Social support at work: An integrative review

• Published date: 01 February 2021
• Date: 01 February 2021
• Author: Phillip M. Jolly,Kyoung Yong Kim,Dejun Tony Kong
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2485

THE JOB ANNUAL REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL

DEVELOPMENT ISSUE

Social support at work: An integrative review

Phillip M. Jolly

1

| Dejun Tony Kong

2

| Kyoung Yong Kim

3

1

School of Hospitality Management, The

Pennsylvania State University, University Park,

Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

2

Muma College of Business, University of

South Florida, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A.

3

Department of Management, College of

Business, City University of Hong Kong,

Hong Kong

Correspondence

Phillip Jolly, Elizabeth M. King Early Career

Professor, School of Hospitality Management,

The Pennsylvania State University,

223 Mateer Building, University Park, PA

16802, U.S.A.

Email: pmj12@psu.edu

Summary

Social support can have a range of positive outcomes for both employees and

organizations. Social support can lead to higher quality relationships, positive

affective reactions, and increased individual performance and can buffer the negative

effects of stressful demands. The power of social support has led to exponential

growth in its investigation as a construct of interest in the workplace. However, this

growth has come with several issues, which are the focus of this review. First, the

literature is fragmented, with multiple conceptual frameworks employed to predict

how social support may function in the workplace. Second, many studies are vague

when defining social support, leading to diminished conceptual clarity. Third, there is

no generally accepted measure of social support, and we describe problems with the

structure and/or use of several commonly used measures. Finally, findings regarding

the moderating effect of social support are decidedly mixed, calling into question

why this might be so. On the basis of an extensive review of social support at work

research, we highlight these issues, discuss how they can impede the advancement

of understanding regarding social support in organizational settings, and propose an

integrative framework to guide the field forward. Finally, we identify multiple areas

for future investigation.

KEYWORDS

coworker, demands, need satisfaction, resources, social exchange, social support, supervisor

1|INTRODUCTION

Humans are social beings who need resources from others for their

psychological and social functioning (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002) and social

support in the workplace, which broadly refers to interpersonal

1

support from other individuals at work, is an important source of

these resources. Although definitions of social support vary widely

(see below for further detail), in general, social support refers to

psychological or material resources that are provided to a focal indi-

vidual by partners in some form of social relationship. These resources

may have direct positive effects on important outcomes, such as the

development of, or improvement in the quality of, social exchange

relationships and job attitudes (Holland, Cooper, & Sheehan, 2017;

Kim, Eisenberger, & Baik, 2016), or they may serve a buffering role

between environmental stressors and an individual's appraisal of

stress and/or experience of strain (Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fisher,

1999).

Indeed, the varying nature and wide-ranging impacts of social

support have made it one of the most popular constructs in organiza-

tional and psychological research (French, Dumani, Allen, & Shockley,

2018). However, although many researchers recognize the importance

of social support in the workplace (e.g., Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008;

Dawson, O'Brien, & Beehr, 2016; French et al., 2018; Halbesleben,

2006; Viswesvaran et al., 1999) and continue contributing to a large

and still rapidly growing literature, we have observed four primary lim-

itations, which motivated us to conduct a review of social support

research in organizational settings: (1) the use of multiple theories in

1

We use the generic term “social support”throughout this paper to refer to general

interpersonal social support. We exclude support from nonperson sources such as the

organization (e.g., perceived organizational support; Eisenberger et al., 1986).

Received: 8 September 2017 Revised: 15 September 2020 Accepted: 30 September 2020

DOI: 10.1002/job.2485

J Organ Behav. 2021;42:229–251. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 229

isolation, which has led to fragmented conceptual development, (2) a

lack of clarity and agreement in defining social support, (3) widespread

within-study mismatch between the conceptualization and

operationalization of social support, and (4) inconsistent results with

respect to the moderating effects of social support. Each of these

issues in isolation would be problematic, but their coexistence in many

studies we reviewed has the potential to create significant issues for

the field of social support moving forward.

We seek to highlight the above-mentioned limitations and move

social support research forward with this review article. After describ-

ing the methodology of our review, we then describe each of the four

primary issues identified above in more depth. First, we review the

differences in the ways that four primary conceptual frameworks in

social support research view the construct. Second, we compare and

contrast the many extant conceptualizations/definitions of social

support and propose recommendations for defining social support

specific to the context of any study. Third, we consider and critique

the most popular measures used to operationalize social support in

organizational settings. Fourth, we present an overview of empirical

findings, with a focus on how issues of theory selection, definition,

and measurement may be to blame for some of the conflicting

findings regarding social support as a moderator.

Following our review of existing limitations in the social support

literature and in an attempt to provide some clarity regarding the

problems at hand, we propose an integrative “conceptual map”based

on four prominent theoretical frameworks. This conceptual map

considers the nuances of social support in terms of its sources and

(content) types, highlights the need for specificity in matching

specific types of support with specific demands, and articulates the

intrapersonal and interpersonal processes that link social support and

work-related outcomes. Finally, we highlight what we believe are

some important directions for future research on social support in

organizational settings.

2|SOCIAL SUPPORT AT WORK: A

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

2.1 |Review search process

In order to identify relevant published work, we conducted a system-

atic search of the organizational literature up to April 2018. We used

title, keyword, and abstract searches to query a wide range of relevant

databases (Web of Science, Business Source Complete, PsycArticles,

and Wiley Online) using combinations of social support-related terms

(“social support,”“coworker support,”“supervisor support,”“leader

support,”“managerial support,”“peer support,”“colleague support,”

and “team-member support”). In addition, we used search terms

(“organization,”“work,”“workplace,”“business,”“employer,”“job,”and

“firm”) to limit our search results to a work context.

The initial search yielded 1,286 published studies. Following the

initial search, the first author reviewed the abstract of each article to

determine whether it was relevant to the current review. Articles

were excluded if they did not examine a form of social support in a

work/organizational context, meaning we excluded experimental

studies or studies using a nonworking population

(e.g., undergraduates). We also excluded qualitative or conceptual

papers. This process identified 273 articles that were relevant to our

review of social support in organizational settings. Finally, we

excluded articles that were published in nonorganizational or I/O psy-

chology outlets. The final number of articles included was 193. A com-

plete table of articles included in the review is included in Supporting

Information S1, and a diagram of the systematic review process

(PRISMA Diagram) can be found in Appendix A. After the final sample

of 193 articles was identified, each article was reviewed and coded by

research assistants for primary theoretical framework and source(s) of

support. In addition, we tried to extract

2

the conceptual definition of

social support used in each paper, and these definitions were coded

by the authors in terms of the clarity of type, form, and source of sup-

port. Sample statistics and characteristics (theory usage and definition

characteristics) are reported in Tables 1 and 2.

2.2 |Issue 1: Fragmented conceptual development

Our review indicates that scholars have employed many theoretical

frameworks to study social support in organizations. However, we

identified four prominent frameworks that have been employed in the

majority of social support at work research. The job demands–

resources (JD-R; k= 36) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Bakker,

Demerouti, & Sanz-Vergel, 2014) and its predecessor, the demand–

control–support model (Karasek, 1979), focus on how job resources

(including social support), jointly with job demands, determine work

engagement, burnout, and ultimately job performance. Conservation

of resources (COR; k= 27) theory (Halbesleben, Neveu, Paustian-

Underdahl, & Westman, 2014; Hobfoll, 1989) and its subtheory, social

support resource theory (Hobfoll, Freedy, Lane, & Geller, 1990), focus

on how individuals use social support, as a job resource, to regulate

their personal resources (e.g., Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, &

Schaufeli, 2009) and work behaviors. Social exchange theory (SET;

k= 24) (Blau, 1964; Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005) focuses on how

individuals regulate the flow (reciprocity) of social support (resources)

with others. Finally, basic needs theory (BNT; k= 4) (Ryan & Deci,

2000, 2002; Van den Broeck, Ferris, Chang, & Rosen, 2016) focuses

on how social support can satisfy individuals' basic needs for compe-

tence, autonomy, and relatedness and enable their effective psycho-

logical and social functioning.

These four frameworks have different foci on the role of social

support and are often used independently, yet they have inherent

connections with one another (cf., Aryee, Walumbwa, Mondejar, &

Chu, 2015). We argue that the parallel development of these frame-

works (without consideration of integration between them) has

hindered a broader understanding of social support at work (cf., Kim,

2

We use the word “tried”because in manypapers (seeTable 1), therewas nota clear,

succinct definition of social support that was used in conceptualizing the research.

230 JOLLY ET AL.