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COR Theory and Job Preservation Responses to Job Insecurity 
Conservation of Resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989) is concerned with how 
individuals acquire, manage, and respond to resources, including those tied to conditions (e.g., 
employment) and energy (e.g., effort). Our study builds on a lesser-investigated element of COR 
theory, in particular, resource investment as a mechanism to protect against potential resource 
loss. While COR theory has been largely used in the management literature to study experienced 
resource loss (e.g., in the cases of workplace stressors or unemployment), our focus is on 
individual behavior in the face of threat of loss.
Hobfoll et al. (2018: 104) explained that “at its core, COR theory is a motivational theory 
that explains much of human behavior based on the evolutionary need to acquire and conserve 
resources for survival, which is central to human behavioral genetics.” COR theory argues that, 
because resources are crucial for survival, humans are highly sensitive to resource loss. For this 
reason, the threat of loss is also highly salient. While not all resources are equally important, a 

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JOB INSECURITY AND JOB PRESERVATION 4
large body of literature speaks to employment as a particularly valuable resource (De Witte et al., 
2016). Consistent with COR’s emphasis on potential loss that is perceived as a threat to one’s 
resources, we adopt the affective conceptualization of JI that captures the extent to which an 
individual is concerned or worried about potential job loss (Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018).
Under mundane circumstances, COR theory suggests people will focus their efforts on 
acquiring valued resources. That is, individuals will invest resources (e.g., time, energy) in the 
hopes of obtaining further resources. A fundamental principle of COR theory (the third principle; 
Hobfoll et al., 2018) is that resource investment takes on particular importance in the face of loss 
or potential loss. In particular, Hobfoll and colleagues (2018: 107) argued that “the motivation to 
build a resource gain cycle will increase when losses occur and will have higher payoff under 
high stress conditions.” By extension, we anticipate that resource investment similarly takes on 
added importance where there is a threat of resource loss. This prediction aligns with COR 
theory’s second principle that resource investment is crucial for protecting against future 
resource loss. Hobfoll (1989: 519) suggested that individuals will make every available attempt 
to pursue a gain strategy in the face of potential loss of important resources, even “strategies that 
have a high cost and poor chance of success.” These arguments imply that people should be 
motivated to invest resources to protect against threats to stable employment, referred to as job 
preservation motivation in the JI literature (Shoss, 2017).