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GENERAL DISCUSSION 
 
The question of whether JI motivates employees to try to secure their jobs has perplexed 
researchers for decades. Our research addresses (a) the directionality of JI – workplace behavior 
relationships, (b) the specific strategies employees may pursue, (c) the conditions under which JI 
is associated with job preservation motivation, and (d) how these efforts feedback to shape JI.

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Contributions to Research and Theory 
 
Our findings are generally in line with the idea that individuals are motivated to direct 
energy and effort toward trying to counteract threats to their jobs, particularly when faced with 
proximal threats. Study 1 establishes a link between JI and socially-oriented resource investment 
strategies as indicated by self-presentation ingratiatory behavior and evasive knowledge hiding. 
Study 2’s findings suggest that people may use both social and task-oriented strategies when 
facing highly proximal threats. However, the findings of a negative direct effect of JI on job 
performance and a positive direct effect of JI on counterproductive work behavior may help 
explain why Study 1 found a null overall relationship between JI and subsequent performance 
and a positive relationship between JI and subsequent counterproductive work behavior. 
Although individuals may be motivated to perform well and refrain from counterproductive work 
behavior, doing so appears to be difficult under higher JI. These results provide interesting 
insights into JI as a threat of future loss—individuals are motivated to counteract this threat, and 
mobilize effort and energy to do so, but at the same time, the experience of JI makes certain 
expenditures (specifically, the task-oriented strategies of performance and refraining from 
misbehavior) potentially more difficult. 
In doing so, these findings advance and clarify JI research. Our longitudinal findings are 
consistent with past findings of null relationships between JI and performance (e.g., Selenko et 
al., 2017), but they suggest that such findings do not mean that job performance is not a relevant 
outcome of JI. Rather, the relationship is nuanced, reflecting both threat conditions that may 
encourage job preservation motivation and, at the same time, potential countervailing effects. In 
this sense, our Study 2 finding of a positive indirect effect of JI on performance under conditions 
of higher threat proximity echoes Probst et al.’s (2007) experimental findings—under more 

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proximal threat conditions, JI is associated with greater motivation to preserve one’s job, which 
in turn is positively associated with performance and negatively associated with 
counterproductive work behavior. This pattern of findings is consistent with other research as 
well; for instance, research finds that pregnant women worried about job threat (a proximal 
threat) try to exceed performance expectations (Gatrell, 2011). Surprisingly, Study 1 did not 
reveal the anticipated reversed relationship between performance and JI, which we thought 
would help explain the negative relationship found in many cross-sectional studies (Sverke et al., 
2019). Perhaps one’s past performance does little to assuage concerns about potential job loss. 
Alternatively, the negative direct effect of JI on performance that we observed in Study 2 and/or 
any negative reversed effects that exist may be stronger in the more immediate timeframes 
captured by cross-sectional research. Future research is needed to examine this further. 
Regarding counterproductive work behaviors, Study 1’s results indicate a negative spiral 
wherein people respond to JI with counterproductive work behavior that in turn makes them 
more worried about their jobs. These findings help explain recent meta-analytic findings by 
Sverke et al. (2019) of a positive JI-counterproductive work behavior relationship. The reversed 
relationship is also consistent with the turnover literature’s finding that misbehavior can put 
employees’ jobs at risk (e.g., Spurk et al., 2018). That said, as Study 2 showed, this relationship 
is muted when people perceive more proximal threats, suggesting at least some effort might be 
made to refrain from these behaviors depending on the circumstance.
Our research also sheds light on socially-oriented job preservation strategies, which have 
been the focus of less JI research. We found positive relationships between JI and self-
presentation ingratiatory behavior in both Studies 1 and 2, echoing findings from Huang et al. 
(2013). These findings provide strong support for socially-oriented promotive strategies as a 

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behavioral response to JI. Surprisingly, self-presentation ingratiatory behavior was positively 
associated with subsequent JI. It may be that higher self-presentation behaviors inadvertently 
make individuals feel that there is a spotlight on their performance. The resulting pressure to 
maintain their advertised achievements and skills may then increase JI. Although this finding 
runs counter to Probst et al.’s (2020) conclusions, their measure of impression management 
could be viewed as more akin to supervisor-directed citizenship than self-presentation. 
Study 1 found that JI was positively associated with subsequent evasive knowledge 
hiding. In turn, knowledge hiding was negatively associated with subsequent JI, suggesting that 
this strategy is successful at reducing JI. This pattern of longitudinal relationships (positive 
directional, negative reversed) helps to explain equivocal findings in cross-sectional research, 
which capture both directed and reversed relationships simultaneously (e.g., Bartol, Liu, Zeng, & 
Wu, 2009; Serenko & Bontis, 2016). That said, we did not find the expected indirect effects in 
Study 2. This may be because Study 2 took place during the COVID-19 crisis where decisions 
about how organizations handle nearly every aspect of their business (e.g., operations, 
marketing, safety) were rapidly changing and many workers had transitioned to remote work 
where there was less opportunity to interact with others. This may have limited opportunities for 
knowledge hiding or, in some cases, made it such that hiding knowledge could actually threaten 
one’s job by making one look incompetent or unhelpful in an organizational crisis situation. 
Indeed, the mean for knowledge hiding was much lower in Study 2 than in Study 1. However, 
the open-ended findings in Table 7 echo the idea that people view having unique knowledge as a 
valuable strategy for attaining job security. We encourage research to explore context-driven 
changes in the job preservation strategies that individuals attempt.
The notion of job preservation is often dismissed because it could be taken to imply that 

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JI is beneficial for organizations. However, our findings do not suggest an overall benefit for 
organizations from JI. Although job preservation motivation may be indirectly positively 
associated with job performance under perceptions of more proximal threats, there is a negative 
countervailing effect, suggesting individuals may be working harder simply to maintain 
performance. Moreover, JI is linked with greater social job preservation behaviors (knowledge 
hiding, self-presentation ingratiatory behavior), neither of which can be thought of as beneficial 
for the organization. However, the general pattern of results observed in the research, especially 
the indirect effects through job preservation motivation under conditions of higher threat 
proximity observed in Study 2, point to strategic resource investment as a valuable lens through 
which to understand reactions to JI. Our 2x2 typology suggests that people may pursue different 
strategies for job preservation, thereby providing a way for the field to organize and investigate 
potential job preservation responses. 
In addition to advancing the JI literature, these findings also help clarify COR theory 
(Hobfoll, 1989), which provides limited explanation of (a) the resource investment strategies 
people pursue and (b) the conditions under which people pursue resource investment to 
counteract threats versus when they choose to conserve energy and effort. Counter to Hagger’s 
(2015) ideas about justification for resource investment, we did not find significant moderating 
effects of perceived threat controllability. This finding is in line with Hobfoll’s (1989) contention 
that people will make every effort to counteract threats, even efforts that are unlikely to be 
successful. Perhaps the importance of the job is enough justification for resource investment, 
regardless of perceptions of controllability. That said, it is also possible that these results might 
be due to the relatively broad measure of controllability. Perhaps a measure that addresses the 
extent to which individuals anticipate that they can secure their jobs through engaging in specific 

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forms of behavior (e.g., higher job performance, etc.) would have yielded different results.