SIOP Award Winners: Meet the Winners of the SIOP International Research and Collaboration Small Grant on Job Insecurity

Liberty J. Munson

As part of our ongoing series to provide visibility into what it takes to earn a SIOP award or grant, we highlight a diverse class of award winners in each edition of TIP. We hope that this insight encourages you to consider applying for a SIOP award or grant because you are probably doing something amazing that can and should be recognized by your peers in I-O psychology!

This quarter, we are highlighting the winners of the SIOP International Research and Collaboration Small Grant as told by Lixin Jiang, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her coauthors where:

• Maike Debus, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)
• Xiaowen Hu, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
• Sergio Lopez-Bohle, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile
• Laura Petitta, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
• Lara Roll, North-West University, South Africa
• Marius Stander, North-West University, South Africa
• Haijiang Wang, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
• Xiaohong Xu, Old Dominion University, USA

Share a little a bit about who you are and what you do.

I am Lixin Jiang, senior lecturer at School of Psychology at University of Auckland. I am an organizational psychologist specializing in occupational health psychology. My overarching research goal is to use resources at the socioeconomic, organizational, and individual levels to promote health and well-being of people at work, as well as prevent and attenuate the negative consequences of workplace stressors. Upon receiving my PhD from Washington State University in 2013, I have published 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, including in top-tier journals such as Journal of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and Work & Stress. As a principal investigator, I have attracted competitive research grants worth over $450,000. I am currently an associate editor for Stress and Health and serve as an editorial board member for Journal of Organizational Behavior and Occupational Health Science.

Describe the research/work that you did that resulted in this award. What led to your idea?

Since my PhD, my research has been focusing on job insecurity, a topic that is particularly relevant in contemporary workplaces and today’s global pandemic. The proposed research will examine whether employees’ display of different types and levels of proactive behaviors (e.g., seeking a mentor, networking, voice behaviors, taking charge) as a result of job insecurity depend on their cultural orientations across nine countries. My idea came from the international prevalence of job insecurity and the growing importance of proactive behaviors. 

What do you think was key to you winning this award?

My awesome international collaborators are key because this study involves data collection efforts from nine countries, including Australia, Chile, China, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States.

What do you see as the lasting/unique contribution of this work to our discipline? How can it be used to drive changes in organizations, the employee experience, and so on?

Understanding how people with different cultural values may react to job insecurity differently by displaying different types and levels of proactive behaviors, which are becoming more important in light of today’s growth in precarious forms of employment, changing employment conditions, and greater mobility across organizations. This will help global organizations to understand employees with their unique cultural backgrounds. 

Are you still doing work/research in the same area where you won the award? If so, what are you currently working on in this space? If not, what are you working on now and how did you move into this different work/research area? 

Yes. I am still doing research on job insecurity. I am currently working on research on job insecurity’s potential antecedents and its long-term consequences on organizations, employees, and their family.

What is a fun fact about you that few people know?

Many moons ago, I attempted to cycle from Chengdu to Tibet, about 2,275 km (~1,414 miles). Although I only completed one quarter of the trip and had to return because of altitude sickness, I summited three mountains that are over 4,000 meters (~13,000 ft) tall. I hope I am a better academic than a cycler.  

What piece of advice would you give to someone new to I-O psychology? (If you knew then what you know now…)

Hard work pays off.

About the author:

Liberty Munson is currently the principal psychometrician of the Microsoft Technical Certification and Employability programs in the Worldwide Learning organization. She is responsible for ensuring the validity and reliability of Microsoft’s certification and professional programs. Her passion is for finding innovative solutions to business challenges that balance the science of assessment design and development with the realities of budget, time, and schedule constraints. Most recently, she has been presenting on the future of testing and how technology can change the way we assess skills.

Liberty loves to bake, hike, backpack, and camp with her husband, Scott, and miniature schnauzer, Apex. If she’s not at work, you’ll find her enjoying the great outdoors, or she’s in her kitchen tweaking some recipe just to see what happens.

Her advice to someone new to I-O psychology?

• Statistics, statistics, statistics—knowing data analytic techniques will open A LOT of doors in this field and beyond!