Improving work relations: Supervisor support, valuing diversity, and consequences of dirty tasks

Abstract

Building on social identity theory, conservation of resources theory, and social support resources theory, this paper examines whether employees’ perception of identity-based subgroups mediates the relationship between the frequency of conducting a dirty task and perceived relationship conflict and explores the moderating role of perceived supervisor support in conjunction with perceived organizational value of diversity. We conducted a two-phase online survey study with employees in the caregiving sector and focused on end-of-life care as a physically tainted task. Our findings support the proposed mediation and the proposed moderated moderated mediation. Employees’ perception of identity-based subgroups serves as a cognitive mechanism that makes frequent involvement in dirty tasks lead to higher perceptions of relationship conflict. In addition, high perceived supervisor support in conjunction with high or medium perceived organizational value of diversity reduces the perception of identity-based subgroups due to frequent conduct of a dirty task and inhibits it as a mechanism triggering perceptions of relationship conflict.