Cross-border and sedentary workers' job satisfaction

Purpose – This study aims to explore cross-border and sedentary workers’ job satisfaction, analyzing the role played by employability dimensions (occupational expertise, anticipation/optimization and personal flexibility), a job resource (autonomy) and job demands (job insecurity and toxic leadership), using the job demands–resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical framework. Moreover, this study tried to detect possible discrepancies between the two subsamples. Design/methodology/approach – The study involved a sample of 250 employees, 40% of whom were frontier workers. Data were collected with a self-report questionnaire and analyzed with SPSS 25. A hierarchical regression analysis and t-test for independent samples were performed. Findings – The findings evidenced differences between the two subsamples concerning the job satisfaction predictors. Specifically, for cross-border workers, optimization/anticipation appeared significantly positively related to job satisfaction. For sedentary workers, toxic leadership and job insecurity were significantly negatively related to job satisfaction. Autonomy was positively related to the outcome for both samples. Furthermore, cross-border workers reported a higher level of optimization/anticipation, personal flexibility and job satisfaction than sedentary workers. Originality/value – This paper contributed to fill a gap currently present in the literature on the cross-border population, with a specific focus on job satisfaction. This study confirmed the existence of peculiar working dynamics for cross-border workers.