization and their job tasks.

The proposal begins with a brief introduction to the research. This introduction is then followed by a review of the relevant literature; the review ends with the formulation of research hypotheses. The final section of the proposal delineates and discusses all of the methods and procedures that will be used in both the collection and analysis of data.

There is fairly good evidence that the threat of job loss can produce both stress and psychic distress on employees. For example, in a study of 1,597 workers from four closing and 12 nonclosing General Motors plants, Hamilton, Broman, Hoffman and Renner (1990) interviewed employees approximately three months before scheduled plant closings. Dependent variables were baseline frequencies of somatic, depressive, and anxiety symptoms.

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ob loss can have a variety of negative affects including the effects of financial strain, marital difficulty and conflict, reduced affiliation in personal and social networks, and financial loss events (loss of a house or of other personal property). Actual job loss was associated with more strain than simple job insecurities because the unemployment experience tends to increase the level of conflict, tension, and stress within the household. Nevertheless, for married workers, the marital relationship was found to provide a strong support system that has protective effects on mental health. In another study of variables that moderate the impact of job insecurity, Orpen (1994) examined whether self-esteem and personal control interacted with job insecurity to determine differences in well-being among 129 employees of an Australian manufacturer. Using hierarchical regression analysis, it was shown that the personal attributes of self-esteem and personal control moderated the impact of job insecurity on psychological well-being. Specifically, it was found that low self-esteem and external control employees were significantly more adversely affected by insecurity than their high self-esteem and internal control counterparts.
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Approximate Word count = 3914
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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