This study uses a two-wave survey of 267 Vietnamese public officers to examine the relationship between job insecurity and employee behaviour. Specifically, it distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative job insecurity, links each type to its corresponding motivational mechanism, and identifies the associated proximal behavioural outcomes.
Grounded in SDT (Deci et al., 2017), the study focuses on two relatively understudied yet important consequences of job insecurity: learning activities, defined as employees’ attempt to advance their knowledge, skill and ability through learning (Bezuijen et al., 2010), and unethical pro-organizational behaviour (UPB), defined as behaviours that are beneficial for the organization but violate ethical standards (Mukherjee and Saritha, 2024, Umphress et al., 2010). These behaviours represent contrasting proactive coping responses to ongoing organizational changes: while learning activities enable individuals to enhance their competencies and adapt to change (De Cuyper et al., 2022), UPB reflects political behaviours to secure favourable impressions and job continuity (Wang et al., 2022). We theorize that the two forms of job insecurity differentially relate to these behaviours through self-determined and non-self-determined work motivation, respectively.
Our study makes several important contributions to the literature. First, it distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative job insecurity and examines their differential effects on two contrasting behavioural outcomes: learning activities and UPB. By responding to (Lee et al., 2018) call to study different forms of job insecurity separately, this research captures their distinct influences on positive and negative behaviours. Second, grounded in SDT, the study uncovers the motivational mechanisms linking job insecurity to behavioural outcomes, highlighting that different behaviours are driven by different types of motivation. Through this lens, the study provides a more comprehensive understanding of how qualitative and quantitative job insecurity function, as SDT captures the full continuum of motivational regulation (Howard et al., 2017). Finally, the research is conducted within Vietnam’s public sector, which is undergoing major structural transformations that heighten employees’ sense of job insecurity. As noted by De Cuyper et al. (2022), this context offers a unique opportunity to examine qualitative job insecurity in relative isolation from its quantitative counterpart. Furthermore, Schwarz et al. (2025) emphasized the role of studying UPB in public organizations. Accordingly, this study advances the job insecurity literature by offering a clearer and more comprehensive picture of its motivational and behavioural consequences, helping to reconcile inconsistencies in prior research.