Perceived Employability in Relation to Job Performance: A Cross-lagged Study Accounting for a Negative Path via Reduced Commitment

This study challenges the idea that perceived employability boosts job performance: perceived employability may indirectly decrease employees’ performance through reduced affective organizational commitment. We define performance broadly in terms of task, helping, and creative behaviors. Results are based on cross-lagged structural equation modeling involving two-wave data from 791 Flemish (i.e., Dutch-speaking Belgian) employees. Perceived employability had a negative cross-lagged effect on commitment. In turn, commitment had a positive cross-lagged effect on all three components of job performance. The cross-lagged effect of perceived employability on performance was non-significant. Our results suggest that perceived employability could entail a ‘dark side’: it might decrease affective organizational commitment, which, in turn, may compromise job performance. This may defy earlier assumptions on the overall positive effects associated with perceived employability.