The meaning of support from co- workers and managers in teams when working

Jungert, T. (2012). The meaning of support from co-workers and managers in teams when working. (FOG-Report no 72). Linköping: Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning (IBL), Linköping University. This report is part of a post-doc research project on factors that promote work motivation and occupational self-efficacy in organizations in Sweden and Canada. The purpose of this report was to investigate the relations between support for autonomy and competence by managers and co-workers and employees’ work motivation, occupational self-efficacy, and team commitment. Research has shown that support for autonomy from managers has positive effects, but it has not examined how co-worker support for autonomy can affect employees’ experiences and the relative importance of both sources of support. In two studies, one with a sample of 45 employees in a Swedish private research oriented company (6 females and 39 males) and one with a sample of 235 Swedish care givers (214 females and 21 males) completed surveys. Results showed that employees perceived high levels of motivation and self-efficacy. Study 2 also showed that employees perceived greater support for autonomy from co-workers than from managers but greater support for competence from managers. As in previous studies, support from managers was significantly positively related to employees’ outcomes. However, results also showed that co-worker support predicted these outcomes over and above the effects of managerial support and that support for autonomy was related to motivation while support for competence was related to selfefficacy. Moreover, the effects of support from co-workers were significantly stronger than those obtained from managers for self-efficacy. Finally, motivation and self-efficacy predicted team commitment for care givers in study 2, while support from manager was related to normative team commitment in study 1. The implications of these results for how organizations may optimize employees’ functioning through teamwork are discussed. The study was supported by a grant from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research.