Job strains, job control, and POS on employee performance: An interactionist perspective

As globalization intensifies competition in business, employees of organizations face increasing job strain, and organizations continue their efforts in searching for alternatives to reduce the negative consequences of stress. Although there is a plethora of research on stress, the current research strives to utilize an interactionist approach to address the impacts of job strain and resources (job control and perceived organizational support) in affecting employee performance and to replicate Western theories in an Eastern context. Using two theories and data from 594 employees from three companies in China, this study shows that job strain, job control, and POS have direct effects on in-role performance. Importantly, two-way and three-way interaction effects show that in-role performance is at its highest when both job control and POS are high, than it is when either one or both of them is low.