Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

2026

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department / School

Communication and Journalism

First Advisor

Hayden Barber

Abstract

Restaurant work is emotionally demanding work for servers and bartenders. Organizational Support Theory (Eisenberger et al., 1986) suggests that employees’ perceptions of their organizations’ support can bolster the negative side effects of such work. However, past instruments used to measure these perceptions do not distinguish between types of emotional experience, nor separate perceptions of emotional support from other forms of support. Likewise, OST notes that supervisors play a key role in influencing perceptions of organizational support, but more work is needed to determine specific communicative behaviors that can increase perceptions of organizational support. The study at hand proposes that managers' proactive and reactive helping can influence these perceptions of organizational support. This study also asks whether these forms of support impact different categories of emotional experience in the workplace differently. Utilizing surveys from N = 59 restaurant workers in the Midwestern United States, results indicate that both proactive and reactive helping significantly predict perceived organizational support, with reactive helping showing a stronger effect size. Reactive helping is more useful across emotional categories in the workplace, whereas proactive helping behaviors are more useful when employees are experiencing emotion at work. PSS and POS were correlated with perceptions of organizational support, and both proactive and reactive helping were associated with these perceptions more generally. Finally, perceptions of supervisor support predicted perceptions of organizational support.

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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Rights Statement

In Copyright