Abstract
A dearth of employees' social courage impedes positive work outcomes. Understanding the antecedents, mechanisms, and conditions that influence workplace social courage could promote better results at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Using the stressor-strain-outcome model, conservation of resource theory, and the social exchange theory, we investigated a conditional mechanism to explain how and when people with eldercare responsibilities are likely to practice lower social courage at work. The mediating mechanism of employees’ fear of negative evaluation by their supervisors explains this relationship under the moderating effect of family supportive supervisory behavior. The empirical analysis is based on data collected from 205 public, private, and corporate sector employees having eldercare demand, in a three-wave field survey across Pakistan. The results showed that eldercare demand is positively linked to fear of negative evaluation, which reduces workplace social courage. Family supportive supervisory behavior buffered the effect of eldercare demand on fear of negative evaluation, weakening its negative effect on workplace social courage. Compared with another sample of 214 employees without eldercare, the employees with eldercare demand reported significantly higher fear of negative evaluation and lower workplace social courage. Findings show that employers need to minimize the fear of negative evaluation among employees to realize positive work outcomes related to workplace social courage. Family supportive supervisory behavior may be an excellent strategy for employees with eldercare obligations to dilute the negative implications of fear of negative evaluation and improve workplace social courage.
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All authors contributed to the study's conception and design. SM, MNQ and FA performed survey development, data collection, and analysis. SM wrote the first draft of the manuscript with the active editorial support of AS. HGAK worked on major revisions suggested in peer review and proofread the first and revised drafts of the manuscript. All authors have read, edited, and approved the final manuscript.
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Mariam, S., Qaisar, M.N., Ahmad, F. et al. Eldercare demand may inhibit workplace social courage through fear of negative evaluation: moderating role of family supportive supervisory behavior. Rev Manag Sci 17, 2869–2895 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-022-00606-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-022-00606-9
Keywords
- Eldercare demand
- Family supportive supervisory behavior
- Fear of negative evaluation
- Workplace social courage