Qualitative job insecurity, emotional exhaustion and their effects on hotel employees’ job embeddedness: The moderating role of perceived organizational support

Rooted in conservation of resources and job embeddedness theories as well as affective force approach and stress-strain-outcome model, our paper examines emotional exhaustion as a mediator between qualitative job insecurity and job embeddedness and perceived organizational support as a buffer against the effect of qualitative job insecurity on emotional exhaustion and job embeddedness. This study was undertaken in a sample of employees in the 4- and 5-star hotels in Turkey. The findings from structural equation modeling indicate that qualitative job insecurity aggravates emotional exhaustion, while it erodes job embeddedness. Emotional exhaustion is a mediator between qualitative job insecurity and job embeddedness. The findings based on moderated regression analysis demonstrate that the positive impact of qualitative job insecurity on emotional exhaustion is stronger among employees with low perceived organizational support. In view of these findings, our paper delineates implications for theory and practice and offers directions for future research.