Abstract

     This study investigated the moderating effects of functional social support (emotional and instrumental support) on the relationship of job demand control with burnout and work engagement. In total, 297 frontline employees from a hotpot restaurant franchise in China were surveyed. The results indicated emotional support, such as caring and inspiration, mitigated the adverse effects of high demand/low control on burnout and work engagement. Instrumental support, such as giving suggestions and solving problems, only mitigated the adverse effects of burnout. Further, the high demand/low control/low emotional support work condition was the most unfavourable for work engagement and burnout; while high demand/low control/low instrumental support was the most unfavourable condition for burnout. The theoretical and managerial implications of this research have been provided to gain a deeper insight into functional social support in the job demand control model.

Introduction

     The service industry is one of the major economic sectors in developed countries. In this industry, frontline service employees play a critical role by offering services to customers and building strong customer relationships through direct and frequent interactions (Dong, Liao, Chuang, Zhou, & Campbell, 2015; Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). Customer relationships and service quality have a substantial influence on organisational performance (Jung & Yoon, 2014; Wu, Yuan, & Yen, 2021). Thus, identifying effective ways of enhancing employees’ service with engagement is a key concern in the service industry, and in particular, an important consideration in the human resources management field (Buruck, Dorfel, Kugler, & Brom, 2016; Jung & Yoon, 2014; Wu et al., 2021). Further, due to the increasing levels of consumer demand in the service industry, the range of services that service employees provide has greatly expanded in recent years (Jung & Yoon, 2014; Karatepe & Karadas, 2015). Consequently, employees’ stress levels in the workplace have continued to increase, which can negatively affect their physical and psychological health (Dong et al., 2015; Jung & Yoon, 2014). In addition, to adapt to the exponential growth in various customer demands, organisational reform has resulted in employees feeling uncertain about their jobs, generating more work-related stress (Baum, Sattler, & Reimann, 2021).

Conclusions and discussion

Conclusions

     Based on the JDCS model, this study adopted the social support function as a moderator and investigated its effect on the relationships between two independent variables (job demand and job control) and outcome variables (burnout and work engagement). The results demonstrated that, with respect to emotional support, the situation of high demand/low control/low support leads to the most burnout and the least work engagement; however, emotional support can mitigate the adverse effects of high demand/low control on burnout and work engagement (H1.1a, H1.1b, H1.2a, and H1.2b were supported). With respect to instrumental support, the high demand/low control/low support condition leads to the greatest level of burnout; as with emotional support, instrumental support can mitigate the adverse effects of high demand/low control on burnout (H1.3a and H1.3b were supported). The above hypotheses (H1.1–H1.3) were consistent with previous studies (De Jonge & Dormann, 2006; H¨ ausser et al., 2010).

     However, this study uncovered that instrumental support did not contribute any benefit to the interaction effect of job demand and job control on work engagement (H1.4a and H1.4b are not supported). Further analysis showed that the combined effect of high instrumental support and high job demand would reduce employees’ work engagement (the product term of job demand and instrumental support on work engagement in Table 3: β = − ۰٫۱۵, p < 0.05). This yields the question: Why can employees not take the advantage of instrumental support in some conditions?