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Limitations and Future Research Directions 
 
Although our studies have several strengths, they are not without limitations. Both studies 
involve self-report data. Although we found little evidence for common method bias, a reader 
may wonder about the impact of social desirability on our findings. Unfortunately, scales 
attempting to measure social desirability are more likely to measure elements of personality (e.g., 
Agreeableness; Ones, Viswesvaran, & Reiss, 1996). Therefore, we sought to minimize social 
desirability through study design, including surveying people outside the workplace. 
We also acknowledge differing opinions on the utility of self-reported job performance. 
Studies have found significant correlations between self-report and supervisor-report measures of 
job performance (Williams & Levy, 1992), and both self- and supervisor-report measures may 
introduce bias in different ways. Because we anticipated that employees were in the best position 

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JOB INSECURITY AND JOB PRESERVATION 31
to differentiate their actual performance from self-presentation (Huang et al., 2013), and we were 
concerned that JI would create a reluctance to ask for supervisor reports, we elected to use self-
reports. Future research could explore other data sources.
Unfortunately, there is little guidance in the literature regarding appropriate time lags. 
The three month time lag between waves in Study 1 was chosen to align with other longitudinal 
studies of JI as well as minimize attrition between waves (e.g., Huang et al., 2012; Probst & 
Brubaker, 2001). We compressed the timeframe during the COVID-19 crisis (i.e., Study 2) 
because JI was such a salient societal stressor and we thought job preservation may play out over 
a shorter period. More research is needed to examine the temporal dynamics of these effects.
As noted above, the failure to find an effect for knowledge hiding in Study 2 as compared 
with Study 1 may have been a function of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ‘crisis mode’ that 
many businesses were in during the time. It would be beneficial for future research to examine 
how job preservation efforts are shaped by crises. Study 1’s findings may also reflect the 
representation of knowledge workers in our sample. While this may speak to the growing sector 
of the economy categorized by knowledge professions, research might explore potential job 
preservation strategies in stratified samples specifically designed to assess the role of industry. 
Future research should also further examine performance as a form of job preservation. Although 
we focused on increases in performance as an indicator of a promotive job preservation strategy, 
it is also plausible that people pursue maintaining a given level of performance as a protective 
strategy. It may also be that efforts to take on more work (see Table 7) can help explain why it is 
difficult to enhance one’s performance in light of JI.
Future research might also examine how income (i.e., job dependence) plays a role in 
responses to JI. On one hand, individuals with lower incomes may feel more dependent on their 

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JOB INSECURITY AND JOB PRESERVATION 32
job, which would lead to a greater motivation to try to hold on to that job. Shoss (2017) 
described this as economic vulnerability. On the other hand, those with higher incomes may 
worry about potential standard of living decreases and identity impacts of job loss, and may thus 
also be especially motivated to address JI (Lam, Fan, & Moen, 2014).
Research may also seek to investigate how national culture shapes individuals’ responses 
to JI. The current studies took place in the United States, which is marked by high cultural value 
on independence, low union protection, and low dismissal protection (Sverke et al., 2019). In this 
context, perhaps it is unsurprising that employees seek to preserve their jobs by making 
themselves look better. Future research should examine these effects in other contexts. 
In this vein, future research might examine whether there are individual, situational, 
organizational, or cultural differences in individuals’ choices to use different job preservation 
strategies. The typology developed here can also be used to identify and organize additional 
potential job preservation responses. For example, some of the qualitative responses from Study 
2 also indicate work intensification as a task-oriented promotion strategy. In light of the reversed 
effects found in Study 1, it would also be interesting to examine whether some job preservation 
behaviors are done to pre-empt JI rather than in response to JI.