Facilitating and inhibiting effects of job control and social support on stress outcomes and role behavior: a contingency model
✍ Scribed by John Schaubroeck; Laurence S. Fink
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 310 KB
- Volume
- 19
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0894-3796
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
High levels of job control and social support are often related to eective job performance and coping with work stressors. However, support may have more positive eects on role behavior when job control is low. In addition, despite theoretical expectations, simple demands±control and demands±support interactions are infrequently found to predict health and psychological strain outcomes. The demands±control±support' model of stress coping integrates these stress buering' and decision latitude' models and observes more consistent ®ndings. This model posits that social support buers the adverse eects of high demand, low control jobs. However, explicit tests of the interaction of these variables suggest that control can have positive or negative eects on strain, depending on the level of social support. In this study, supervisor consideration was positively related to subordinate job performance, extrarole behavior, and in-role prosocial behavior (conscientiousness) among subordinates perceiving low job control. The relationship between consideration and performance and extra-role behavior was negative among high control subordinates. The demands  control  support interaction predicted health symptoms, organizational commitment, supervisor satisfaction, and absence due to illness, but the interaction plots do not support the prevailing perspective that support buers the eects of high strain' (i.e. low control, high demand) jobs. Patterns were similar for dierent demands and dierent social support loci (i.e. supervisor, co-workers). An alternative theoretical process of the demands±control±support interaction is proered, and implications for organizational intervention are discussed.