Organizational Communication and Job Insecurity with Work Centrality as a Moderator: A Study on the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic to Tourism Industry

. The economic impact of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic has left many workers to be laid off. It psychologically caused those with jobs to feel insecure, which is known to affect individuals and organizations negatively. Drawing from Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources (COR) theoretical framework, this study examined the correlation of organizational communication and job insecurity among workers during the COVID-19 pandemic with the moderating role of work centrality. Data were collected from 271 tourism workers in Bali through the purposive sampling technique. The result showed the negative correlation of organization communication towards job insecurity of tourism workers in Bali. The negative correlation between organizational communication and job insecurity became stronger for Balinese tourism workers with high work centrality than workers with lower work centrality. Accordingly, organizations should make a greater effort to communicate with workers about the organization’s stability during the COVID-19 pandemic to attenuate workers’ job insecurity.

This phenomenon is evident in Indonesia. Data from Kementerian Tenaga Kerja (Ministry of Labor) indicates 2,084,593 workers in Indonesia who were laid off due to  in April 2020 and this data could increase given the uncertainty regarding when this pandemic will end (Lipi, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a different experience from previous conditions (Rudolph et al., 2020). These differences are inseparable from macro factors, namely the global economic situation (Witte, 2005), that triggers perceptions regarding how long workers will last before being unemployed.
This phenomenon aligns to the concept of job insecurity.
There are differences in the meaning of the job insecurity phenomenon during the pandemic and the past. Research from 1980 to 1990 consistently stated that job insecurity was a response to the downsizing phenomenon often carried out at that time (Rudolph et al., 2020). From 1980From to 1990 was an economic recession due to high oil prices in light of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the decline in global stock prices. This situation impacts the organization of nondurable goods, vehicles (cars and trucks), and construction. Because downsizing was only carried out in specific sectors, workers who felt job insecurity at that time chose to leave the organization where they worked permanently.
According to Witte (2005), the decision of individuals to permanently leave was influence by the workers' perception that they would only be jobless for a short period. This perception was caused by the availability of much safer work sectors as an alternative, reducing workers' sense of job insecurity.
The situation described in the previous paragraph is quite different from the current recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of the COVID-19 virus is suppressed by limiting human activities. Restrictions on human activity occur throughout the world and all industrial sectors. Therefore, the restriction of human activities depresses the pace of the economy. The economic slowdown in all sectors has caused many organizations to downsize and lay off their workers.
According to Witte (2005), this condition can lead to the perception of long-term unemployment because all sectors carry out the same strategy, so it will be challenging to find other jobs to reduce job insecurity. Thus, workers who are still holding onto their jobs during this pandemic choose not to do permanent separation because they perceive that the unemployment period will be long.
Based on this, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a critical change to job insecurity that has been investigated in the past research. Job insecurity, which initially predicts permanent separation, did not predict permanent separation in the context of this pandemic. Therefore, the researcher considers that previous research has become less relevant to explaining job insecurity in the context of the current pandemic. In Indonesia, the concept of job insecurity has been widely studied in relation to turnover intentions (Alifian & Rahardjo, 2016;Halimah et al., 2016), but not in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Research on job insecurity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has been carried out recently in Indonesia, but is associated with workers' task performance (Salendu & Maldini, 2021).
Due to the limitation of job insecurity studies that are able to explain why the job insecurity felt by workers during the COVID-19 pandemic does not lead to permanent separation (Rudolph et al., 2020), there is an opportunity for further research.

Conservation of Resources as a Theoretical Framework
This study used Conservation of Resources (COR) (Hobfoll, 2001) as a theoretical framework. In other words, the way that job insecurity within the pandemic context does not indicate a permanent separation will be explained through the COR theory. In principle, the COR theory highlights that people are motivated to protect available resources (conservation) and obtain new resources (acquisition) (Halbesleben et al., 2014). The acquisition process is easier for individuals with a pool of resources or who have the opportunity to gain resources (Hobfoll, 2001). Conversely, when individuals are threatened with losing resources, individuals will find it difficult to make acquisitions. This is because individuals will be more defensive in investing resources in the future. Therefore, when there is a threat of resource loss, individuals are more motivated to conserve resources to avoid loss (Halbesleben et al., 2014).
Identical to the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the difficulty of finding other jobs during this pandemic has caused workers to prefer to remain in the organization where they work (Rudolph et al., 2020). This is because workers are trying to protect their resources, such as energy, time, income, and savings. If workers make a turnover, workers will lose these resources, such as salaries, savings, and time and energy spent looking for other jobs. Because of the large number of resources spent to move to other jobs, workers will choose to remain in their current workplace. Thus, job insecurity in this pandemic is more oriented towards the mechanism of resource conservation.
Workers who remain in their current workplace will be stressed because they remain experiencing job insecurity. Job insecurity can be one of the causes of stress and lead to unpleasant psychological conditions (witte et al., 2016). Therefore, job insecurity for workers needs to be reduced to recover to normal conditions. In order to reduce job insecurity, workers can use other resources to reduce job insecurity. Two empirical studies examine the moderating role of organizational communication on the consequences of job insecurity. Elst et al. (2010) found that the interaction of job insecurity and either organizational communication or participation did not contribute in explaining variance in the outcome variables (i.e. work engagement and need for recovery). On the other hand, König et al. (2010) found that organizational communication had a beneficial effect on outcomes (i.e., self-reported task performance), but this effect existed only when employees' levels of job insecurity were low. That is, the buffering effect of organization communication is irrelevant in a pandemic situation because workers tend to feel high job insecurity. Based on these two empirical findings, this study will use organizational communication factors as organizational-based resources that workers can use to overcome job insecurity.
Changes in various sectors of life driven by health reasons related to the pandemic, reorganization, or reduction in the number of workers are mainly carried out by organizations.
These changes present organizations' unique reputational challenges and communication processes as they adapt to new operating, business, and public policy environments. Due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis has affected all stakeholders, including employees, investors, customers/partners, and regulators. As a result, communication about safety, changes in standard operating procedures (SOP), business impact, and what organizations will do in response to this crisis will be very important (Capodanno, 2020). Through clear organizational communication, workers can find out information about safety, changes to SOPs, business impacts, and strategies taken by the organization in dealing with the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is useful for workers to prepare themselves for these adjustments and reduce uncertainty about the future of these workers.
The way the organization communicates the information can be perceived differently by each worker. Based on the COR theory (Hobfoll, 2001), workers who evaluate positively the way the organization communicates during the COVID-19 pandemic will receive information that can protect its current resources. The information provided by the management and the organization can make workers better understand the work situation and help workers to gain control over the situation (Jiang & Probst, 2013). Workers who gain control over the current pandemic situation can reduce perceived job insecurity. Thus, based on this explanation, workers' perceptions of organization communication can reduce the perceived job insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hobfoll (2001), in COR theory, states that each individual has the right to assess the extent to which the resources obtained are valuable to the individual. Work is one of the resources owned by workers, and therefore, the extent to which the work will be valuable to the worker will differ from one worker to another (Halbesleben et al., 2014). Work has been considered the main thing in the lives of adult individuals, but individuals with high work centrality will genuinely appreciate their work (Bal & Kooij, 2011). Those individuals consider their work the most critical aspect of life and can receive satisfaction and happiness through their work (Tziner et al., 2014). Thus, work centrality represents the extent to which work has a significant role in an individual's life (Bal & Kooij, 2011).
Workers who highly value their work (high work centrality) will invest more time and resources into their careers and organizations (Li et al., 2019). The large number of resources invested can lead to the perception of many losses for workers with high work centrality when bad things happen to the organization (Li et al., 2019). In other words, workers with high work centrality tend to be vulnerable to bad events that befall the organization or their work. This also has something to do with the current state of the pandemic. Many workers have lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization is also slowly experiencing a decline in sales and profits, which in the end, the number of workers is also reduced to stay afloat (Blustein et al., 2020). This condition causes workers who are still working, especially workers with high work centrality, to be vulnerable. These vulnerabilities arise because of the fear of losing their jobs and invested resources. The existence of a dual loss perception (jobs and resources that have been invested in work) causes workers with high work centrality to lose more and tend to show higher job insecurity (Halbesleben et al., 2014).
Based on the COR theory, these losses can be minimized when workers with high work centrality can protect the resources that have been invested. Protection of these resources in this study was examined through organizational communication. In order to confirm the COR theory, this study will also examine the role of work centrality as a moderator in the relationship between organizational communication and job insecurity. Thus, this study has two hypotheses to be tested.
workers' ability to provide finance for their families (Richter et al., 2010). Researchers assumed that the number of dependents corresponded to the greater opportunity for workers to feel job insecurity.
Questionnaire was distributed online via Google Form following the Indonesian government's health protocol in response to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Data collection was carried out from January to February 2021 by distributing the link of the questionnaire to social media, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Informed consent is listed on the first page of the questionnaire by explaining the purpose of the study, the number of items, the duration of filling out the questionnaire, the rights of the respondent, and the contact person. As many as 271 tourism workers in Bali have filled out the informed consent and are willing to participate in this study. The participants involved consisted of 54% men and 46% women. The mean age of the participants was 31.6 (SD = 5.88).

Instruments
This study used three psychological scales presented online to reduce direct contact with participants.
The choice to use an online survey is intended to reduce the transmission of the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic.

Job Insecurity
Workers' perceptions of the perceived threat to their work (job insecurity) during the COVID-19 pandemic will be measured using the Job Insecurity Scale, which has been adapted by Saraswati (2018). The original version of the Job Insecurity Scale is available in English and was developed by De Witte (2000, in (Vander Elst et al., 2014. The Job Insecurity scale consists of four items using a Likert format. Participants were asked to rate each item on a five-point range, moving from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). The Job Insecurity scale has a good reliability with Cronbach's alpha = 0.959 (Saraswati, 2018). One example of the items is "I will most likely lose my job"' and "I believe I can keep my job" (reverse). The following is a blueprint of the Job Insecurity Scale used in this study.  is "I get the information I need about the organization". The following is a blueprint of the Organizational Communication Scale used in this study.

Data Analysis
All data obtained in this study were analyzed through conditional process analysis (PROCESS) developed by Preacher and Hayes (2008). This is an SPSS-based feature that will appear in the regression menu once downloaded and installed. The moderating effect of work centrality is tested through the PROCESS feature in the relationship between organizational communication and job insecurity. The PROCESS feature also provides a simple slope analysis if there are significant results on the interaction of the independent and moderator variables (Hayes, 2012).

Result
The descriptive and intercorrelation data are presented in Table 4. As predicted by the first hypothesis, organizational communication has a negative effect on job insecurity (see table 5 Thus, the moderator variable has a significant effect, supporting H2 in this study.

Discussion
As predicted in H1, the regression analysis results show that organizational communication had a negative role in the job insecurity of tourism workers in Bali during the COVID-19 pandemic. This shows that H1 in this study is accepted. Organization communication shows a negative 12.5% role in the job insecurity of tourism workers in Bali during the COVID-19 pandemic. This finding is also in line with the findings from previous research, which stated that organizational communication has a negative role in job insecurity (Elst et al., 2010;Saeed et al., 2021).
According to the COR theory perspective (Hobfoll, 2001), information obtained through organizational communication can be a worker resource. This information can support conservation efforts (protection of owned resources) of workers so that they can overcome job insecurity (Jiang & Probst, 2014). The practice of organizational communication can provide information about the clarity of the current and future conditions of the organization to workers to help workers feel safe (Huang et al., 2012). However, poor organizational communication creates unclear expectations and increases worker job insecurity (Keim et al., 2014).
The uncertain end of the COVID-19 Pandemic has left conditions ambiguous and uncertain, demanding extraordinary adaptations for organizations to survive. Therefore, changes and adaptation processes carried out by the organization need to be officially communicated through organization communication.
Through organizational communication, organizations can provide precise information regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the organization, organizational strategies in dealing with the current crisis, and its impact on the organization's future (Elst et al., 2010). According to COR theory, workers can use this information as a resource to protect their current job. Such information will help workers understand the work situation and help workers to gain control over the situation (Jiang & Probst, 2014).
Workers who gain control over the current pandemic situation can reduce perceived job insecurity. Jiang and Probst (2014) also adds that job insecurity and its negative consequences can be offset when organizations show better efforts to improve organizational communication. As many as 92% of the respondents in this study perceive high organizational communication in the organization where they work. This indicates that workers have a favorable view of the communication made by the organization during this pandemic.
Furthermore, the simple slope analysis (figure 1) shows that work centrality can become a moderator in the relationship between organizational communication and job insecurity, and this shows that H2 is accepted. The study results stated that for workers with high work centrality, the negative role of organizational communication on job insecurity became stronger (by 16.9%).
In contrast, organizational communication only shows a negative role of 0.8% on job insecurity for workers with low work centrality.
Although workers with high work centrality get many benefits related to work (Hirschfeld & Feild, 2000), workers with high work centrality will also feel more suffering when the possibility of workers better understand the work situation and help workers to gain control over the situation (Jiang & Probst, 2014).
In addition, when workers with high work centrality obtain information regarding organizational stability during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers will also assess the extent to which the resources that have been invested in their work will be threatened. This is in line with Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984), which states that objective threats will be transformed into subjective threats through the process of individual perception. This means that the COVID-19 pandemic, an objective threat, will be perceived differently by individuals, giving rise to different levels of subjective threat.
If applied to the concept of work centrality, workers with high work centrality will perceive the COVID-19 pandemic (objective threat) as a serious subjective threat. If viewed from the COR theory, the COVID-19 pandemic causes workers with high work centrality to not only have the potential to lose resources in the form of work but also lose the resources that have been invested in the work. This means that the COVID-19 pandemic will cause more losses to workers with high work centrality so that they are subjectively perceived as a severe threat.
Organizations that are always open to their stability (which can be communicated through organization communication) in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic can create a sense of security in their work and resources that workers have invested with high work centrality. A sense of security about their work indicates a low perception of job insecurity in workers with high work centrality.
Workers with high work centrality can then take advantage of the information resources obtained through organizational communication as motivation to maintain their jobs. can also be optimized by organizations to carry out organizational communication. This can clarify workers' position during the pandemic whether to remain in their jobs or not. Employees also become more aware of the situation and gain control over this ambiguous situation as the organization continuously communicates its stability during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recommendation
It is further suggested that further research examines the media used by organizations in communicating. Based on the theory of media richness processes, communication media are categorized based on their ability to convey nonverbal cues, both visual and auditory (Daft & Lengel, 1984). This means that communication via telephone calls, online or offline meetings, or written memos provide a distinct richness of information. Communication media seems to be a moderator in the relationship between organizational communication and job insecurity. This will later have more practical implications for organizations in determining the most effective communication media in sending information to workers about changes that directly or indirectly affect workers.
Further research can use other moderators because a reference shows that the moderator in the job insecurity construct consists of two categories, namely economic and psychological vulnerabilities (Shoss, 2017). Work centrality is one example of the category of psychological vulnerabilities. Other research can continue research related to job insecurity by using other variables from the psychological vulnerabilities category as a moderator (such as gender values or collective and individualist cultural factors) or using moderators belonging to the economic vulnerabilities category, such as income insecurity, the level of job seekers in a country, and the benefits provided to the unemployed in a country.