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Terrorist threat and employees' perceived ability to cope with organizational change
Author(s) -
Kastenmüller Andreas,
Aydin Nilüfer,
Frey Dieter,
TrautMattausch Eva,
Peus Claudia,
Fischer Peter
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/jasp.12234
Subject(s) - terrorism , salience (neuroscience) , psychology , social psychology , mortality salience , mediation , organizational change , work (physics) , public relations , political science , cognitive psychology , mechanical engineering , law , engineering
This study investigated the impact of the perceived threat of terrorism on employees' ability to cope with organizational change as well as potentially underlying psychological mechanisms related to work satisfaction and initiative. Three days after the 2006 thwarted terrorist attacks in the U nited K ingdom, participants were reminded of terrorist threat (by pictures of terrorist attacks) reported lower levels in their ability to cope with organizational change, as well as lower levels of work satisfaction, than did participants who were not reminded of terrorist threat. Three months later, the same terror salience manipulation had no differential effect on these variables. Mediation analyses revealed that work satisfaction mediated the impact of terror salience on employees' ability to cope with organizational change.