Словари и журналы / Психологические журналы / p1Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

either be reduced or totally eliminated. Based upon the results of the programme review, some employees were designated redundant, i..e they were targeted for possible lay-off. The Time 2 (T2) data were collected 6 months later in the autumn of 1996 during which time employees who had been designated redundant were offered early departure and early retirement packages. The Time 3 (T3) data collection was conducted in the autumn of 1997. Between the T2 and T3 data collections, the department implemented involuntary departures, i.e. lay-offs. The Time 4 (T4) data were collected in early 1999 after completion of the downsizing.

Participants and procedures

Questionnaire survey packets were mailed to randomly selected employees. The 167 respondents who completed all four questionnaires included 68 men and 99 women. Their average age was 42 years (SD=6.55) and they had worked for the department an average of 16 years (SD=6.55). They were primarily officer analysts (41%), middle managers (21%) and supervisors (16%). Atotal of 49 (20%) had been declared redundant in 1996. The questionnaires were coded so each respondent’s questionnaires could be matched up across the data collection periods. The overall response rate at T1 was 53%. Fifty-three per cent of those who completed a questionnaire at T1 participated at T2, 66%of those who participated at T2 also completed a questionnaire at T3, and 63%of those who participated at T3 completed a questionnaire at T4.

Measures

Unless otherwise indicated, all measures consisted of a 5-point Likert response format. The reliability coefficients for each of the measures are shown in Table 1.

Job-related factors

The 9-item measure of job facet satisfaction included 5 items from the Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham, 1974) and 4 items developed for this study. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of satisfaction with various aspects of their job including the amount of job security, challenge, and the resources and training available to help them do their job. The response categories ranged from Extremely Satisfied to Extremely Dissatisfied. The self-rated performance scale was developed for this study. Respondents were asked to rate their performance, compared to their average performance prior to the downsizing, on 11 different aspects including quality of work, productivity, assuming responsibility, and amount of effort expended on the job. The response categories were Well Above Average, Somewhat Above Average, About Average, Slightly Below Average, and Considerably Below Average. Perceived job security was assessed with 3 items adapted from Jick’s (1979) job security index. The items reflect how much confidence respondents have that their job will continue (ranging from 100%confidence to 0% confidence), their degree of worry about their job security (ranging from Not At All Worried to Extremely Worried), and their perceived likelihood of being laid off (ranging from Not At All Likely to Extremely Likely).

Organization-related factors

Perceived organizational morale was assessed with a 7-item semantic differential scale adapted from Scott (1967). Respondents were asked to describe how employees felt in general at the present time. Sample bipolar adjectives are enthusiastic/indifferent and encouraged/ discouraged. Perceived organizational trust was measured with 3 items including the 2-item trust scale developed by Ashford, Lee, and Bobko (1989) and 1 item from the trust scale of Cook and Wall (1980). A sample item is ‘I trust this organization to look out for my best interests.’ The response categories ranged from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. Organizational commitment was assessed with 3 items from the Affective Commitment Scale (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). A sample item is ‘[department] has a great deal of personal meaning for me’. Response categories ranged from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree.

Redundant status

Respondents were asked to indicate if they had personally been designated an ‘affected’ employee (this is the term the department used to reflect redundancy). The response categories were Yes or No.

6 Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen

Demographic variables

Respondents were asked to indicate how long they had worked for the department, their job classification, age, sex, marital status, and the highest level of education they had completed.

Data analysis

Repeated measures analysis of variance, with redundant status as the between subjects factor and time as the within-subjects factor, along with paired t tests, were used to identify significant differences over time and between those respondents who had been designated redundant and those who had not.

Results

There were no significant differences for being designated redundant for sex (c2=.13, p=.72), job position (c2=.00, p=.97), tenure (t=.94, p=.24), and age (t=.26, p=.80). The zero-order correlations for the major variables for the four periods are given in Table 1. Of the 300 off-diagonal correlations, 27 represent test–retest correlations where a moderate to high correlation is likely. Of the remaining 263 correlations, only 25, or less than 10%, had correlation coefficients greater than .50. Half of these were accounted for by the relationship of job satisfaction with the other variables. Thus, there is only minimal overlapping variance among the variables. What is noteworthy in Table 1 is that the levels of perceived organizational morale and trust in the organization were below the mid-point of the scale for all four time periods.

The averaged item means and standard deviations for the two redundant status groups (designated redundant or not) for the job-related factors across the four time periods are shown in Table 2 along with the repeated measures analysis of variance F values. The paired-samples t test results are presented in Table 3. There was a significant redundant status×time effect for job satisfaction. Those designated redundant reported significantly higher job satisfaction at T4 compared with the other three periods. Initially, they reported lower job satisfaction than those not designated redundant, but in the post-downsizing period those declared redundant reported higher job satisfaction than those who had not been designated redundant. There was a significant time effect for job performance and job security. Both groups reported a significant decline in job performance between T1 and T2 and then a significant increase at T4 compared with T2, although the T4 level of job performance for those not designated redundant remained below the T1 level. Both groups reported a significant increase in job security between T1/T2 and T3 and another significant increase between T3 and T4.

The averaged item means and standard deviations for the organization-related factors are presented in Table 4 along with the repeated measures analysis of variance F values. The paired-samples t test results are shown in Table 5. There was a significant redundant status×time effect for organizational trust and organizational commitment. Survivors who had been designated redundant reported a significant decrease in trust in the department at T3 compared with T2 and then a significant increase between T3 and T4. Survivors who had not been designated redundant reported a slight increase in trust in the department at T3 although this was not statistically significant. At T4, survivors who had been designated redundant reported greater trust in the department than those who had not been designated redundant. For organizational commitment, survivors who had been designated redundant reported a decrease in commitment to the department at T2 and T3 compared with T1 and then a significant increase

*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001.

between T2/T3 and T4. Survivors who had been designated redundant actually reported greater commitment to the department at T4 than those not designated redundant whose commitment remained relatively stable across all four time periods. There was a significant time effect for perceived organizational morale. Both groups reported a significant increase in perceived organizational morale at T4 although the level of perceived morale even at T4 was still well below the mid-point of the scale.

Because of the small number of participants in this study, additional power analyses were conducted. For the redundant status×time effects, the observed power for the three significant interactions was .84 for organizational commitment×time, .79 for organizational trust×time, and .67 for job satisfaction×time. These effect sizes would be within the acceptable limits (Murphy & Myors, 1998). However, the observed power indicators for the three non-significant interactions were less than .50, which is below the acceptable limit (.33 for perceived job security×time, .22 for perceived organizational morale×time, and .10 for job performance ×time). The observed power indicators for the main effects of time were above .90 for all variables except for organizational commitment, which was .64. The observed power for the main effect of redundant status was below the .50 level for all variables.

Discussion

This is one of a very few studies to examine job-and organization-related factors from the initial phases of organizational downsizing through the downsizing phases of voluntary departures and then involuntary departures to the post-downsizing period. Overall, the results indicate that within a year following organizational downsizing the negative effects that occurred during the downsizing began to dissipate. For perceived job security, the negative effect began to fade when employees found that they had survived a period of involuntary departures during the downsizing and, by the postdownsizing period, job security was significantly higher than during any period of the downsizing. The findings suggest that organizational downsizing does not have a long-term effect on survivors. However, this may be an erroneous conclusion especiallyin regard to perceived organizational morale and trust. The overall means for

*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001.

perceived organizational morale and organizational trust were all below the mid-point of the scale across the four periods. Other researchers (Armstrong-Stassen, 1998; Worrall et al., 2000) have found similarly low levels of organizational morale and trust among managers in public sector organizations following organizational restructuring and downsizing. There is some evidence that morale and trust are immediately, and seriously, undermined by organizational downsizing (American Management Association, 1996). In the present study, the employees of this department had advance knowledge of the downsizing (this was announced by the government the previous year) and they also knew that their department was targeted for over a 20%reduction of its workforce. It is possible, and indeed highly likely, that organizational morale and trust began to deteriorate prior to the actual downsizing.

It was predicted that those employees who had been declared redundant would respond more negatively to the downsizing than those employees who were not designated redundant. There were significant differences over time for job satisfaction, organizational trust and organizational commitment. Those declared redundant showed greater change (decreases during the downsizing period and then increases in the post-downsizing period) than those survivors who were not designated redundant. The present study expanded upon the exploratory study reported by ArmstrongStassen (1997). That study was limited by the small sample size (20 managers who were designated redundant and 17 managers who were not) and the fact that the data were only collected 18 to 24 months after the last of a series of downsizings and not during the actual downsizings. Armstrong-Stassen (1997) found that managers who had been declared redundant were significantly less likely to engage in proactive types of coping, more likely to report strain and burnout, and less likely to perceive support from the organization. Except for the significant redundant status×time interactions for job satisfaction, organizational trust and organizational commitment, the present study found no significant differences across any of the four periods between those who had been declared redundant and those who had not. There are two possible explanations for the discrepancy in the findings of these two studies. First, the studies focused upon different variables. It is possible that greater differences will be found for variables associated with stress, coping and strain than for job-and organization-related