Current Research Journal of Social Sciences 3(3): 229-235, 2011
ISSN: 2041-3246
© Maxwell Scientific Organization, 2011
Received: February 28, 2011
Accepted: March 26, 2011
Published: May 25, 2011
Role Ambiguity, Role Conflict, the Role of Job Insecurity as Mediator toward
Job Stress among Malay Academic Staff: A SEM Analysis
1
Triantoro Safaria, 2Ahmad bin Othman and 3Muhammad Nubli Abdul Wahab
1
Faculty of Psychology, Ahmad Dahlan University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
2
Department of Technology Management,
3
Center of Modern Language and Human Science, University Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia
Lebuh Raya Tun Razak, Gambang 26300, Pahang, Malaysia
Abstract: Globalization brings change in all aspect of human life, including in how job and organization
operates. These changes create much strain and stress not only among employee at business organization, but
also among university academic staff. These changes create ambiguity and conflict on how a task must be done.
These condition interfere employees to perform better in their job. This study aims to examine the mediating
effects of job insecurity on job stress among Malay academic staff. A total of 124 questionnaires were
completed. The result of path analysis using structural equation modeling showed job insecurity is a mediator
to job stress. Role ambiguity and role conflict has no direct effect to job stress, but has indirect effect by
mediation of job insecurity toward job stress. The unique relationship between role ambiguity and role conflict
by mediation of job insecurity to job stress will be discussed in detail below.
Key words: Job insecurity job stress, malay academic staff, role ambiguity, role conflict
ambiguity and role conflict toward job stress. It could be
assumed that factors of job insecurity can become a
mediator in relation to other factors affecting the job
stress. In other word the effects of role stressors do not
directly affect the emergence of job stress but mediated by
job insecurity. Besides that, in present study researcher
wants to test the assumption whether role stressors have
direct relationship toward job stress.
INTRODUCTION
Stress is inseparable in every individual life aspects.
Stress can be experienced by every people. Stress has
negative implication if accumulated in individual life if
there is no effective solution. This stress accumulation
happened because person lacks of ability to handle and
manage stress (Sulksky and Smith, 2005). Nevertheless,
on the optimal level, stress has important ingredient to
increase motivation and challenges a person to achieve
better performance (Robbins, 2007).
In education organization, especially at higher
education setting, many studies concluded that lecturer,
staff or administration personnel reported from middle
level to higher level of job stress (Assadi, 2003; Blix and
Lee, 1991; Boscolo et al., 2008; Donders et al., 2003;
De Nobile; Boscolo et al., 2008; Jing, 2008;
Leung et al., 2000, De Nobile and McCormick, 2007).
Ahsan et al. (2009) stated that the number of universities
in Malaysia has increase tremendously for the past few
years. Due to the increasing number of universities in
Malaysia, university academic staff may face more
problems in their job as the management is facing
competitive pressure from other universities. This may
causes academic staffs to face plenty of stress and
therefore affect their satisfaction and even their physical
or mental health.
The purpose of study is to examine whether job
insecurity has a central role to mediate the effect of role
LITERATURE REVIEW
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) defined “stress as any
event in which environmental demands and/or internal
demands (physiological/psychological) tax or exceed the
adaptive resources of the individual, his or her tissue
system, or the social system of which one is a part”. In
this definition, stress viewed as an interactional process
because it emphasizes stress as the process of interaction
between stressors and how person responses the stressors.
Several past studies used this definition as their guide in
conducted the research.
In Malaysia several past studies confirmed the
phenomena of job stress in educational setting. An
example study by Huda et al. (2004) revealed that
prevalence of job strain (referred to as ‘high job strain’) in
University Sains Malaysia lecturers was 23.3%. A
significantly higher proportion of clinicians 34.1% in
University Sains Malaysia reported high job strain
compared to non-clinicians 6.9%. The prevalence of job
Corresponding Author: Triantoro Safaria, Faculty of Psychology, Ahmad Dahlan University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Tel: 60-6017-281-1612/62-815-7881-5029
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Curr. Res. J. Soc. Sci., 3(3): 229-235, 2011
the model accounts for 8% of the explained variance.
However, this pattern of results is not replicated
for psychological distress. Another study by
Reisel et al. (2005) found that job insecurity related to
customer performance, customer effectiveness,
adaptiveness and related to esprit de corps negatively.
Boya et al. (2008) concluded that qualitative and
quantitative job insecurity significantly affected perceived
anxiety and depression levels in nurses working in private
hospitals. Chirumbolo and Areni (2005) study found that
job insecurity negatively correlated with job performance
and positively with absenteeism. While another study by
Heaney, Israel and. House, (1994) found that chronic job
insecurity has negative effects on job satisfaction and
health.
However, all studies cited above were conducted in
western culture. In present study, the phenomena of job
insecurity and job stress are examined in Malay culture.
According to Asma (1992) culturally, Malaysian
workforce places an emphasis on loyalty, trust,
cooperation, compassion, tolerance spirituality, being
indirect when communicating bad news, maintaining
harmonious relationships, preserving face, showing
respect for hierarchy and elders and being polite. Almost
Malay people are Muslim, so the values of Islam
principals more influence Malays and shaped the code of
conduct of many Malay people. The Malays (the ethnic
group with the largest majority in Malaysia) are more
collective orientation and they are also satisfied by doing
work if they have opportunities to show and receive
appropriate respect from superior, peers, and subordinates
(Asma, 1992). According to Normah Mansor and
Kennedy (2000) Malaysian leaders are not expected to be
egoistic and self-serving, they discourage to be frankly in
giving a feedback, especially negative feedback to other
person. They should create and facilitate harmony in their
group, avoided direct conflict and preserve "face" (jaga
maruah) of other person.
Although some previous research has been conducted
to examine the relationship between job insecurity with
job stress (Ashford et al., 1989; Chirumbolo and
Areni,
2005;
Gaunt
and Benjamin, 2007;
Reisel et al., 2005; Silla et al., 2008), but nowadays study
that considers the existence of mediating factors of job
insecurity on job stress, especially in Malay culture is
unclear. So further research is needed to explore whether
the effect of role ambiguity and role conflict on job stress
mediated by job insecurity.
dissatisfaction in University Sains Malaysia lecturers was
42.6%.
Several factors were found associated with stress in
the workplace. Two factors that have relationship with
job stress are role ambiguity and role conflict. Greenhalgh
and Rosenblatt (1984) developed a conceptual framework
that the effect of role stressors did not directly relate to
job stress but mediate by job insecurity. In GreenhalghRosenblatt’s model there are three variables involved on
occurring stress in workplace; those are antecedent
variable, mediating variables and consequence variable.
In present study role ambiguity and role conflict is
antecedent variables, while job insecurity is mediating
variable and job stress is consequence variable.
According to Rizzo et al. (1970) a role is most
typically define as a set of expectations of the appropriate
behavior that should be actualized by person which hold
a specific position in a social structure. Role ambiguity
refers to the degree of predictability one’s behavior
responses and the clarity of behavior requirements
(Glissmeyer et al., 2008; Shen, 2005). In order word,
focal person feels that he or she was entrap in situation
which the job obligation is unclear and not stated in
straightforward manner.
While, Cooper et al. (2001) defined role conflict as
reflects incompatible demands on the person (either
within a single role or between multiple roles occupied by
the individual) which can induce negative emotional
reactions due to the perceived inability to be effective on
the job. One form of role conflict in lecturer arises
because lecturer has limited resources in terms of time
and energy. The seemingly infinite demands from
different roles overtax them (Greenhaus and
Beutell, 1985).
If we look at job insecurity, many definitions were
created to describe the term of it. Greenhalgh and
Rosenblatt (1984) stated that job insecurity manifest in
terms of threats to the job itself, unsecure about the
progress of career in the future, feeling of powerlessness
related to maintain job itself, and threats to valued job
features. While, Hellgren et al. (1999), argued that there
were two different aspects of job insecurity: quantitative
and qualitative insecurity. Quantitative job insecurity is
perceived threat or concern about continuity and future
existence of the job. Qualitative job insecurity pertains to
perceptions of potential loss of quality in the employment
relationship, such as deterioration of working conditions,
demotion, lack of career opportunities, decreasing salary
development and concerns about person-organization fit
in the future.
Study by Silla et al. (2008) suggested that job
insecurity related to poor well-being, while no such
association found for employability. Furthermore,
employability moderates the relationship between job
insecurity and life satisfaction, as expected. Specifically,
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Participants: The study was conducted from December
2009 to May 2010 in one of Universities in Pahang
Malaysia. A covering letter explaining the purpose of the
study and providing assurance that the confidentiality of
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Curr. Res. J. Soc. Sci., 3(3): 229-235, 2011
responses would be respected accompanied each
questionnaire. Two weeks later, we give the questionnaire
and a follow-up letter to non-respondents stressing the
value of the survey and the importance of their
participation. Questionnaires were collected by researcher
in faculty office. A total of 124 usable questionnaires
were returned. Frequencies for the respondent’s
demographic are presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Frequency and percents of respondent’s demographic data
Variables
Content
Frequency
5
Gender
Male
63
50.8
Female
61
49.2
Age
20-25
30
24.2
26-30
47
37.9
31-35
37
29.8
36-40
5
4.0
41-45
3
2.4
50
2
1.6
Measure: Role ambiguity and role conflict. Role Stressor
Scale (RSS) was adapted from questionnaire was made by
Rizzo et al. (1970) and revised by researcher. Internal
consistency technique was used to test the validity and
reliability of questionnaire. The result of role ambiguity
Cronbach alpha is 0.810 with corrected item-total
correlation range 0.504-0.800. The result of role conflict
Cronbach alpha is 0.863 with corrected item-total
correlation range 0.692-0.786.
Table 2: Reliabilities, means and standard deviations for role
ambiguity, role conflict, job insecurity and job stress
"
M
SD
Variable
Role ambiguity
0.810
8.040
2.35
Role conflict
0.863
7.980
2.44
Job stress responses
0.920
43.780
10.38
Job insecurity
0.888
13.605
3.79
present study included job stress, role ambiguity, role
conflict and job insecurity dimension as stated above.
A two-step modeling approach was adopted
(Kline, 1998; Byrne, 2001). In the first step, a
measurement model was tested to make sure that all latent
constructs correlate with manifest variable. In step two, a
structural analysis designed to test relationships among
latent variables was examined. These relationships among
variable will be tested only after ensuring that latent
variables have measured adequately. This procedure will
reduce the risk of misinterpretation and bias (Anderson
and Gerbing, 1988; Ghozali, 2008). Moreover, Maximum
Likelihood (ML) method of covariance structure analysis
was used in this study. To examine overall model fit, the
squared error of approximation (RMSEA), chisquare/degree of freedom (CMIN/DF), Tucker-Lewis
Index (TLI) and Normed Fit Index (NFI) will be used.
Satisfactory model fit is indicated by RMSEA values less
than or equal to 0.08 and by TLI and NFI values greater
than or equal to 0.90. Moreover, CMIN/DF values less
than or equal to 5 is adequately reasonable for a model
(Ghozali, 2008; Byrne, 2001).
The result of measurement model of job stress, job
insecurity, role ambiguity and role conflict has a
satisfactory fit model. Through SEM analysis job stress
dimension obtained satisfactory result with p = 0.152,
NFI = 0.900, TLI = 0.982 and RMSEA = 0.033. The same
result is obtained for job insecurity with p = 0.108,
NFI = 0.968, TLI = 0.971 and RMSEA = 0.075. While
role ambiguity has p = 0.118, NFI = 0.985, TLI = 0.973
and RMSEA = 0.108 and role conflict has p = 0.971,
NFI = 1.00, TLI = 1.02 and RMSEA = 0.000. Table 3
presented all the fit indices for measurement models.
After we tested the measurement model and
confirmed the satisfactory result, then the structural
models of the relationship between role ambiguity, role
conflict and job insecurity with job stress dimension was
tested.
Job stress: Job Stress Scale (JSS) that was adapted from
Stress Indicators Scale (2007) and revised by researcher
will measure job stress variable. The reliability and
validity will be analyzed with internal consistency
technique by Cronbach alpha. The result of JSS
Cronbach’s alpha is 0.920, with corrected item-total
correlation range 0.369-0.708.
Job insecurity: Job insecurity was measured by job
insecurity questionnaire based on Hellgren et al. (1999)
theory, and then researcher made several refinements on
the items. The validity and reliability of questionnaire will
be analyzed with internal consistency technique. The
Cronbach alpha of job insecurity scale is 0.888 with
corrected item-total correlation range 0.649-0.735.
Data analysis: Data were analyzed using the Statistical
Program for Social Sciences (SPSS for window 15) and
Amos 18. Several tests of the normality of data were
performed. We checked the symmetry, looking at the
mode, median and mean and then used the Shapiro-Wilks
test and various graphical tests (box plot, stem and leaf
and normal probability plot). Based on these several tests,
a normal distribution data was achieved in our variables.
Then structural equation model was used to examine the
mediation relationship between job insecurity with job
stress. The reliability means and standard deviations for
all variables presented in Table 2.
Structural equation modeling: The next step in our
investigation of job stress and job insecurity was to
perform Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Before
SEM analysis performs, the continuous distributions for
each of the variables should expect. For the purposes of
SEM, a sample size of 63 for males and 61 for females
may be considered fair. The latent constructs in the
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Table 3: Fit indices for measurement models
Test
P
Prob.
Job stress
129.515
0.152
Role ambiguity
2.447
0.118
Role conflict
0.001
0.971
Job insecurity
11.782
0.108
Cmin/DF
1.136
2.447
0.001
1.683
Table 4: Correlations between variables in the structural model
Y
Y
Job stress
1.000
Role ambiguity
0.196*
X1
Role conflict
0.247**
X2
Job insecurity
0.314***
X3
Significantly greater (p<0.05); *: p<0.05; **: p<0.001
Role conflict
Job stress
Fig. 1: A propose model between role ambiguity, role conflict
and job insecurity with job stress
Role ambiguity
0.17
Job insecurity
0.24
0.28
Role conflict
0.16
TLI
0.982
0.973
1.020
0.971
RMSEA
0.033
0.108
0.000
0.075
X1
X2
X3
1.000
0.136
0.209*
1.000
0.307**
1.000
job insecurity has a direct positive relationship with job
stress. Besides that, we also assumed that role ambiguity
and role conflict has a direct relationship with job stress
(Fig. 1).
The results through a structural equation model
analysis shows that role ambiguity and role conflict has
direct relationship to job insecurity (for role ambiguity
with r = 0.171 p>0.05, for role conflict with r = 0.284
p<0.01). The indirect relationships of role ambiguity and
role conflict toward job stress mediated by job insecurity
is significant (for ambiguity p = 0.034 for role conflict
p = 0.008), while direct effect of job insecurity to job
stress is significant (r = 0.240 p<0.01). While direct effect
of role ambiguity and role conflict toward job stress is not
significant for role ambiguity r = 0.125 p>0.05, for role
conflict with r = 0.156 p>0.05). The propose model has a
satisfactory result with chi-square = 0.000, p =
0.992>0.05.
The Maximum Likelihood (ML) method of
covariance structure analysis was used in this study. To
examine overall model fit, the squared error of
approximation (RMSEA), chi-square/degree of freedom
(CMIN/DF), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and normed fit
index (NFI) will be used. Satisfactory model fit is
indicated by RMSEA values less than or equal to .08 and
by TLI and NFI values greater than or equal to 0.90.
Moreover, CMIN/DF values less than or equal to 5 is
adequately reasonable for a model (Ghozali, 2008;
Byrne, 2001). The propose model has a satisfactory model
fit with all criteria said above. Figure 2 described the final
model of this study. For the model fit criteria is described
in Table 5 for more detail.
The final model has chi-square (0.000), p = 0.992
with CMIN/DF = 0.000, NFI = 1.00, TLI = 1.195 and
RMSEA= 0.0000. With all result we can concluded that
our model has a satisfactory model fit. The summaries of
standardized direct effect and indirect effect are described
in Table 6 and 7 for detail.
Because the mediation relationships is significant,
post-hoc probing analysis is needed to examine whether
the association between predictor and outcome is
significantly reduced when the mediator is introduced into
Job insecurity
Role ambiguity
NFI
0.900
0.985
1.00
0.968
0.12
Job stress
Fig. 2: The structural final model between role ambiguity, role
conflict, job insecurity and job stress. Noted: based on
standardized estimation
RESULTS
The result of correlation analysis showed a
relationship between role ambiguity, role conflict, job
insecurity and job stress. Job insecurity has an association
with job stress (r = 0.314 p<0.000). In addition job
insecurity also has a relationship with role ambiguity
(r = 0.209 p<0.05) and role conflict (r = 0.308 p<0.000),
while role ambiguity has a non significant association
with job stress (r = 0.196 p<0.05) and role conflict (r =
0.136 p>0.05). Then role conflict has an association with
job stress (r = 0.247 p<0.01) (Table 4).
Role ambiguity and role conflict has an indirect effect
on job stress, which is mediated by job insecurity, while,
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Curr. Res. J. Soc. Sci., 3(3): 229-235, 2011
Table 5: Fit indices for structural models
x
Prob
Cmin/DF
TLI
RMSEA
0.000
0.992
0.000
1.195
0.000
Table 6: Summary of standardized direct effect
Job insecurity
Role ambiguity
0.171
Role conflict
0.284
Job stress
0.240
role conflict toward job stress. This suggests that the role
of job insecurity is very important in the organization. The
logical explanation is as follows, when the level of role
ambiguity and role conflict experienced by academic staff
is high, then it will be increasing the insecurity feeling
among them. The increasing of job insecurity at academic
staff will be followed by the increasing of distress feeling.
If these conditions continue then it will be increasing the
incident of job stress in the future.
Previous studies have been shown that job insecurity
related to job attitudes such as satisfaction (Probst and
Brubaker, 2001), organizational attitudes such as
organizational commitment and trust and psychological
and physical well-being outcomes (Hellgren and
Sverke, 2003; Kivimaki et al., 2000) personal outcome
(Driscoll and Beehr, 1994). A few studies have been
identified additional work-related behaviors such as
increased job search behavior (Adkins et al., 2001;
Reisel and Banai, 2002) or safety (Probst and
Brubaker, 2001).
Many past studies have been concluded that work
stressor like job insecurity will cause unfavorable
consequences for employees (Cheng et al., 2005). For
example, job insecurity implies uncontrollability and
feelings of powerlessness, which known to be related to
poor well-being (De Witte, 1999). As Borg and
Elizur (1992) noted, a causal relationship exists, with job
insecurity causing various phenomenon, such as lower
trust in management and not vice versa. While,
Lee et al. (2004) described that during 4 years they found
coronary heart disease deaths cases of Myocardial
Infarction (MI) and 41 Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)
deaths). After adjustment for a wide array of potential
confounders, the relative risk of total CHD over 2 year
follow-up was 1.35 (95% CI, 0.78-2.34) and 1.04 (95%
CI, 0.69-1.57) over 4-year follow-up. Job insecurity
appeared to significantly increase the risk of non-fatal MI
in the short term.
As defined by Spector (1997), “role ambiguity is the
degree of certainty the employee has about what his or her
functions and responsibilities are”. According to this
definition, every position in a structured organization
should have a specified set of tasks or position
responsibilities. Role ambiguity reflects the degree of
employees’ uncertainty regarding the appropriate actions
in performing job functions. Due to uncertain role
expectation, employees feel that the situations they face
are ambiguous. The ambiguous situations related to the
accomplishment of their task will create the climate of
anxiety, confusion and feel like there is no guideline that
should be referred in completing tasks accurately and
satisfactorily. Finally, employees will be dissatisfied with
his role, experience anxiety, distort reality and thus
perform less effectively (Rizzo et al., 1970). Those
situations will be more detrimental when employees
NFI
1.00
Job stress
0.125
0.156
0.000
Table 7: Summary of Post hoc analysis using bootstrap for indirect
effect
Lower-bounds
Upper-bound
Sig
role conflict
role conflict
Two-tailed
Job stress
0.009
0.100
0.035*
0.026
0.111
0.008**
Significantly greater (p<0.05); Note: *: p<0.05; **: p<0.01
the model. According to Holmbeck (2002) conducting
post hoc analyses of mediation is important because it
prevents the investigator from drawing false positive or
false negative conclusions about the relationships among
the variables. It is important to keep in mind that the
“drop to non-significant” criterion is flawed and may
result in incorrect conclusions about the data.
Holmbeck (2002) stated that false negative conclusions
may be due to limited power or poor reliability of
measures (Type II errors), of course. But both false
negatives and false positives can be a result of the “drop
to non significance” criterion. This strategy assumes that
there is mediation when the A-C relationship drops from
significance to non significance with the addition of the
mediator. This is a flawed strategy, however, because it is
possible that no mediation is present even when the
relationship changes from significant to non significant.
Moreover, it is also possible that mediation has occurred
even when there is no drop to non-significance.
Bootstrapping method was used to examine post-hoc
probing analysis of mediation. The result is the
association between predictor and outcome is
significantly reduced when the mediator is introduced into
the model. In Table 7 depicted the result of probing
analysis in detail.
Role ambiguity has a lower-bounds indirect effect
0.009 and upper-bounds 0.0100 with p<0.05. This
indicates that role ambiguity has a significant indirect
effect to job stress. While, role conflict has a lowerbounds 0.026 and upper-bounds 0.111 with p<0.05. This
indicates too that role conflict has a significant indirect
effect to job stress.
DISCUSSION
The result shows that the existence of mediating
relationship between role ambiguity and role conflict with
job insecurity is significant. While, there are nonsignificant direct relationship between role ambiguity and
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experienced a role conflict in their job. The ambiguous
and conflicting situations will lead to the emergence of
discomfort and insecurity, especially related to their job.
Eventually, employees will experience job insecurity
which then will influence on the increased of stress and
strain at work. The increased of job stress on employees
will raises negative outcome such as decreasing employee
productivity, absenteeism, intention to leave and turnover.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion of this study is the hypothesis, which
states the relationship between role ambiguity, role
conflict with job stress that mediated by job insecurity is
significant. In addition, role ambiguity and role conflict
has not direct effect to job stress. Further research needs
to include other variables such as study in the other
cultural sample, or include the participant’s demographic
variable in examining the mediation relationship between
role ambiguity, role conflict and job insecurity with job
stress.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank to the academic staffs for
participating in this study. This work was supported under
the research grant No. Vote 090123, University Malaysia
Pahang, Malaysia.
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