EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN JOB INSECURITY AND QUIET QUITTING: EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AS A MEDIATOR AND JOB AUTONOMY AS A MODERATOR

This research aims to examine the link between job insecurity and quiet quitting through the concepts of emotional exhaustion and job autonomy. Data were collected from 274 SME employees in Türkiye and analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and the PROCESS Macro. The research results show that job insecurity predicts quiet quitting through emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, the moderating role of job autonomy in this relationship was found. Additional analysis findings related to gender indicate that the research model worked similarly for both genders. Based on these findings, the present research offers several contributions to the literature. First, it provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between job insecurity and emotional exhaustion. Second, by focusing on quiet quitting as a relatively underexplored phenomenon, the study extends the present literature on contemporary withdrawal behaviors. Third, the research contributes methodologically by empirically showing a moderated mediation model in which job autonomy is used as a moderator