In a new stage of booming platform economy, improving the employees’ job security is the key factor to ensure the sustainable development of a platform organization. Based on the cognitive behavior theory, this study introduces the perceived insider status as the moderator variable, and constructs the process mechanism model of job insecurity on employee engagement. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between job insecurity, emotional response and employee engagement, and provide suggestions for reducing job insecurity and improving employee engagement. Using a 2-wave time-lagged survey data of 341 workers in China firms, data were collected with a self-report questionnaire and analyzed with the statistical package for the social science (AMOS, SPSS). The research result found a negative relationship between job insecurity and employee engagement, and that this negative relationship was mediated by negative emotion or positive emotion. Furthermore, perceived insider status moderated the relationship between job insecurity and positive emotion or negative emotion; the higher the perceived insider status is, the weaker the negative impact of job insecurity on positive emotion and the weaker the positive impact on negative emotion. The research results provide theoretical guidance for organizations to improve employee engagement and help to strengthen the importance of organizations to employees’ job insecurity.

Purpose: This research examined how customer mistreatment activates individual customer-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWBC) by investigating the mediating roles of negative work reflection and negative affect. It also explored whether job autonomy buffers the negative impact of customer mistreatment on CWBC.Design/methodology/approach: The authors tested their predictions using an experience-sample method with a sample of data from 79 service workers across eight days. A multilevel structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.Findings: The authors found that negative work reflection and negative affect mediated the association between customer mistreatment and CWBC. In addition, job autonomy moderated the indirect impact of daily customer mistreatment on employees' CWBC through negative work reflection and negative affect.Research limitations/implications: There are some concerns about a common method because all of the study variables were self-reported. Moreover, the study sample consisted of participants recruited exclusively from China, thus limiting this research's generality.Practical implications: To eliminate the detrimental impact of customer mistreatment, supervisors can strive to improve the autonomy of those who interact with customers frequently to reduce their CWBC.Originality/value: This study offers an integrative view to explain why service workers engage in CWBC when suffering customer mistreatment by testing the mediating mechanisms of negative reflection and negative affect in the association between daily customer mistreatment and CWBC. Second, the authors have broadened the study of customer mistreatment by introducing job autonomy as a critical condition, eliminating the indirect association between customer mistreatment and CWBC.

Customer bullying is a common phenomenon, causing short-term emotional distress or having long-term psychological impact on frontline employees of service enterprises, yielding either direct or indirect losses to service enterprises. While existing research has focused on the emotional and psychological impact of customer bullying on employees, little attention has been directed at the impact of customer bullying on negative employee behavior and internal mechanisms. In view of this, this paper draws on conservation of resources theory and discusses how and when customer bullying can lead to unethical behaviors. Furthermore, the mediating role of job insecurity and the moderating effect of organizational identification are analyzed. In study 1, 181 valid questionnaire data were collected at two time points, and regression data analysis was used to explore the effect of customer bullying on unethical behaviors through job insecurity. In study 2, 212 employees were recruited to investigate the moderating effect of organizational identification between customer bullying and unethical behaviors through a scenario experimental study. The results reveal that customer bullying is positively related to employees’ job insecurity and unethical behaviors. Job insecurity partially mediates the positive relationship between customer bullying and unethical behaviors. Further, the regression analysis results indicate that the direct effect of customer bullying on unethical behaviors is moderated by organizational identification. This study provides theoretical guidance for entrepreneurs to reduce both employee job insecurity and unethical behavior.