ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Why Does Job Insecurity Influence Employees Proactivity Differently? A Dual-Path Model Based on Dualistic Passion
Provisionally accepted
- 1Xiangnan University, Chenzhou, China
- 2Jiangsu Open University, Nanjing, China
- 3Hohai University, Nanjing, China
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Job insecurity (JI) has become a salient feature of contemporary work environments and a challenge that employees must address. However, scholars hold competing perspectives on the reasons why employees adopt different coping strategies in response to JI. To address this paradox, this study draws on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and the Dualistic Model of Passion, to develop and test a dual-path model that explains how and why employees proactively respond to JI. We conducted a two-wave survey of 384 employees from China, examined the mediating roles of obsessive and harmonious passion and the moderating role of performance climate. The results show that: (1) JI is only marginally and negatively associated with task proactivity; (2) JI positively predicts task proactivity through obsessive passion while negatively predicting it through harmonious passion; (3) Performance climate strengthens the positive indirect effect of JI on task proactivity via obsessive passion. These findings clarify the competing mechanisms between JI and task proactivity, and extend COR theory by specifying the conditions under which resource investment occurs. This study provides practical guidance for organizations seeking to encourage employees to adopt adaptive responses while safeguarding employees’ sustainable engagement.
Keywords: Job Insecurity, proactive behavior, Obsessive passion, Harmonious passion, Performance climate
Received: 02 Sep 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He, Zhu and Qiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mingming Zhu, njzmm@163.com
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