Management professor publishes in top journal

Assistant Professor Shu Wang of Radford University's College of Business and Economics has co-authored an article accepted for publication in a top-tier management journal.

The article, "Curvilinear Relation between Job Insecurity and Work Withdrawal: The Moderating Role of Achievement Orientation and Risk Aversion," will appear in the January 2014 issue of Human Resource Management Journal.

In the article, Wang and coauthor Xiang Yi, an associate professor of management and marketing at Western Illinois University, investigate how job insecurity affects employee withdrawal behaviors, which are considered detrimental to organizational productivity, Wang said.

"Using large organization samples with both secure and insure job situations, the study finds that job insecurity could have both positive and negative effects on work withdrawal simultaneously," Wang said. "That is, a U shape would best describe such a relationship, since a moderate level of job insecurity would result in the lowest level of work withdrawal."

Furthermore, Wang writes, "individual differences such as achievement orientation and propensity for risk aversion buffer this relationship in such a way that the curvilinear relationship is weaker (flattened curve) when the individual's achievement orientation is high, and that the curvilinear relationship is stronger (steep curve) when the individual's propensity for risk aversion is high."

Wang teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in human resource management, organizational behavior and cultural diversity in the Department of Management.

Learn more about Radford University at www.radford.edu.