Abstract

Despite the severity of the COVID-19 crisis, which has affected organizations worldwide, there is a lack of research on the organizational factors that affect the psychological wellbeing of the employees of an organization affected by the crisis. This research uses the case of employees at two international universities in Thailand that have been directly affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Grounded in social support theory and the job-demand resource model of job stress, this research examines the role of supervisor support in explaining the degree of perceived uncertainties and emotional exhaustion that employees experience due to the COVID-19 crisis. Moreover, this research examines whether the effect of supervisor support on the perceived uncertainties of employees can be moderated by organizational intransigence, that is, a prevailing climate of resistance to change at the workplace. The questionnaire survey data were obtained from a sample of 300 employees at two private international universities, and the partial least squares structural equation model was used for data analysis. The results significantly confirm that supervisor support has a negative effect on the perceived uncertainties of employees. Perceived uncertainties also significantly mediate the negative effect of supervisor support on the employees’ emotional exhaustion. More importantly, the moderating effect analysis shows that the negative effect of supervisor support on the perceived uncertainties of employees presents only for employees who work in a workplace climate where there is low intransigence; in a workplace climate where there is high intransigence, supervisor support does not lower the perceived uncertainties of employees.

摘要

尽管 COVID-19 危机严重影响了全球组织，但缺乏对影响受危机影响组织员工心理健康的组织因素的研究。这项研究使用了直接受 COVID-19 危机影响的泰国两所国际大学员工的案例。本研究以社会支持理论和工作压力的工作需求资源模型为基础，研究了主管支持在解释员工因 COVID-19 危机而感受到的不确定性和情绪耗竭程度方面的作用。此外，本研究检验了主管支持对员工感知不确定性的影响是否可以通过组织不妥协来调节，即，工作场所普遍存在抵制变革的氛围。问卷调查数据来源于两所国际私立大学的300名员工样本，采用偏最小二乘结构方程模型进行数据分析。结果显着证实了主管的支持对员工感知的不确定性有负面影响。感知的不确定性也显着调节了主管支持对员工情绪耗竭的负面影响。更重要的是，调节效应分析表明，主管支持对员工感知不确定性的负面影响仅适用于在不妥协的工作环境中工作的员工；在高度不妥协的工作环境中，