Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of psychological contract breach on the relationship between job insecurity and counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB) and the moderating effect of employment status in this relationship.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 212 supervisor–subordinate dyads in a large Chinese state-owned air transportation group. AMOS 17.0 software was used to examine the hypothesized predictions and the theoretical model.Findings: The results showed that psychological contract breach partially mediates the effect of job insecurity on CWB, including organizational counterproductive workplace behavior and interpersonal counterproductive workplace behavior. In addition, the relationships between job insecurity, psychological contract breach and CWB differ significantly between permanent workers and contract workers.Originality/value: The present study provides a new insight into explaining the linkage between job insecurity and negative work behaviors as well as suggestions to managers on minimizing the harmful effects of job insecurity.

Purpose: In this paper, the moderating roles of leader reward omission and person–supervisor fit in the relationship between job autonomy and knowledge hiding are investigated.Design/methodology/approach: Using a sample of 248 employees in a two-wave survey, we performed a hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses.Findings: The results revealed that employees with high job autonomy were less likely to engage in knowledge hiding. Moreover, when employees experienced leader reward omission, the negative relationship between job autonomy and knowledge hiding was weakened, and this interesting effect varied by person–supervisor fit.Research limitations/implications: This study does not explore the mediating mechanism by which job autonomy affects employee knowledge hiding. Moreover, as this research was conducted in a Chinese context, the generalizability of our findings is unclear.Practical implications: This research has fulfilled its practical aims by providing advice on knowledge-relevant job characteristic factors that can be used to stage interventions regarding the provision of autonomy in jobs, and by carefully considering how to create interdependence between jobs without pushing people to engage in knowledge-hiding behaviors. Furthermore, it is important for leaders to help employees identify work goals and directions and not engage in reward omission.Originality/value: This study contributes to theoretical advancements in the field of knowledge hiding by revealing boundary conditions that mitigate or enhance the impact of job autonomy on knowledge hiding.

Using executive resume data of China’s listed companies between 2006 and 2016, we investigated the relationship between pay disparities within top management teams (TMT) and firms’ innovation performance. Specifically, we assessed two dimensions of pay disparities: vertical pay disparity between CEOs and non-CEO managers, and horizontal pay disparity among non-CEO managers. Considering the difference in regional marketization progress, we also explored the moderating effect of marketization degree on this relation. It is found that: with vertical pay disparity increasing by 1%, firms’ innovation performance is improved by 2.3%; with horizontal pay disparity increasing, firms’ innovation performance is promoted first and then restrained; higher marketization degree strengthens the incentive effects of both vertical and horizontal pay disparity. But the grouped regression results show that, in state-owned enterprises, horizontal pay disparity is only negatively associated with innovation. The theoretical and practical significance of the research is discussed at the end of the paper.

Purpose: How to manage outsourced employees in interorganizational teams with triangular relationships has not yet attracted enough attention. Based on relative deprivation theory, this study explores how relative deprivation affects outsourced employees’ innovative behavior and investigates the complex moderating effects of dual organizational support.Design/methodology/approach: The authors tested their hypothesis by conducting a two-wave survey; responses to a questionnaire were collected from 283 outsourced employees and their managers among 52 client organizations.Findings: Results found that relative deprivation negatively influences the outsourced employees’ innovative behavior by eliciting their perceptions of status conflict. Support from client (supplier) organization attenuates (aggravates) the positive impact of relative deprivation on innovative behavior throughout status conflict. The moderating effect of client organizational support was moderated by support from supplier organization.Research limitations/implications: The authors selected the outsourced employees in a Chinese context to conduct this study, and the results need to be generalized in future research.Practical implications: Client organizational support can alleviate the negative effect of relative deprivation on outsourced employees, whereas supplier organization support aggravates the negative effect; managers should pay attention to the different effects of the two organizations’ support and provide reasonable support for outsourced employees.Originality/value: This study identified the mechanism of relative deprivation’s effect on outsourced employees’ innovative behavior from the perspective of interpersonal interaction and compared the effect of support from dual organizations. This study expands the research on triangular relationships, relative deprivation, status conflict and other field.

Organizational scholars concur that job security can attach employees to a workplace and improve their job quality. The relationship between job security and employees’ deviant behaviors in the workplace, such as counterproductive work behavior (CWB), lacks insights into how or why this occurs, especially in a diversified employment context. To address these limitations, we developed a theoretical model of job security impact on employees’ CWB from the perspective of social identity. Analysis of employees (N = 208) and their supervisors in a China state-owned company were used to test the hypothesis. Results confirmed the negative relationship between job security and CWB; organizational identification partly mediates the relationship between job security and CWB. Moderated mediation analyses further indicate that the indirect effect of job security on CWB via organizational identification are stronger for temporary employees than for permanent employees. This article contributes to the understanding of job security’s impact on employees’ deviant behavior, practical implications and research aspects are discussed.