The Impacts of Supervisor Support on Employee Service Performance: A Change Perspective

Predominantly based on a static perspective, existing studies have documented that supervisor support is a key facilitator of front-line employees’ service behaviors. Incorporating a change perspective, our study examines the effects of daily shift and variability in supervisor support on employees’ service performance at both the within- and between-person levels. We draw on affective events theory to propose positive affect as the underlying mediating mechanism and examine the moderating role of employee self-control capability. We test the hypotheses using data from 56 front-line service employees across 10 consecutive workdays (N = 547) and from their supervisors in the follow-up survey. The results indicate that, at the within-person level, an upshift (downshift) in daily supervisor support is positively (negatively) related to daily positive affect, leading to higher (lower) levels of daily service performance. At the between-person level, variability in supervisor support is negatively related to employees’ positive affect, which in turn, reduces their service performance. A lower (versus higher) level of employee self-control capability at the between-person level enhances the within-person relationship between daily supervisor support change and daily positive affect and the between-person relationship between variability in supervisor support and employees’ positive affect. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.