Engineering

Social psychology

Business

Mechanical engineering

Thermodynamics

Physics

Psychology

Work (physics)

Academy of Management Proceedings

Over the past decades, numerous theoretical advancements have been made to better understand how positive aspects of job roles and organizational environments influence work attitudes. However, less attention has been devoted to those factors that might buffer against less-than-ideal working conditions. Drawing from social exchange and job demands-resources theories, we developed a theoretical model that examined the roles of two specific social support dimensions - leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) as moderators of the relationships between several job and organizational stressors and work attitudes. We gathered multi-wave data from a large sample (n = 3,471) of financial services employees to test focus-matched hypotheses. The results of these tests and supplementary analyses revealed how high-quality LMX insulated employees from adverse job demands (i.e., role ambiguity and role conflict), whereas high POS insulated employees against both job and organizational stressors (i.e., low communication and ethical climates). We discuss the implications of our findings for both theory and practice, and consider avenues for future research.

Social Insulation at Work: The Distinct Buffering Effects of LMX and POS