Job Insecurity during an Economic Crisis: the Psychological Consequences of Widespread Corporate Cost-Cutting Announcements.

Economic crises, such as the one induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and resulting widespread corporate cost-cutting, drastically alter the nature of work. Job insecurity represents a critical intermediate between the economic ramifications of an economic crisis and work and stress outcomes, however, the underlying cognitive consequences of job insecurity and how to buffer those effects are not well understood. We examine how corporate cost-cutting announcements indirectly relate to employees' attention through their relationship with employee job insecurity and investigate supervisor support as a potential buffer of these relationships. We used multi-source data to test our research model, combining data on cost-cutting announcements (budget cuts, layoffs, and furloughs) in news articles for 165 organizations with survey data from 421 full-time employees from these organizations between March 26, 2020 and April 8, 2020. Cost-cutting announcements are positively related to job insecurity, which is related to employee's attention with supervisor support mitigating the effects of job insecurity on attention. Grounded in self-regulation theories, we contribute to and extend the theoretical understanding of the organizational context for job insecurity and cognitive outcomes. We discuss the implications for organizations to manage and prepare for future economic crises, specifically on organizational communication and supervisor interventions.

Search committee diversity and applicant pool representation of women and underrepresented minorities: A quasi-experimental field study.

The diversification of applicant pools constitutes an important step for broadening the participation of women and underrepresented minorities (URMs) in the workforce. The current study focuses on recruiting diverse applicant pools in an academic setting. We test strategies grounded in homophily theory to attract a diverse set of applicants for open faculty positions. Analysis of recruitment data (13,750 job applications) showed that women search committee chairs and greater percentages of women on search committees related to more women applicants and that URMs search chairs and a greater percentage of URM members on search committees related to more URM applicants, resulting in 23% more women applicant pools with a woman chair and over 100% more URM applicants for a URM chair. Furthermore, women and URMs actively engage in ways to reach out to a more diverse set of applicants, whereas men and non-URMs' behavior maintains the status quo. We discuss the implications and advancement of homophily theory that can ultimately increase the representation of women and URM in the workforce. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).