Influence of job insecurity on coal miners' safety performance: the role of emotional exhaustion

Purpose Under the de-capacity circumstances of coal production in China, the purpose of this paper is to examine the processes underlying the association between job insecurity (JI) and miners' safety performance, proposing that resource consumption is a prominent theoretical explanation for this association. By developing a mediation model, the authors examined the mediating role of emotional exhaustion (EE) between JI and miners' safety performance. Design/methodology/approach Through the time-lagged survey method, the authors collected 349 samples from three coal mines in Shanxi Lu'an Group, the hypotheses were tested through confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation model analysis and bootstrapping in AMOS software. Findings Results shed light on that JI negatively predicts the safety performance subfactors, including safety compliance (SC) and safety participation (SP). EE plays a partial mediating role between JI and safety performance. In particular, the finding indicated that JI exerts a more significant impact on SP than SC, revealing that JI produces a more significant adverse effect on miners' conscious safety behaviors than skill-based safety behaviors. Originality/value This study contributes to display the influence path of JI as a stressor on miners' safety performance in the coal mine rather than a stimulus. The mediation model results not only help us understand the association between JI and safety performance but also provide a feasible way to mitigate the negative effects of JI.