The Mediating Role Of Presenteeism in The Effect of Perceived Job Insecurity on Emotional Exhaustion Levels: A Study on Accounting Professionals
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20800557Keywords:
Presenteeism, Perceived Job Insecurity, Emotional Exhaustion, Mediating EffectAbstract
This study examines the mediating function of presenteeism in the association between perceived job insecurity and emotional exhaustion among accounting professionals. Empirical data were obtained from 203 practitioners through a structured survey instrument. The hypothesized research model was tested using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), and the mediation effect was assessed through bootstrap procedures based on 5,000 resamples to ensure the robustness of indirect effect estimates. The findings reveal that perceived job insecurity exerts a statistically significant and positive influence on emotional exhaustion, while demonstrating a significant negative effect on presenteeism. In turn, presenteeism is found to be negatively and significantly related to emotional exhaustion. The bootstrap results confirm the presence of a statistically significant partial mediation effect, consistent with a complementary mediation framework. These results indicate that job insecurity intensifies emotional exhaustion not only through direct psychological strain but also indirectly through diminished cognitive engagement and reduced functional work capacity.
References
Charkhabi, M. (2018). Do cognitive appraisals moderate the link between qualitative job insecurity and psychological-behavioral well-being?. International Journal of Workplace Health Management, 11(6), 424-441. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-01-2018-0008
Cheng, G. H. L., & Chan, D. K. S. (2008). Who suffers more from job insecurity? A meta‐analytic review. Applied Psychology, 57(2), 272–303. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00312.x
Chirumbolo, A., Callea, A., & Urbini, F. (2022). Living in liquid times: the relationships among job insecurity, life uncertainty, and psychosocial well-being. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(22), 15225. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192215225
De Witte, H., Pienaar, J., & De Cuyper, N. (2016). Review of 30 years of longitudinal studies on the association between job insecurity and health and well-being. Australian Psychologist, 51(1), 18–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/ap.12176
Demerouti, E., Le Blanc, P. M., Bakker, A. B., Schaufeli, W. B., & Hox, J. (2009). Present but sick: A three-wave study on job demands, presenteeism and burnout. Career Development International, 14(1), 50–68. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430910933574
Doll, W. J., Xia, W., & Torkzadeh, G. (1994). A confirmatory factor analysis of the end-user computing satisfaction instrument. MIS Quarterly, 18(4), 453–461. https://doi.org/10.2307/249524
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50.
George, D., & Mallery, P. (2010). SPSS for Windows step by step: A simple guide and reference 18.0 update (11th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
Gilbreath, B., & Karimi, L. (2012). Supervisor behavior and employee presenteeism. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 7(1), 114–131.
Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2019). Multivariate data analysis (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Hayes, A. F. (2018). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513
Hobfoll, S. E. (2001). The influence of culture, community, and the nested‐self in the stress process: Advancing conservation of resources theory. Applied Psychology, 50(3), 337–421. https://doi.org/10.1111/1464-0597.00062
Hu, L.T., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
Idris, I., Idris, M. A., Syed-Yahya, S. N., & Zadow, A. (2023). Longitudinal effects of quantitative job demands (QJD) on presenteeism and absenteeism: The role of QuanJI and QualJI as moderators. International journal of stress management, 30(2), 195. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000292
Jiang, L., & Probst, T. M. (2017). The rich get richer and the poor get poorer: Country-and state-level income inequality moderates the job insecurity-burnout relationship. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(4), 672. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000179
Johns, G. (2010). Presenteeism in the workplace: A review and research agenda. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(4), 519–542. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.630
Kim, Y. S., Shin, D. J., & Kim, B. K. (2023). Effect of covid-19-induced changes on job insecurity, presenteeism, and turnover intention in the workplace—an investigation of generalized anxiety disorder among hotel employees using the GAD-7 scale. Sustainability, 15(6), 5377. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065377
Lee, C., Huang, G. H., & Ashford, S. J. (2018). Job insecurity and the changing workplace: Recent developments and the future trends in job insecurity research. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5, 335–359. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032117-104651
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397–422. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397
Miraglia, M., & Johns, G. (2016). Going to work ill: A meta-analysis of the correlates of presenteeism and a dual-path model. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 21(3), 261–283. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000015
Nath, A., Rai, S., Bhatnagar, J., & Cooper, C. L. (2024). Coping strategies mediating the effects of job insecurity on subjective well-being, leading to presenteeism: an empirical study. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 32(2), 209-235. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-10-2022-3476
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Petitta, L., & Jiang, L. (2020). How emotional contagion relates to burnout: A moderated mediation model of job insecurity and group member prototypicality. International Journal of Stress Management, 27(1), 12–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000134
Schaufeli, W. B. (2017). Applying the Job Demands–Resources model. Organizational Dynamics, 46(2), 120–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2017.04.008
Sekaran, U. & Bougie, R. (2016) Research methods for business: A skill-building approach. 7th Edition, Wiley & Sons.
Shrestha, N. (2020). Detecting multicollinearity in regression analysis. American Journal of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, 8(2), 39–42.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2019). Using multivariate statistics (7th ed.). Pearson.
Teo, T., Tsai, L. T., & Yang, C. C. (2023). Applying structural equation modeling (SEM) in educational research: An introduction. In Methodology for Multilevel Modeling in Educational Research (pp. 1-21). Springer.
Tumelo, T.N., & Donald, F.M. (2025). Perceived job insecurity, facades of conformity, emotional exhaustion and disengagement. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology/SA Tydskrif vir Bedryfsielkunde, 51(0), a2221. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v51i0.2221
Zhang, J., Wang, S., Wang, W., Shan, G., Guo, S., & Li, Y. (2020). Nurses’ job insecurity and emotional exhaustion: the mediating effect of presenteeism and the moderating effect of supervisor support. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2239. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02239
Zhao, X., Lynch, J. G., & Chen, Q. (2010). Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and truths about mediation analysis. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 197–206.
Zhu, J., & Yang, M. (2025). A study of the effects of job insecurity on organizational citizenship behavior based on the chained mediating effects of emotional exhaustion and organizational identification. Plos one, 20(9), e0329976. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329976
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 International Journal of Contemporary Economics and Administrative Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The Author(s) must make formal transfer of copyright for each article prior to publication in the International Journal of Contemporary Economics and Administrative Sciences. Such transfer enables the Journal to defend itself against plagiarism and other forms of copyright infringement. Your cooperation is appreciated. You agree that copyright of your article to be published in the International Journal of Contemporary Economics and Administrative Sciences is hereby transferred, throughout the World and for the full term and all extensions and renewals thereof, to International Journal of Contemporary Economics and Administrative Sciences.
The Author(s) reserve(s): (a) the trademark rights and patent rights, if any, and (b) the right to use all or part of the information contained in this article in future, non-commercial works of the Author's own, or, if the article is a "work-for-hire" and made within the scope of the Author's employment, the employer may use all or part of the information contained in this article for intra-company use, provided the usual acknowledgements are given regarding copyright notice and reference to the original publication.
The Author(s) warrant(s) that the article is Author's original work, and has not been published before. If excerpts from copyrighted works are included, the Author will obtain written permission from the copyright owners and shall credit the sources in the article. The author also warrants that the article contains no libelous or unlawful statements, and does not infringe on the rights of others. If the article was prepared jointly with other Author(s), the Author agrees to inform the co-Author(s) of the terms of the copyright transfer and to sign on their behalf; or in the case of a "work-for-hire" the employer or an authorized representative of the employer.
The journal is registered with the ISSN : 1925-4423.
IJCEAS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
