Expanding Supervisory Support and Organizational Commitment to the Next Level

Abstract

Despite a growing body of research on supervisory support, the effects of shared perceptions of support have received scant attention and there has been relatively little research on organizational affective commitment within work units. This study focuses on how work-unit supervisory support and organizational affective commitment affect both individual and work-unit outcomes. We conduct a cross-level study among 857 employees nested in 26 Belgian hotels, part of a large international chain. We found that collective organizational affective commitment mediated the effect of work-unit supervisory support climate on customer’s perceptions of service quality, but not on annual sales one year later. Supervisory support climate level influenced individual affective commitment. The strength of supervisory support climate moderated the mediated effect of supervisory support on individual outcomes, via organizational affective commitment. These findings indicate that both individual perceptions and collective beliefs shape supervisory support and organizational affective commitment.