| Education is a significant foundation of realizing 'Two Centenary Development Target" as well as an important part of achieving the great rejuvenation of Chinese Nation. Modern human resource management emphasizes on the crucial role that human plays as an important production factor. Just as a famous Chinese saying refers that what make a good university are the great professors rather than great buildings. There would be no high-level universities without great talents. Teachers are the primary resources of a university, which are the most precious, reliable and sustainably competitive element to realize the strategy of a university. Teachers are also the main body of a university. Their creative work is the determinative factor of a university's success.The appointive employment system is a kind of personnel system which suits for teachers' laboring characteristics, professional features and social status. According to the Theory of Protecting Pressure Sources and the Theory of Internal Labor Market, since there is no long-term employment commitment included in the appointive employment system as in the internal labor market, teachers who are employed under this system widely feel insecure. However, while they are facing the risk of contract termination, they are also inspired by the possibility of signing the long-term employment contract with universities and colleges. Certainly, once they obtain the long-term contract, the "inspiring factors" will convert to the "security factors", therefore, the continuously improving motivation will be decreased gradually. Against the background of appointive employment system, how to make reasonable use of job insecurity to improve teachers' employee engagement and job performance has already become an important project in human resource management of universities and colleges, especially in the construction of teaching team and the reform of personnel system, which is also a difficult point of research on teaching team in universities and colleges. This study based on the above background, with an expectation to be beneficial for universities and colleges, and education administrative department to adopt feasible managing and serving measures, to make reasonable use of job insecurity and to improve teachers'employee engagement and job performance through the theoretical and empirical study of the relationship among job insecurity, employee engagement and job performance.This researcher, based on document analysis, proposes a theoretical assumption model and research hypothesis, adopts some measuring scales of job insecurity, employee engagement and job performance which are relatively mature at home and abroad, and has them revised combining with interviews and daily teacher management work, and finally collects546effective questionnaire samples from different types of universities and colleges through sampling survey. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural equation model are also applied to test the theoretical assumption model and research hypothesis on the basis of the integrated application of research methods of management studies, sociology, psychology, statistics and the descriptive statistical analysis of those questionnaire samples. The research results state the following phenomena:(1) Based on certain characteristics of demography and histology, teachers in universities and colleges show remarkable differences in job insecurity, employee engagement and job performance. To be specific, job insecurity is mainly influenced by five factors, including gender, positions, income, type and term of the labor contract. Employee engagement is mostly influenced by seven factors like subject category, positions, income, schooling level, operating post, type and term of the labor contract. Job performance is obviously influenced by eight factors such as subject category, working years, professional and technical positions, schooling level, operating post, type and term of the labor contract.(2) Job insecurity is negatively related to work engagement. From the perspective of their sub-dimensions, the insecurity of work anticipation is positively related to organizational identification, working devotion and sense of work values; while the insecurity of current job situation builds a negative relation with them.(3) Employee engagement is positively related to job performance. From the perspective of their sub-dimensions, organizational identification and working devotion is positively related to task performance, interpersonal facilitation, working contribution and adaptive performance, while sense of work values is negatively related to them.(4)Job insecurity is negatively related to job performance. From the perspective of their sub-dimensions, the insecurity of work anticipation is positively related to task performance, interpersonal facilitation, working contribution and negatively related to adaptive performance; And insecurity of current job situation is negatively related to task performance, interpersonal facilitation, working devotion and unrelated to adaptive performance.(5)Job insecurity firstly has an impact on employee engagement which then affects job performance. To be specific, the higher job insecurity is, the lower employee engagement would be, which will cause lower job performance, and vice versa.The innovative points of this research mainly lie in the following three aspects:(1) This topic derives from some practical and new problems in human resource management of universities and colleges. Against the background of the appointive employment, there are still many policies, measures and supporting systems needing to be established and promoted. An in-depth research of this topic may help to make full use of job insecurity to enhance employee engagement and job performance, so as to facilitate the situation of higher education and satisfy people. What's more, the scholars at home and abroad primarily research on enterprises and their staff, whose research dimension is single and lacking in a comprehensive study of job insecurity, employee engagement and job performance. While the author researches on teachers in universities and colleges, and tries to study these three terms in combination, which enriches the research field.(2) This paper profoundly studies the job insecurity of teachers in universities and colleges under the background of appointive employment system. For the first time, it raises and examines the two-dimensional structure of job insecurity, which is the insecurity of current work situation and the insecurity of work anticipation. Besides, it verifies the structural dimension of employee engagement and job performance. Furthermore, it concludes the differences in job insecurity, employee commitment and job performance of teachers in universities and colleges with various demographical and histological features through empirical analysis. These three variants also differ when the type and term of labor contract are different. The conclusions above enrich the research outcome of this field and can provide new conceptual models and empirical support for further theoretical research and management practice.(3) From a cross-disciplinary perspective and taking the Labor Relationship Theory, the Internal Labor Market Theory, the Bi-factor Theory and the Theory of Protecting Pressure Resources as theoretical foundation to deduce the logical relation between variants, this research analyzes the internal mechanisms among the job insecurity, employee engagement and job performance of teachers in universities and colleges through hypothesis and empirical verification, and obtains abundant innovative conclusions:insecurity of work anticipation positively influence organization identification, sense of work values, task performance, interpersonal facilitation and work devotion. Sense of work value negatively influences task performance, interpersonal facilitation, work devotion and adaptive performance. These conclusion undoubtedly break the traditional cognition of the relations among these variants, which provide a new angle of view and new way of thinking for human resource management of teachers in universities and colleges to some extent.(4) This research, based on the research conclusion, comes up with some suggestions and measures from the macro-perspective of government, the middle perspective of universities and colleges and the micro-perspective of teachers, which attempts to provide the education administrative department of government and universities and colleges with certain beneficial references to make scientific, humanistic, professional and sophisticated faculty administration systems and policies. Meanwhile, it also hopes to inspire individual teachers to be better adaptive to the reality of reformation and development of higher education, and then turn pressure to motivation to improve their job performance. |
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