Employees' perceptions of organizational restructuring: the role of socialsupport

Organizational change impacting negatively on the psychological well-being of employees. This pragmatic studs investigates the role of social support and dispositional affect as moderators of role stress post-restructuring fo r employees in a public utility company. A total of 176 employees, includin g 37 managers, 60 graded staff and 78 industrial staff completed a self-rep ort questionnaire, approximately 1 year post-restructuring, retrospectively assessing role conflict, ambiguity, overload and positive and negative fee dback pre- and post-restructuring. Results suggested that overall role stre ss increased for managers/ senior officer, and graded staff, but not for in dustrial staff. Social support was linked with lower role stress, more posi tive feedback and less negative feedback at pot-restructuring. For certain role stressors this impact was moderated by dispositional affect, but the e ffect was not consistent across occupational groups. Positive affect enhanc ed the effect of manager support in reducing role conflict for graded staff , and the effect of co-worker support in increasing positive feedback and r educing negative feedback for industrial staff. Findings suggest that manag ers should pay particular attention to support and feedback Cor employees d uring periods of chronic occupational stress following organizational restr ucturing.