Whose helping hurts? Source and construct differences in unhelpful workplace social support

Although workplace social support is typically viewed as a beneficial job resource, it can also function as an interpersonal stressor when perceived as unhelpful or subtly devaluing. This study aims to advance understanding of how unhelpful support operates at the workplace by studying three aspects of the construct: (1) providing the first empirical comparison between unhelpful workplace social support (UWSS) and dysfunctional social support (DSS), (2) examining whether unhelpful workplace social support (UWSS) can be meaningfully distinguished by source (coworkers vs. supervisors), and (3) testing organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) as a mechanism linking these forms of unhelpful help to negative employee outcomes, including the novel outcome of turnover intentions.

Survey data from 157 working adults were analyzed using factor- and mediation analyses.

Results indicate that dysfunctional social support is empirically distinct from unhelpful workplace social support and emerges as a slightly stronger predictor of organizational frustration, counterproductive work behavior, and turnover intentions. Significant indirect associations via OBSE were only observed for the relationships between partial supervisor unhelpful workplace social support and turnover intentions, as well as (partially) for the relationship between dysfunctional social support and turnover intentions. Dysfunctional social support showed direct relationships with organizational frustration, counterproductive work behavior, and turnover intentions, and demonstrated more consistent relationships in our model.

These findings underscore the impact of subtle, low-threshold, normalized forms of unhelpful support for organizations.