Moderating effects of perceived control and need for clarity on the relationship between role stressors and employee affective reactions

The authors examined the salience of perceived control and need for clarity as "buffers" of the adverse consequences of role stressors by using hierar chical regressions on role ambiguity and role conflict, with job satisfacti on and psychological strain as the criterion variables. In a sample of U.S, and New Zealand employees, perceived control was directly associated with higher satisfaction and reduced strain but displayed no moderating effect o n stressor-outcome relationships. Need for clarity, on the other hand, was a significant moderator of the relationship of role ambiguity and conflict to both satisfaction and strain; that finding suggests that researchers cou ld give more attention to dispositional variables in examining the correlat es of role stressors.