Timesizing Proximity and Perceived Organizational Support: Contributions to Employee Well-being and Extra-role Performance

ABSTRACT

Timesizing, i.e. reduced work hours, has emerged as a less problematic alternative to layoffs. However, timesizing carries problems in terms of employee stress, attitudes, and performance. Based on the transactional theory of stress and the job demands-resources model, the authors proposed that timesizing proximity and perceived organizational support (POS) interactively predict employee stress appraisal and its outcomes. Through a field quasi-experiment involving 251 employees and their supervisors in a social service agency that was undergoing timesizing, the study found that higher POS minimized the effect of timesizing proximity on employees’ stress appraisal. In turn, stress appraisal was related to a number of cross-sectionally assessed outcomes including emotional exhaustion, reduced affective commitment to change, and reduced extra-role performance. These results highlight POS as a key organizational resource that lessens the negative consequences of proximity to timesizing.

KEYWORDS:

• Timesizing
• perceived organizational support
• stress
• commitment to change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Pedro Neves is an Associate Professor at Nova School of Business and Economics and is currently the director of the PhD in Management program. He has published in journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, and The Leadership Quarterly. His research interests focus on interpersonal relationships in the workplace, change management, toxic workplaces, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Email: [email protected]

Salar Mesdaghinia is an Assistant Professor of Management at Eastern Michigan University. His research interests include organizational ethics and morality, leadership, and employee-organization relationship. He is a member of the Academy of Management. Email: [email protected]

Robert Eisenberger is a Professor of Psychology and Management at the University of Houston. His main research interests are employee–organization relationships, moral emotions, and intrinsic interest and creativity. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, Divisions 1, 6, 14, and 25 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Society for Experimental Social Psychology and is a member of the Society for Organizational Behavior. He has published in such journals as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, American Psychologist, and Psychological Review. Email: [email protected]

Robert E. Wickham, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University. His research focuses on interpersonal perception, interpersonal conflict, and psychological authenticity, as well as applied statistical approaches for dyadic and longitudinal designs. He is also interested in close relationship processes, internet behaviour, and self-esteem. Email: [email protected]