Job Security Rule Changes and Employee Organizational Commitment

Abstract

This study assesses the impact of different job security rules on federal employees’ organizational commitment by looking at the effects of changes in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) precipitated by MaxHR, introduced to DHS in 2005. The 2005 job security rule changes, as part of the “reformed” personnel system of the new DHS, reduced employee job security, which in turn weakened organizational commitment. The study found subsequent repeal of the job security rules in 2007 boosted organizational commitment among DHS workers by as much as 10 percentage points. Taken together, the results of difference-in-differences (DID) analysis for the new job security rules in the period 2005-2006 and subsequent repeal of the job security rules in the period 2007-2010 suggest that employees’ commitment to DHS was more favorable after the repeal of the job security rules than prior to the 2005 reforms.

Keywords

job security rule changes organizational commitment work motivation U.S. federal government Department of Homeland Security

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abadie

(2005). Semiparametric difference-in-differences estimators. Review of Economic Studies, 72, 1-19.

Allen

N. J.

Meyer

J. P.

(1990). The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 63, 1-18.

American Federation of Government Employees. (2008). No pay-for-performance for Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved from https://www.afge.org/article/no-pay-for-performance-for-department-of-homeland-security-/

Anderfuhren-Biget

Varone

Giauque

Ritz

(2010). Motivating employees of the public sector: Does public service motivation matter? International Public Management Journal, 13, 213-246.

Ashford

J. S.

Lee

Bobko

(1989). Content, causes, and consequences of job insecurity: A theory-based measure and substantive test. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 803-829.

Ballenstedt

(2008, October). Homeland Security scraps plans for personnel system. Government Executive. Retrieved from http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2008/10/homeland-security-scraps-plans-for-personnel-system/27801/

Barnard

C. I.

(1938). The functions of the executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Battaglio

R. P.

Jr. (2010). Public service reform and motivation: Evidence from an employment at-will environment. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 30, 341-363.

Battaglio

R. P.

Jr. French

P. E.

(2016). Public service motivation, public management reform, and organizational socialization: Testing the effects of employment at-will and agency on PSM among municipal employees. Public Personnel Management, 45, 123-147.

10.

Boardman

Sundquist

(2009). Toward understanding work motivation: Worker attitudes and the perception of effective public service. The American Review of Public Administration, 39, 519-535.

11.

Bosman

Buitendach

J. H.

Laba

(2005). Job insecurity, burnout and organisational commitment among employees of a financial institution in Gauteng. Journal of Industrial Psychology, 31, 32-40.

12.

Bowman

J. S.

(2002). At-will employment in Florida: A naked formula to corrupt public service. Journal of Labor and Society, 6, 90-102.

13.

Brook

A. D.

King

C. L.

(2007). Civil service reform as national security: The Homeland Security Act of 2002. Public Administration Review, 67, 399-407.

14.

Brook

A. D.

King

C. L.

(2008). Federal personnel management reform: From civil service reform act to national security reforms. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 28, 205-221.

15.

Brook

A. D.

King

C. L.

Anderson

L. T. D.

Bahr

C. J.

(2006). Legislating civil service reform: The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Research Report NPS-CDMR-HR-06-006). Monterey, CA: Center for Defense Management Reform.

16.

Caillier

G. J.

(2012). Satisfaction with work-life benefits and organizational commitment/job involvement: Is there a connection? Review of Public Personnel Administration, 33, 340-364.

17.

Chelte

A. F.

Tausky

(1986). A note on organizational commitment: Antecedents and consequences among managers, professionals, and blue-collar workers. Work and Occupations, 13, 553-561.

18.

Coggburn

J. D.

(2000). The effects of deregulation on state government personnel administration. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 20, 24-40.

19.

Coggburn

J. D.

(2006). At-will employment in government: Insights from the state of Texas. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 26, 158-177.

20.

Coggburn

J. D.

Battaglio

R. P.

Jr. Bowman

J. S.

Condrey

S. E.

Goodman

West

J. P.

(2010). State government human resource professionals’ commitment to employment at will. The American Review of Public Administration, 40, 189-208.

21.

Condrey

E. S.

Battaglio

R. P.

Jr. (2007). A return to spoils? Revisiting radical civil service reform in the United States. Public Administration Review, 67, 424-436.

22.

Coyle-Shapiro

J. A.-M.

Kessler

(2003). The employment relationship in the U.K. public sector: A psychological contract perspective. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 13, 213-230.

23.

CRS Report for Congress. (2007). DHS’s Max-HR personnel system: Regulations on classification, pay, and performance management compared with current law, and implementation plans (RL32261). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

24.

De Cuyper

De Witte

. (2006). The impact of job insecurity and contract type on attitudes, well-being and behavioural reports: A psychological contract perspective. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 79, 395-409.

25.

De Witte

. (2005). Long-term job insecurity, job satisfaction and organisational attitudes: Test of Warr’s curvilinear hypothesis. Journal of Industrial Psychology, 31, 41-47.

26.

Ferrie

J. E.

Shipley

M. J.

Stansfeld

S. A.

Marmot

M. G.

(2002). Effects of chronic job insecurity and change in job security on self reported health, minor psychiatric morbidity, physiological measures, and health related behaviours in British civil servants: The Whitehall II study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 56, 450-454.

27.

Gailmard

Patty

J. W.

(2007). Slackers and zealots: Civil service, policy discretion, and bureaucratic expertise. American Journal of Political Science, 51, 873-889.

28.

Gailmard

Patty

J. W.

(2012). Learning while governing: Expertise and accountability in the executive branch. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

29.

Goodman

Mann

(2010). Reorganization or political smokescreen: The incremental and temporary use of at-will employment in Mississippi state government. Public Personnel Management, 39, 183-210.

30.

Gossett

W. C.

(2003). The changing face of Georgia’s merit system: Results from an employee attitude survey in the Georgia department of juvenile justice. Public Personnel Management, 32, 267-278.

31.

Green

Forbis

Golden

Nelson

L. S.

Robinson

(2006). On the ethics of at-will employment in the public sector. Public Integrity, 8, 305-327.

32.

Greenhalgh

Rosenblatt

(1984). Job insecurity: Toward conceptual clarity. Academy of Management Review, 9, 438-448.

33.

Grembi

Nannicini

Troiano

(2012, October). Policy responses to fiscal restraints: A difference-in-discontinuities design (Working Paper No. 397). Milan, Italy: Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research, Bocconi University.

34.

Hindera

J. L.

Josephson

J. J.

(1998). Reinventing the public employer-employee relationship: The just cause standard. Public Administration Quarterly, 22, 102-117.

35.

Hvidman

Anderson

S. C.

(2014). The impact of performance management in public and private organizations. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 24, 35-58.

36.

Hur

Perry

J. L.

(2016). Evidence-based change in public job security policy: A research synthesis and its practical implications. Public Personnel Management, 45, 264-283.

37.

Ingraham

P. W.

(2006). Building bridges over troubled waters: Merit as a guide. Public Administration Review, 66, 486-495.

38.

Jordan

Battaglio

R. P.

Jr. (2014). Are we there yet? The state of public human resource management research. Public Personnel Management, 43, 25-57.

39.

Kellough

J. E.

Nigro

G. L.

(2006). Dramatic reform in the public service: At-will employment and the creation of a new public workforce. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16, 447-466.

40.

Kellough

J. E.

Nigro

G. L.

Brewer

A. G.

(2010). Civil service reform under George W. Bush: Ideology, politics, and public personnel administration. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 30, 404-422.

41.

Kim

Kellough

J. E.

(2014). At-will employment in the states: Examining the perceptions of agency personnel directors. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 34, 218-236.

42.

Lee

K. S.

Gao

(2005). Studying organizational commitment with the OCQ in the Korean retail context: Its dimensionality and relationships with satisfaction and work outcomes. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 15, 375-399.

43.

Locke

E. A.

(1997). The motivation to work: What we know. In Maehr

Pintrich

(Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement (Vol. 10, pp. 375-412). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

44.

March

J. G.

Simon

H. A.

(1958). Organizations. New York, NY: John Wiley.

45.

McGowan

Kneller

(2012). Tax policy and firm entry and exit dynamics: Evidence from OECD countries (Bangor Business School Research Paper No. 12/006). Retrieved from https://ssrn.com/abstract=2103056

46.

Meyer

J. P.

Allen

J. N.

(1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1, 61-89.

47.

Meyer

J. P.

Herscovitch

(2001). Commitment in the workplace: Toward a general model. Human Resource Management Review, 11, 299-326.

48.

Moldogaziev

Silvia

(2015). Fostering affective organizational commitment in public sector agencies: The significance of multifaceted leadership. Public Administration, 93, 557-575.

49.

Mowday

R. T.

Porter

W. L.

Steers

M. R.

(1982). Employee-organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. New York, NY: Academic Press.

50.

Mowday

R. T.

Steers

R. M.

Porter

W. L.

(1979). The measurement of organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14, 224-247.

51.

Moynihan

D. P.

(2005). Homeland security and the U.S. public management policy agenda. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 18, 171-196.

52.

Moynihan

D. P.

Pandy

(2007). Finding workable levers over work motivation: Comparing job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. Administration & Society, 39, 803-832.

53.

Nelson

(2008, February). Performance-based pay in the federal government (Working Paper No. 2008-05). Nashville, TN: National Center on Performance Incentives.

54.

O’Neill

Kreif

Grieve

Sutton

Sekhon

J. S.

(2016). Estimating causal effects: Considering three alternatives to difference-in-differences estimation. Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology, 16, 1-21.

55.

O’Reilly

C. A.

Chatman

(1986). Organizational commitment and psychological attachment: The effects of compliance, identification, and internalization on prosocial behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 492-499.

56.

Orpen

(1993). Correlations between job insecurity and psychological well-being among white and black employees in South Africa. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 76, 885-886.

57.

Penley

L. E.

Gould

(1988). Etzioni’s model of organizational involvement: A perspective for understanding commitment to organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 9, 43-59.

58.

Porter

L. W.

Steers

R. M.

Mowday

R. T.

Boulian

P. V.

(1974). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 603-609.

59.

Riccucci

N. M.

Naff

K. C.

(2017). Personnel Management in Government: Politics and Process. 6th Ed. New York, NY: Routledge.

60.

Riccucci

M. N.

Thompson

J. F.

(2008). The new public management, homeland security, and the politics of civil service reform. Public Administration Review, 68, 877-890.

61.

Roskies

Louis-Guerin

(1990). Job insecurity in managers: Antecedents and consequences. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11, 345-359.

62.

Rousseau

D. M.

(2001). Schema, promise and mutuality: The building blocks of the psychological contract. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 74, 511-541.

63.

Rubin

E. V.

Weinberg

S. E.

(2016). Does changing the rules really matter? Assessing procedural justice perceptions under civil service reform. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 26, 129-141.

64.

Schneier

C. E.

Pernick

Bryant

D. E.

(1979). Improving performance in the public sector through behavior modification and positive reinforcement. Public Personnel Management, 8, 101-110.

65.

Silla

De Cuyper

Gracia

F. J.

Peiró

M. J.

De Witte

(2009). Job insecurity and well-being: Moderation by employability. Journal of Happiness Study, 10, 739-751.

66.

Solinger

O. N.

van Olffen

Roe

R. A.

(2008). Beyond the three-component model of organizational commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 70-83.

67.

Somers

M. J.

(2009). The combined influence of affective, continuance and normative commitment on employee withdraw. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74, 75-81.

68.

Spector

P. E.

(1992). Summated rating scale construction (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, No. 82). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

69.

Steers

M. R.

(1977). Antecedents and outcomes of organizational commitment. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22, 46-56.

70.

Talosaga

Vink

(2014, November). The effect of public pension eligibility age on household saving: Evidence from a New Zealand natural experiment (Treasury Working Paper No. 14/21). Wellington: New Zealand Treasury.

71.

Thompson

J. D.

(1967). Organizations in action. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

72.

Tolbert

P. S.

Zucker

L. G.

(1983). Institutional sources of change in the formal structure of organizations: The diffusion of civil service reform, 1880-1935. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 22-39.

73.

U.S. Congressional Research Service. (2008). Homeland Security Department: FY2009 Appropriations (RL34004). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

74.

U.S. Congressional Research Service. (2009). Homeland Security Department: FY2009 appropriations (RL34482). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

75.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.dhs.gov/creation-department-homeland-security

76.

U.S. Federal Register. (2004, February 20). Department of Homeland Security human resources management system: Proposed rule, 8030-8071. Retrieved from https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2004/02/20/04-3670/department-of-homeland-security-human-resources-management-system

77.

U.S. Federal Register. (2005, February 1). Department of Homeland Security human resources management system: Final rule, 5271-5347. Retrieved from https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2005-02-01/05-1629

78.

U.S. Government Publishing Office (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=cac0c96cf54e384a18b83e697bc8d789&mc=true&node=pt5.1.315&rgn=div5#se5.1.315_1801

79.

U.S. Office of Personnel Management. (2003). What do federal employees say? Results from the 2002 Federal Human Capital Survey. Washington, DC: Author.

80.

Van Ryzin

G. G

. (2014). The curious case of the post-9-11 boost in government job satisfaction. The American Review of Public Administration, 44, 59-74.

81.

Wasti

(2005). Commitment profiles: Combinations of organizational commitment forms and job outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 290-308.

82.

Weiner

Vardi

(1980). Relationship between job, organization, and career commitments and work outcomes—An integrative approach. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 26, 81-96.

83.

Wooldridge

(2008). Introductory econometrics: A modern approach (4th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western College.

84.

Wright

B. E.

(2004). The role of work context in work motivation: A public sector application of goal and social cognitive theories. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 14, 59-78.

85.

Yang

Kassekert

(2009). Linking management reform with employee job satisfaction: Evidence from federal agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 20, 413-436.

86.

Zeller

(2004, February). Performance pay perils. Government Executive. Retrieved from https://www.govexec.com/magazine/2004/02/performance-pay-perils/15931/

87.

Zhao

Wayne

S. J.

Glibkowski

B. C.

Bravo

(2007). The impact of psychological contract breach on work-related outcomes: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 60, 647-680.

88.

Zhou

Taber

Arcona

(2016). Difference-in-differences method in comparative effectiveness research: Utility with unbalanced groups. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 14, 419-429.