| 英文摘要 |
The keen competition has been an unavoidable trend in the industry environment. In order to become successful or even more successful, today’s enterprises are introducing new form of work and organizational management, such as lean production, empowerment, and high-involvement working, and trying to maximize the use of their employee’s ability. Incumbents will encounter higher stress from working harder and longer, or facing the conflicting requirements, and be required to improve their skill and ability in such a working environment. Therefore, how to simultaneously reduce employee’s strains and increase their competence is an important topic of promoting the competitive advantages for enterprises. Against this background, the Karasek’s (1979) Job Demand-Control model (JDC model) can be considered as an underlying theoretical basis, because this model suggests that higher job control or decision latitude will reduce employee’s strain and enhance their leaning when job demands are high. In the 1980s a social dimension was added to the model (Johnson and hall, 1988), resulting in the Job Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) model. The JDCS model contends three hypotheses. The “iso-strain hypothesis” asserts that high demand, low control, and low social support will be the most harmful situation for employees. The “buffing hypothesis” states that social support will buffer the strain resulted from the job with high demand and low control. Finally, “active hypothesis” states that job demands will promote employee learning and development when job control or social support or both are high. Though many studies have examined the JDC model, the role of social support in the interaction between demands and control has drawn little empirical attention when job strain is concerned, and no empirical attention about job competence. In addition, previous researches showed that the findings with regard to iso-strain hypothesis were much more consistent, whereas the results of buffering hypothesis were quite inconsistent. The reasons for inconsistent results have raised many academic disputes. Thus, the purposes of this study are (1) to explore the recent arguments regarding to methodological issues in examining JDC and JDCS models; (2) to simultaneously examine three JDCS hypotheses by using job strain as an outcome variable in examining iso-strain hypothesis and buffering hypothesis, and job competence as a consequent variable in examining active hypothesis; (3) to more comprehensively and correctly examine the hypotheses by applying the more appropriate methods dispersedly addressed in several specific researches. The data were collected from 210 lower level employees of seven air and ocean freight forwarders. We conducted hierarchical regression analyses with job strains (anxiety and depression) and job competence regressed on job demands (time pressure, workload), job control (method and schedule autonomy), social support (supervisor and coworker support), and their interactions. Age, level of education, job tenure, and gender were entered as control variables. We proposed that time pressure and method autonomy, as well as workload and schedule autonomy were two fit combinations of job demand and job control respectively. The results reveal that iso-strain hypothesis was consistently supported, that was low social support (both supervisor and coworker support) combined with high time pressure and low method autonomy, and with high workload and low schedule autonomy resulted in the highest anxiety and depression on employees. In respect to buffering hypothesis, high supervisor support buffered the employee’s anxiety and depression resulted from high time pressure with low method autonomy, and high workload with low schedule autonomy. However, high coworker support only buffered the employee’s anxiety resulted from high time pressure with low method autonomy. Finally, in respect to active hypothesis, high time pressure and high job method autonomy increased job competence only when supervisor support was low. In summary, (1) only in the situation of the fit between job demand and job control, the JDCS model might be supported; (2) the iso-strain hypothesis was supported, that was high demand, low control, and low social support were associated with the highest strain. (3) the buffering hypothesis, that was high social support reduced the positive impact of high demand and low control on strains, was consistently supported when social support was operationalized as supervisor support, but partially supported when coworker support was concerned.; (4) only when supervisor support was low, high time pressure and high job method autonomy increased job competence. Thus, the active hypothesis was partially supported. Several theoretical contributions of this study are: (1) to propose three clear hypotheses, especially the active hypothesis, in order to exactly examine JDCS model; (2) to improve the validity of JDCS model by using the comprehensive methods, dispersedly proposed in several specific researches, in examining the hypotheses of JDCS model. To managerial practices, the findings suggest that both social support and job control are important to reduce employee’s strains and enhance their competence when job demands are high. Supervisor support is more useful than coworker support in such a case. In addition, the organization should provide appropriate job control and social support instead of reducing job demands so that employee’s competence and productivity can be improved. Moreover, depending on the job demands, the specific and fit control instead of general control should be considered in the job design. |
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