组织变革背景下员工角色超载的影响作用:一个有调节的中介模型

The Effects of Role Overload on Employee Outcomes under Organizational Change:A Moderated Mediation Model

组织变革日益成为我国企业进行转型升级的重要途径。以往研究对企业员工在变革背景下的角色压力及其影响后果关注不多,针对380名员工的问卷调查发现,在组织变革背景下,员工对自身角色超载的感知会降低他们对组织的情感承诺,进而提高其离职倾向,并同时降低其任务绩效、减少帮助行为。另外,员工在组织中的参与程度会调节上述中介关系。具体而言,当参与程度较高时,角色超载通过情感承诺间接影响离职倾向、任务绩效和帮助行为这三类结果的效应就会减弱,反之则增强。这些发现一方面增进了关于角色超载影响作用的深入理解,另一方面也对组织变革和压力管理的理论和实践提供了重要启示。

Large-scale organizational change, whether in the form of merger ＆ acquisition, restructuring, or business transformation, shapes the current status of many Chinese companies facing intense competitive pressures from home and abroad. Organizational change has been seen as a primary source of workplace stress causing a lot of unpleasant results to employees both psychologically and behaviorally. Many employees in changing context feel role overloaded when the expectations of work go beyond their available time, resources, or personal capabilities. Role overload as well as other role stressors （e. g. role conflict and role ambiguity） is prevalent in many organizations under change but has not received enough attention in previous research. Thisstudy tries to fill this gap by analyzing the effects of role overload on key employee outcomes （i.e. turnover intention, task performance, and helping behavior）. To reach this goal, a moderated mediation model was established and tested on the basis of role theory and social exchange theory. A sample of 380 employees from manufacturing, service and other industries in southeastern China was surveyed and data was collected from different sources. The employees all came from the companies that were undergoing or just completed organizational change. The model was analyzed with SPSS and SPSS PROCESS macro. Results revealed that employees＇ role overload was negatively related to their affective commitment to the organization. Affective commitment mediated the effects of role overload on turnover intention, task performance and helping behavior. More importantly, this study found that the extent of employee participation in the organization could moderate the relationships between role overload and these employee outcomes via affective commitment. Specifically, when employees had a high degree of participation, the positive effect of role overload on turnover intention and the negative effects of role overload on task performance and helping behavior both via affective commitment would attenuate. On the contrary, when employees had a low degree of participation, the positive effect of role overload on turnover intention and the negative effects of role overload on task performance and helping behavior both via affective commitment would amplify. This study contributes to the extant literature in at least three ways. First, it focuses on role overload which was less studied compared to other role stressors, and prior research did not reach a consistent conclusion about its effects. This study argues that the effects of role overload may depend on organizational context. When companies are in a routine state, some extent of role overload may not lead to bad results. However, when companies are in a changing state, employees already have some unpleasant feelings. If they feel role overloaded simultaneously, the negative effects are very likely to become salient. Second, after demonstrating the unfavorable effects of role overload under organizational change, this study goes a step further to identify employee participation as an important moderator to mitigate such effects, which extends our knowledge on role overload and its boundary conditions. What＇s more, this study is among the first of empirical research in China to apply the latest approach to accurately test and depict the moderated mediation model, which implies its unique value in methodology. These findings also have several implications for practitioners. In order to enhance the change effectiveness, organizational decision-makers should try to reduce employees＇ role overload by sending clear messages, reducing the chain of command or taking other possible steps. And encouraging employees to participate in management is another feasible way. This study is not without limitations and future research is suggested to adopt a longitudinal design to establish causal inferences and consider other important HR practices as moderators.