Can employees perform well if they fear for their lives? Yes – if they have a passion for work
| Date | 31 October 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-01-2019-0030 |
| Pages | 469-490 |
| Published date | 31 October 2019 |
| Author | Inam Ul Haq,Dirk De Clercq,Muhammad Umer Azeem |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Global hrm |
Can employees perform well if
they fear for their lives? Yes –if
they have a passion for work
Inam Ul Haq
School of Business, Monash University, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia
Dirk De Clercq
Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St Catharines, Canada, and
Muhammad Umer Azeem
School of Business and Economics,
University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose –With a basis in conservation of resources theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the
mediating role of championing behaviour in the relationship between employees’fear of terror and their job
performance, as well as the buffering role of their passion for work, as a personal resource, in this process.
Design/methodology/approach –The tests of the hypotheses rely on three-wave, time-lagged data
collected from employees and their supervisors in Pakistan.
Findings –An important reason that concerns about terrorist attacks diminish performance is that
employees refrain from championing their own entrepreneurial ideas. This mediating role of idea
championing is less salient, however, to the extent that employees feel a strong passion for their work.
Practical implications –For human resource managers, this study pinpoints a key mechanism –a
reluctance to mobilize active support for entrepreneurial ideas –by which fears about terrorism attacks
can spill over into the workplace and undermine employees’ability to meet their performance
requirements. It also reveals how this mechanism can be better contained by the presence of adequate
personal resources.
Originality/value –This study adds to burgeoning research on the interplay between terrorism and
organizational life by specifying how and when employees’ruminations about terrorism threats might
escalate into diminished performance outcomes at work.
Keywords Quantitative, Passion for work, Conservation of resources theory, Job performance,
Championing behaviour, Fear of terror
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The fear of terror is prominent in many countries, particularly those marked by political
instability and extremism (Bader and Berg, 2014; Mushtaq and Rehman, 2016; Toker
et al., 2015). Such fear can manifest itself in different ways, such as frequent ruminations
about future terrorist attacks, the sense that nothing can be done to avoid such attacks,
the belief that terrorism will only get worse as time passes, or a feeling of a general lack of
control in protecting oneself and loved ones from violence (Sinclair and LoCicero, 2006).
An inability to avoid thinking about the threat of terrorism negatively interferes with
people’s quality of life and peace of mind in their daily functioning (Herzenstein et al.,
2015; Somer et al., 2005; Toker et al., 2015), but fears of terror also might exert an effect in
the workplace, by undermining employees’organizational functioning (Bader and Berg,
2014; Comfort, 2002; Howie, 2007; Liou and Lin, 2008; Toker et al., 2015). For example,
fears of terror might reduce employees’work satisfaction (Kastenmüller et al., 2014) and
work concentration (Mainiero and Gibson, 2003), spur their absenteeism (Mushtaq and
Rehman, 2016) and job burnout (Toker et al., 2015) and ultimately undermine their ability
to fulfil performance requirements (Bader and Berg, 2014; De Clercq et al., 2017).
Personnel Review
Vol. 49 No. 2, 2020
pp. 469-490
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-01-2019-0030
Received 21 January 2019
Revised 13 June 2019
Accepted 9 July 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
469
Fear of terror
and passion
for work
To extend this research line, the current study addresses another reason that employees’
fear of terror might lead to poor performance, namely, because it takes up energy that
employees otherwise could devote to undertaking productive entrepreneurial behaviours. In
particular, if employees suffer this resource constraint, it may diminish their propensity to
champion their entrepreneurial ideas –those that deviate from the status quo and have the
potential to add to organizational success (De Clercq et al., 2011; Kelley, 2011) –that
otherwise might contribute to the organization’s success (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Walter
et al., 2011). Such discretionary, championing activities are critical to effective organizational
functioning (Maimone and Sinclair, 2014; Oltra and Vivas-López, 2013; Scott and Bruce,
1994). As the prior literature acknowledges, it is less the generation and more the active
lobbying for and promotion of entrepr eneurial ideas that enhance organiz ations’
competitive advantages (De Clercq et al., 2011; Perry-Smith and Mannucci, 2017;
Van de Ven, 1986).
Despite the usefulness of championing entrepreneurial ideas, such activities may be
costly for the promoters, especially if other organizational members regard their actions as
intrusive or threatening (Day, 1994; Walter et al., 2011). Further, mobilizing support for
disruptive ideas might be perceived as self-serving, if the ideas appear to improve the work
situations of the proponents but not the rest of the organization (Howell, 2005; Yuan and
Woodman, 2010). In accordance with conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989,
2001), we propose that if employees already must devote resources to dealing with their fear
of terror, they might exhibit poorer performance, because they seek to conserve their
remaining resources and thus are reluctant to engage in energy-consuming championing
behaviours (Howell and Boies, 2004; Perry-Smith and Mannucci, 2017). Notably, a person’s
propensity to avoid creative or innovative behaviours is a causal mechanism that links
negative workplace conditions (e.g. work role stressors, Mishra and Shukla, 2012; surface
acting, Liu et al., 2013) to diminished work outcomes. No prior empirical research has
investigated this potential mediating effect in relation to the performance effects of a fear of
terror though.
In turn, this study elucidates how organizations might contain negative behavioural
responses to fears of terror. In particular, and consistent with COR theory, employees’
passion for work (Klaukien et al., 2013), as an important personal resource, might reduce the
likelihood that employees react to their fears with reduced championing behaviour. Passion
for work reflects employees’desire to work hard and the associated satisfaction they derive
from expending significant energy in work-related activities (Baum and Locke, 2004;
De Clercq and Belausteguigoitia, 2017). In line with this logic, the personal resource of
passion for work may reduce the likelihood that the resource drainage employees experience
due to constant worries about terrorism enters the workplace, in the form of reduced idea
championing efforts (Hobfoll, 2000). That is, when they exhibit a strong passion for work,
the negative influence of employees’fear of terror on their championing behaviour should be
buffered (Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000), which in turn should have positive consequences for
their performance (Walter et al., 2011).
Contributions
Investigating these relationships produces several contributions to the extant literature.
First, this research reveals that a fear of terror can spill over and escalate into lower job
performance, due to employees’reluctance to champion their entrepreneurial ideas
(Hobfoll, 1989, 2001). This spillover effect is consistent with previous applications of COR
theory to the study of terrorism threats, a theory that “places a strong emphasis on
downward spirals through which resource loss in one domain (e.g. negative effects of
terror on general well-being) may exacerbate resource depletion in other domains
(e.g. work-related well-being)”(Toker et al., 2015, p. 274). The difficulty of avoiding
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