Examining the role of friendship for employee well-being

Abstract

Sustaining high-quality experiences across multiple life roles is essential for well-being. While this has long been acknowledged in the work-nonwork literature, research to date has focused primarily on experiences in work and family roles. Responding to calls to better understand how roles beyond work and family impact employee well-being, we seek to highlight the role of supportive friendships. Drawing on Social Support Resources Theory, we suggest that supportive friendships influence general well-being via self-esteem, a key personal resource. We argue that supportive friendships should enhance self-esteem and subsequently well-being because of the voluntary nature of friendship and the unique support that friends provide. In Study 1, we examine the extent to which supportive friendships contribute to employees' general well-being via self-esteem, controlling for the effects of supportive marital and family relationships, finding that supportive friendships have unique effects. In Study 2, building on these findings, we propose and test an expanded model in which we: (1) differentiate between support from work-based and nonwork friends, (2) examine organization-based self-esteem in addition to general self-esteem as mediating variables, and (3) consider the role of supportive friendships for both general and work-related well-being. We find that supportive nonwork friends influence both general and work-related well-being, while supportive work friends are primarily important for well-being at work. The present studies are the first to consider the effects of both work and nonwork friends on well-being and to test a mechanism for such effects.