Amparo Caballer

Purpose: Employment plays a central role in social inclusion and individual well-being. Yet people living with chronic illnesses or disabilities continue to face substantial structural and workplace barriers to gaining and sustaining employment. There is a pressing need for empirical research that examines these issues. In this study, we aim to analyse the barriers to accessing and maintaining employment of people with chronic illnesses despite the existence of inclusive employment policies designed to promote their effective labour market participation. Methods: This study investigates the employment experiences of 98 Spanish adults diagnosed with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs). A mixed-methods approach was used, combining quantitative survey analysis with qualitative data. Results: The findings reveal that chronic pain, cognitive impairment, and inadequate workplace adjustments severely affect individuals’ work performance and stability. Participants described physical and psychological exhaustion, limited understanding from co-workers, and declining employability behaviours as key challenges to sustaining employment. Structural barriers, such as rigid schedules and insufficient job adaptations, further exacerbate exclusion. Overall, the results underscore how current workplace systems remain poorly equipped to accommodate the fluctuating and invisible nature of chronic illnesses, undermining true employment inclusion. Conclusion: These findings highlight the urgent need to rethink prevailing assumptions in employment policy and organisational practice. To ensure genuine inclusion of workers with chronic illnesses or disabilities, employers and policymakers should promote the co-creation of flexible work arrangements, adapt job design and workflows, and raise awareness of invisible and fluctuating conditions. Such actions are crucial to achieving sustainable and equitable labour market participation.

Over the years, job insecurity has accumulated important scholarly work. As a result, research has identified multiple constructs that involve employees’ concerns about job loss. Most of these are individual-level constructs (e.g., subjective and objective job insecurity), but, recently, an incipient body of literature has adopted a multilevel perspective by understanding job insecurity as a collective phenomenon (e.g., job insecurity climate, strength climate, downsizing or temporary hiring strategies). Furthermore, these constructs at different levels are underpinned by shared theoretical frameworks, such as stress theory or psychological contract theory. However, all this literature fails to present an integrative framework that contains the functional relationship for mapping job insecurity constructs across levels. Accordingly, the present study aims to examine job insecurity from a multilevel perspective, specifically by conceptualizing job insecurity at the individual level—understood as subjective and objective job insecurity—and at the organizational level, understood as job instability in an organization, job insecurity climate, and climate strength. The methodology of multilevel construct validation proposed by Chen, Mathieu and Bliese (2005) was applied; thus, (1) job insecurity were defined at each relevant level of analysis; (2) its nature and structure was specified at higher levels of analysis; (3) psychometric properties were tested across and/or at different levels of analysis; (4) the extent to which job insecurity varies between levels of analysis was estimated; and (5) the function of job insecurity was tested across different levels of analysis. The results showed significant relationships among these, and were related to an organizational antecedent (e.g., organization nature) and organizational and individual outcomes (collective and individual job satisfaction) in two European samples: Austria and Spain. Accordingly, this study exposed the multilevel validity of job insecurity constructs through an integrative framework in order to advance in the area of job insecurity theory and practice. The contributions and implications to job insecurity research and other multilevel research are discussed.

Knowledge workers are highly valued by organizations, but there is a lack of evidence about the role of work engagement in the satisfaction and performance of these workers. Harmonization and Person–Job Fit theory state that workers who have similar characteristics to those present in the context (i.e., give similar importance to the characteristics present in the context) perform better. The aim of this paper is twofold: to test the congruence effect between five knowledge characteristics and their rated influence on job satisfaction and job performance; and test the mediational role of work engagement between the knowledge characteristics’ fit and job performance. Using a time-lagged design, 531 Colombian employees from 20 economic sectors answered questionnaires about work engagement (i.e., UWES-9), knowledge characteristics (i.e., WDQ), importance given to knowledge characteristics, job satisfaction, and job performance. Using polynomial regression, surface response methodology, and ordinary least squares path analyses, we found a congruence effect of the relationship between knowledge characteristics and their levels of importance on job performance in four out of five comparisons (i.e., job complexity, information processing, problem solving, and specialization). In addition, we found that knowledge characteristics’ fit indirectly influenced job satisfaction and performance through its effect on work engagement.

The large majority of studies on job insecurity have focused upon the individual level. Recent research has also paid some attention to job insecurity at the level of the organisation, referred to as job insecurity climate. This research has shown negative relationships between job insecurity climate and employees' individual job attitudes. Nevertheless, in these studies no attention has been paid to organisational climate strength, in spite of the recommendations formulated in the literature on this topic. In response, this study aims to account for climate strength in the relationship between job insecurity and job attitudes. We hypothesise that climate strength is related to job satisfaction, organisational commitment, work involvement, and organisational trust. Moreover, we hypothesise that the relationship between job insecurity climate and these outcomes may be stronger when there is a strong agreement among employees concerning their job insecurity perceptions compared to when there is a weak agreement (strong versus weak climate strength). Results based on a Spanish sample of 428 employees from 20 organisations largely supported our hypotheses except in the case of work involvement: climate strength was negatively related to job attitudes, and the relationship between job insecurity climate and individual job attitudes was moderated by climate strength.

Resumen.: Valiéndose de una tipología novedosa, los autores analizan empíricamente cuatro tipos de trabajadores temporales y los comparan con un grupo de trabajadores fijos. En la muestra, que comprende 1.300 personas de seis países, hallan diferencias significativas en numerosas variables —como características demográficas y del puesto de trabajo, actitudes e inseguridad laboral—, pero no en la satisfacción vital y el bienestar. Es erróneo considerar que los trabajadores eventuales son personas poco cualificadas incapaces de encontrar un empleo fijo; ahora bien, conviene afinar las investigaciones al respecto para perfeccionar las políticas de «flexiseguridad».

Résumé.: Cette étude empirique sur quatre types de travailleurs temporaires (et un groupe de travailleurs permanents aux fins de comparaison) utilise une typologie innovante basée sur la préférence pour le travail temporaire et la perception de l'employabilité. Sur un échantillon de 1 300 salariés de six pays, et au moyen de variables comprenant des caractéristiques démographiques et relatives à l'emploi, le comportement et l'insécurité, les auteurs observent des différences significatives entre les quatre types, mais pas sur la satisfaction personnelle et le bien‐être. Ils argumentent contre l'idée reçue du travail temporaire affectant des travailleurs peu qualifiés incapables de trouver un travail permanent, et soulignent l'intérêt de recherches plus fines sur les politiques de flexicurité.

: Applying an innovative typology based on preference for temporary employment and perceived employability, the authors empirically examine four types of temporary workers (and a group of permanent workers for comparison). In a sample of 1,300 employees from six countries, they find significant differences between the four types on a broad set of variables – including demographic and job characteristics, attitude and insecurity – but not in life satisfaction and well‐being. They conclude with an argument against the equation of temporary employment with low‐skilled workers unable to find a permanent job, stressing the valuable implications of more sensitive research for policy‐making on flexicurity.