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Targets and Strategies for Job Preservation 
COR theory provides an important foundation for our research. The idea that individuals 
invest resources (e.g., time, energy) to counteract threats to resources suggests that JI should be 
associated with behaviors aimed at reducing threats. However, it is unclear what forms of 
behavior (i.e., resource investment) job preservation efforts may take. To address this question, 

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we integrate reasoning from Hobfoll et al. (2018) and Alicke and Sedikides (2009) to suggest 
that potential job preservation strategies can be categorized by a 2x2 typology (Table 1) 
corresponding to direction (task v. social) and strategy (promotion v. protection).
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Insert Table 1 about here 
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The first dimension of our typology concerns whether one’s efforts are primarily socially- 
or task-oriented. Hobfoll et al. (2018) argued that language and social bonding play an important 
role in resource investment. With regard to JI, efforts to portray one’s accomplishments and 
worth to one’s supervisor may therefore serve as a social strategy for reducing threats (Huang, 
Zhao, Niu, Ashford, & Lee, 2013). At the same time, research utilizing COR theory has also 
pointed to non-socially (i.e., task) directed resource investment in the workplace (Witt & 
Carlson, 2006). In this vein, efforts to enhance or maintain performance capture task-directed job 
preservation strategies (Shoss, 2017). 
While the social versus task dimension captures an important distinction in the target of 
job preservation behaviors, it is also worth differentiating the strategy underlying individuals’ 
job preservation attempts (the second dimension in our typology). Alicke and Sedikides (2009: 
6) describe self-enhancement and self-protection as two core motivational strategies related to 
how individuals protect themselves against threat; specifically, “self-enhancement entails 
instrumental action designed to promote oneself and one’s prospects, whereas successful self-
protective measures obviate falling below one’s standards.” Although they were primarily 
focused on the consequences of these strategies for the self-concept, we suggest that the basic 
idea of promotive versus protective strategies is a useful one to examine how individuals 
approach the task of job preservation. Promotive approaches reflect attempts to actively 
demonstrate one’s worth to the organization. In contrast, protective approaches involve trying to 

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refrain from behaviors that might invite threat.
Although several behaviors could fall in each of the categories, we focus on four 
candidate workplace behaviors in the current research. We conceptualize directing effort towards 
job performance, defined as behaviors directly relevant to the organization’s goals (Campbell, 
McCloy, Oppler, & Sager, 1993), as a promotive job preservation strategy aimed at task-oriented 
resource investment. We view refraining from organizational counterproductive work behavior 
(CWB), defined as intentional misbehavior at work that has the potential to harm the 
organization (Bennett & Robinson, 2000), as a protective task-oriented resource investment 
strategy. Our rationale is that job insecure individuals will want to refrain from engaging in 
behaviors, such as leaving early or stealing, that may invite additional threats.
We examine self-presentation ingratiatory behaviors, defined as “a set of assertive tactics 
that are used by organizational members to gain the approbation of superiors” (Kumar & 
Beyerlein, 1991: 619), as a socially-oriented promotive job preservation strategy. Ingratiation has 
been found to assist in gaining social capital and the favor of supervisors (Sibunruang, Garcia, & 
Tolentino, 2016). We focus on self-presentation ingratiation tactics because they emphasize the 
individual’s accomplishments and skills and, thus, may be used by job insecure individuals to 
make a case that they are valuable to the organization and should be retained.
Finally, we examine evasive knowledge hiding, defined as providing colleagues with 
“incorrect information or a misleading promise of a complete answer in the future,” as a socially-
oriented protective job preservation strategy (Connelly, Zweig, Webster, & Trougakos, 2012: 
76). Although viewed as desirable from the organization’s point of view, knowledge sharing 
could be seen as inviting threats from competitors in the workplace and threatening one’s role as 
an expert (Serenko & Bontis, 2016). We focus specifically on evasive knowledge hiding because 

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we view it as the dimension of knowledge hiding that best captures a socially-oriented protective 
job preservation strategy. When engaging in evasive knowledge hiding, employees 
simultaneously protect themselves against threats due to loss of unique knowledge and try to 
avoid diminishing social bonds that they might need in the future.
As noted, research has yielded inconsistent findings about JI’s relationship with these 
outcomes, underscoring the need for research to better establish directionality as a necessary first 
step for understanding potential job preservation responses to JI. For example, in experimental 
work, Probst and colleagues (2007) found that JI positively impacted productivity. However, 
other studies, including those with lagged or longitudinal designs, have reported negative (e.g., 
Probst et al., 2017) or non-significant relationships between JI and performance (e.g., Selenko et 
al., 2017). A recent meta-analysis found a significant negative correlation in cross-sectional, but 
not longitudinal research designs (Sverke, Låstad, Hellgren, Richter, & Näswall, 2019).
Likewise, research on the relationship between JI and CWB has also revealed discrepant 
findings, with lagged studies reporting positive or non-significant relationships between JI and 
CWB (Huang et al., 2016; Shoss et al., 2019) and cross-sectional studies reporting negative, 
positive, or non-significant relationships (Piccoli, De Witte, & Reisel, 2017; Probst et al., 2007; 
Reisel, Probst, Chia, Maloles, & König, 2010). Sverke et al.’s (2019) meta-analysis found 
significant positive associations across both cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs; 
however, the small number of longitudinal studies limits this result. 
Although JI research has not examined self-presentation ingratiatory behavior, some 
studies have focused on impression management behavior more generally. In cross-sectional 
research, the link between JI and impression management has been reported as both significantly 
positive (De Cuyper, Schreurs, Vander Elst, Baillien, & De Witte, 2014) and significantly 

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negative (Kang, Gold, & Kim, 2012). Acknowledging contention in the literature and competing 
theoretical models, Probst and colleagues (2020) found support for a reverse-causation model in 
which supervisor-focused impression management negatively predicted JI one month later.
Other researchers have anticipated a link between workplace knowledge behaviors and 
JI. One cross-sectional study suggested that JI promoted knowledge hiding (Serenko & Bontis, 
2016) while another suggested JI was associated with greater knowledge sharing (McKnight, 
Phillips, & Hardgrave, 2009). Another study found no significant association between JI and 
knowledge sharing behaviors (Bartol, Liu, Zeng, & Wu, 2009). All in all, research into these 
relationships has been limited and equivocal.