Impact of Performance Climate on Overtime Behaviors of New Generation Employees: The Moderating Effect of Perceived Employability and Mediating Role of Job Insecurity

PURPOSE: In the post-pandemic era, the employment environment in China has been worsening. New generation employees are faced with higher work requirements. Against the backdrop, the “involution” culture has been a mainstream culture of different walks of life. Pressure of competition brought about by “involution” has made overtime behaviors increasingly prevailing among new generation employees. In this background, this research discusses about the impact of organizational performance climate on new generation employees’ overtime behaviors as well as the role of job insecurity and perceived employability in the process. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The data collection is conducted in the currently popular industries. Ultimately, 348 valid questionnaires are collected. Later, the regression analysis and bootstrap methods are used to test the theoretical hypotheses. RESULTS: Organizational performance climate can promote new generation employees’ overtime behaviors; job insecurity plays a mediating role between organizational performance climate and new generation employees’ overtime behaviors; perceived employability can negatively moderate the correlation between job insecurity and overtime behaviors, and negatively moderate the mediating effect between performance climate and overtime behaviors. CONCLUSION: Based on conservation of resources theory, this research explains the new generation employees’ overtime behaviors formation mechanism under the “involution” culture in China. These results deepen the understanding of the overtime work mechanism according to characteristics of new generation employees and post-pandemic era, which can provide theoretical support and practical guidance for a reasonable control of employees’ overtime behaviors under the “involution” culture.