Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors and Family-Like Employee-Organization Relationship: Effects on Employees Organizational Citizen Behavior

Abstract

The present study developed a mediation model to examine how family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) affect employees' family-like employee-organization relationship (FEOR) which in turn affects employees' organizational citizen behavior (OCB). A random sample of 211 Chinese fulltime employees completed online surveys, and to test the former assumptions M-plus software was used to conduct linear regression analysis. Results shows: 1) family supportive supervisor behaviors are positively related to family-like employee-organization relationship, 2) family-like employee-organization relationship is positively related to employees' organizational citizen behavior, and 3) the relationship between FSSB and OCB was partly mediated by FEOR.

The impact of Supervisor Support towards Extra-Role Behavior

“…This study has addressed three important contributions. In terms of theoretical aspect, the findings of this study are consistent with the notion of Organizational Support theory [14] and Path-Goal theory [27,28] .These theories suggest that, positive perceptions from employees on support given by the organization through supervisors acting as the representative can lead to extra-role behavior [6,[20][21][22][23]. As for the methodology contributions, the questionnaires used in this study have met the reliability and validity criteria.…”

“…Besides, Path-Goal theory is also related to this study in which supervisors would perform specific behaviors that are best suited to the employees' needs and working environment so that employees will act in certain way to accomplish work activities [27][28][29]. The use of these theories in supervisor support model shows that, constructive and continuous support from the supervisor towards employees is often associated with emotional support [20,21,23] and instrumental support [6,22]. The spirit of both theories has obtained a strong support from perceived organizational support literature.…”

“…There are several recent studies on supervisor support which include emotional support and instrumental support conducted based on samples from different organizations. The studies involved perceptions of 234 teachers from high schools in Turkey, 211 employees from various organizations in China, 405 employees from sports center in Taiwan, 183 protégés from construction companies in Korea and 350 employees from telecommunication sector in Pakistan [6,[20][21][22][23]. These studies show two important outcomes of the role of supervisor support in maintaining an effective organization.…”

“…The success of the organization depends heavily on the commitment from all employees [18,19]. This is where the role of supervisor is important in providing emotional and instrumental support to the employees because this would encourage positive attitudes especially the extra-role behavior [6,[20][21][22][23]. In the context of organizational climate, extra-role behavior is defined as employee's voluntary actions that are spontaneous, self-driven, which are not listed in job descriptions that indirectly contribute to the effectiveness of the organization [24,25].…”

“…Organizational climate has been regularly analyzed as a broad construct that includes many support sources including supervisor support [1,26]. Thus, even though the nature of the relationship between supervisor support and extra-role behavior has been extensively explored, the role of supervisor support specifically in multidimensional aspects and as a predictor of the stated behavior is still poorly discussed in the context of organizational climate [6,[20][21][22][23]. Hence, this study focuses on two main objectives: first, to analyze the relationship between emotional support and extra-role behavior.…”