Effect of perceived organizational support on suicidal ideation of young employees: The mediator role of self-esteem

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the relationships among perceived organizational support, self-esteem, and suicidal ideation of young employees. A total of 447 unmarried employees completed the survey of perceived organizational support, Rosenberg self-esteem scale, and suicide ideation scale. The results revealed that perceived organizational support, self-esteem, and suicidal ideation were significantly correlated with each other. Stepwise regression analysis and path analysis both indicated that self-esteem partially mediated the effect of perceived organizational support on suicidal ideation.

Keywords

mediating effect perceived organizational support self-esteem suicidal ideation

Introduction

China is undergoing a sharp social and economic transition, accompanied with significantly increasing social and psychological problems, including the suicide of young employees (Chan and Pun, 2010; Pitman et al., 2012; Tang et al., 2011). Suicide in young men has been recognized as a major social and public health problem globally (Pitman et al., 2012) and has become a significant issue in China as well (Pearson et al., 2002). For example, 14 young employees of Foxconn Group, the world’s largest electronics professional manufacturer, committed suicide from January to November in the year 2011; this issue brought a wide discussion in Chinese media and the public (Chan and Pun, 2010). Thus, the suicide of young men has increasingly become the focus of studies in professional health psychology (Savin-Williams, 2001). In general, suicidal behavior consists of suicidal ideation, suicidal attempt, and actual suicide, among which suicidal ideation is one of the key risk factors of committing suicide (Bridge et al., 2007). Therefore, research on suicidal ideation is necessary to identify the suicidal symptoms of employees at the early stage and to nip the suicidal ideation in the bud. Most studies on the suicidal ideation of young men focused on factors such as personalities, negative events, and gloomy emotions. Only a few studies investigated job-related factors. Jobs are an important part of human life (Ouyang et al., 2015); hence, job-related factors have important effects on psychological health, particularly on young employees (Loughlin and Barling, 2001).

Perceived organizational support (POS) refers to a general cognition of employees about how their organization is concerned about their well-being and how their contributions are appreciated (Chiang and Hsieh, 2012). This concept has two key points: one is the feelings of employees about whether their organization cares about their contributions, and the other is the feelings of employees about whether their organization is concerned about their well-being (Chiang and Hsieh, 2012; Mitchell et al., 2012). POS came from the cognition of employees in organizational environment (Cullen et al., 2014). Researchers found that POS could improve the positive attitudes, emotions, and behavior of employees and would be a buffer to negative attitudes and emotions (Chiang and Hsieh, 2012; Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002). For example, studies found that employees with low POS feel high pressure, easily succumb to depression, and could not even sleep well; these employees have also been found with decreasing physical health or other symptoms (Grant-Vallone and Ensher, 2001; O’Driscoll et al., 2003). POS could meet the social–emotional needs of employees (Bell and Menguc, 2002). A previous study also shows that POS had a significant positive relationship with job satisfaction and positive emotions (Miao and Kim, 2010). POS had a significant influence on job burnout, and employees with low POS easily experienced job burnout (Bobbio et al., 2012). According to Durkheim and Simons (1992), when humans could not adapt to social environments and lacked certain social connection, they would feel lonely and helpless; hence, these individuals easily commit suicide. For young employees, POS would reduce their feeling of loneliness and suicidal behavior. Difficulties and pressures in work are the key sources of stress, and POS plays a buffer role to reduce these sources. Therefore, we hypothesize that POS can attenuate the suicidal ideation of employees.

The specific mechanisms of how POS may influence suicidal ideation have not been reported. Therefore, this study will discuss the mediating effect of self-esteem in POS and suicidal ideation. Self-esteem is an overall positive evaluation of the self that is held by individuals (Pila et al., 2015). Self-esteem is significant and valuable in the development of individuals (Ferris et al., 2015; Luyckx et al., 2016). It is the core of the self and one of the basic needs of human beings (Falk and Heine, 2015). Everyone wants to be respected and recognized by others, and everyone attempts to gain and improve self-esteem by participating in all types of activities and interpersonal communication (Steiger et al., 2014; Yu et al., 2016). According to cognitive theories, suicidal ideation often has close relations with how people treat themselves (Baumeister, 1990; Ellis and Rutherford, 2008), and self-esteem is an important aspect of self-awareness. Studies have proven that self-esteem is an important predictor of mental health and has a significant effect on suicide ideation (Creemers et al., 2012; Wilbum and Smith, 2005). Several studies have proven the correlations between social support and self-esteem (Kurien et al., 2013; Patterson, 2016) and have reported that POS is the reflection of social support at an organizational level, which may also have significant influence on self-esteem. Thus, we establish hypothesis 2: self-esteem can mediate the effect of POS on the suicidal ideation of young employees.

Young employees were recruited as participants of this study to discuss the relations among POS, self-esteem, and suicidal ideation and prove the mediating role of self-esteem between POS and suicidal ideation.

Methods

Participants and procedure

Participants were 447 unmarried production/non-supervisory employees from a large-scale chemical enterprise in Shanghai, China, which consisted of 313 men and 134 women, and all of them were junior staff in this company, which meant that none of them had been in the enterprise for 10 years or longer. The ages of participants ranged from 23 to 29 years, with a mean of 25.82 years (standard deviation (SD) = 2.38). Participants simultaneously completed the questionnaires in the auditorium and received 15 RMB as compensation. A total of 447 scales were distributed, and all were collected. All participants provided their written informed consent before completing the measures.

Instruments

Eight-item survey of POS

The eight-item survey of POS was developed by Eisenberger et al. (1990), which is a recommended measure of POS due to its reliability and validity in the meta-analysis study, and has been used in many research works (Eisenberger et al., 1990; Loi et al., 2006; Riggle et al., 2009). Sample items from the scale include “The organization values my contribution to its well-being” and “Even if I did the best job possible, the organization would fail to notice.” Participants indicated their degree of agreement to these descriptions on 7-point scales, from “0” (strongly disagree) to “6” (strongly agree). The scale was translated into Chinese and proved to be of good reliability and validity (Lin et al., 2006). The survey of POS showed good coefficient of internal consistency with Cronbach’s α of 0.84 in our study.

Rosenberg self-esteem scale

The Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES) is a widely used measure of self-esteem (Gray-Little et al., 1997; Rosenberg, 1965). This scale asks respondents to indicate the degree to which they agree with statements such as “On the whole I am satisfied with myself” and “All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure” on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). The Rosenberg self-esteem scale was translated into Chinese by Cheung and Lau and was proved to have good reliability and validity (Cheung and Lau, 1985; Hu and Ai, 2016). The Cronbach α coefficient of RSES was 0.80 in our study.

Suicide ideation scale

The suicide ideation scale (SIS) is a self-report measure of intensity and severity of suicide ideation. Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always), assessing the frequency of having felt each item during the past year (Claes et al., 2010; Rudd, 1989). Overall scores were determined by averaging scores across all items. A sample item is “I have been thinking of ways to kill myself.” Rudd (1989) proved that SIS items have high internal consistency (coefficient = 0.86) and found evidence for the concurrent validity of the SIS through correlations with measures of depression and hopelessness. SIS was translated into Chinese and was proved to have good reliability and validity (Wang et al., 2005). In this study, items of the SIS had Cronbach’s α of 0.84.

Data analysis

Data analyses were performed by using the SPSS statistical software package. Correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted in the analyses. The path analysis was performed by using AMOS 17.0.

Results

Correlative analysis

Table 1 shows that POS was positively correlated with self-esteem (r = 0.34, p < 0.01) and negatively correlated with suicide ideation (r = −0.25, p < 0.01). In addition, self-esteem was negatively correlated with suicide ideation (r = −0. 41, p < 0.01).

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis of variables (n = 447).

	1	2	3
1. POS	1
2. Self-esteem	0.34**	1
3. Suicide ideation	−0.25**	−0.41**	1
Mean	16.60	33.65	17.82
SD	7.74	4.47	6.49

POS: perceived organizational support; SD: standard deviation.

**p < 0.01.

Stepwise regression analysis

By following the mediation test rules introduced by Baron and Kenny (1986), we tested the mediating role of self-esteem between POS and suicide ideation. First, self-esteem was regarded as dependent and POS was regarded as independent. The regression model was significant (see Table 2). Then, suicide ideation was regarded as dependent, and POS and self-esteem were introduced successively. Table 2 shows that from model 2, the standardized regression coefficient of POS to suicide ideation was −0.25. However, when self-esteem was introduced, the regression coefficient decreased to −0.12. Then, we conducted the Sobel test $(a b / \sqrt{a^{2} s_{b}^{2} + b^{2} s_{a}^{2}})$ . From Table 2, we get the results of a, b, and their standard error (a = 0.19, S_a = 0.03; b = −0.54, S_b = 0.07). The result of the Sobel test revealed a significant mediation effect (Sobel = 4.90, p < 0.05), which indicated that self-esteem mediated the impact of POS on suicide ideation.

Table 2.

Regression analysis.

Model	Dependent	Predictors	Model summary		Coefficients
			F	R ²	B	SE	t	β
1	Self-esteem	POS	56.73**	0.13	0.19	0.03	7.53**	0.34
2	Suicide ideation	POS	29.01**	0.06	−0.21	0.04	−5.39**	−0.25
3	Suicide ideation	POS	49.29**	0.18	−0.10	0.04	−2.71*	−0.12
		Self-esteem			−0.54	0.07	8.09*	−0.37

POS: perceived organizational support; SE: standard error.

p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

Path analysis and bootstrap test

Based on the above analyses, we made a path analysis on the whole model, and the results are shown in Figure 1. Although we used the Sobel test to examine the mediation effect, it requires that a × b follows a normal distribution which is always not in accordance with the fact, thus resulting in the reduction in statistical efficacy (MacKinnon et al., 2004; Xiao et al., 2014). The bootstrap test implemented by Preacher and Hayes (2004) tests the null hypothesis a × b = 0 in another way. It takes the researcher’s sample of size N and from it draws with replacement N values of X, M, Y to create a new sample. Repeat the option, for example, 1000 times, and then 1000 estimations of a × b can be calculated. The bootstrap test actually relies on the 95 percent confidence intervals from the empirical distribution of a × b estimates (Zhao et al., 2010). The 95 percent confidence interval of a × b was (−0.08, −0.18), which did not overlap with 0, indicating that the indirect effect of POS on suicide ideation through self-esteem was significant. The indirect effect accounted for 50.2 percent of the total.

Figure 1.

The whole model representation.

Discussion

This study found that a significant negative correlation exists between POS and the suicidal ideation of young employees. According to self-determination theory, human beings are active organisms and have three basic psychological needs, namely, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These needs are universal to human beings, and each individual works hard to meet these needs (Ryan and Deci, 2000; Xiao et al., 2015). If these needs are met, people will develop in a healthy way and will feel happy; otherwise, they will develop mental illnesses, such as depression and suicidal ideation (Deci and Ryan, 2000; He et al., 2014). POS is the perception of employees on whether their organization pays attention to their contributions; hence, a high POS can meet the need for competence. A high POS helps young employees build good interpersonal relationships in a working environment, thus matching their psychological needs in this stage. A relationship full of care and trust can make young employees feel that they are cared for and recognized by the organization. Moreover, such a relationship can allow individuals to psychologically connect with the organization easily and help them to adapt to the environment successfully. According to the theory of sense of belonging, sense of belonging is a strong, basic, and universal motive of human beings. Sense of belonging has a significant effect on the emotional modes and cognitive processes of individuals and has a deep influence on the health, adaption, and happiness of people (Hagerty et al., 1992). A stronger sense of belonging leads to weaker suicidal ideations (McLaren and Challis, 2009). POS is a general cognition of employees about how their organization is concerned about their well-being and how their contributions are appreciated; POS is also an important index of meeting the belonging needs in a working environment (Rhoades et al., 2001). Thus, a higher POS corresponds to weaker suicidal ideations.

According to the results, self-esteem can mediate the effect of POS on the suicidal ideation of young employees. A high POS denotes high organizational recognition and belongingness (Rhoades et al., 2001), which contributes to the formation of positive views of employees. Accordingly, suicidal ideation is reduced. Sociometer hypothesis believes that self-esteem system monitors the reactions of others and alerts the individual to the possibility of social exclusion. When social integration and support are low, the level of self-esteem will accordingly decrease (Leary et al., 1995; Neziek, 2001). On the basis of this deduction, when young employees are aware of a low POS, that is, the organization pays less attention to their value and is less concerned about them, their self-evaluation will decrease, resulting in lower self-esteem. Self-esteem is the overall evaluation of individuals about themselves; the decrease in the feeling of self-esteem denotes the decrease in the meaningfulness of life of an individual; this situation may lead to an increase in suicidal ideation (Creemers et al., 2012). Many studies have also shown that self-esteem can lead to a decrease in depression (Sowislo and Orth, 2013) and that depression is an important risk factor for committing suicide (Kim et al., 2014). Therefore, self-esteem can partially mediate the effect of POS on suicidal ideation.

Despite getting some meaningful results, this study has limitations. First, the study’s correlational cross-sectional nature prohibits the drawing of any causal relationships among the variables. Thus, caution must be exercised when interpreting the results of meditational analyses on cross-sectional data. Additionally, only the self-report method has been used in this study to collect data. Other methods and techniques (such as the report of significant others) should be applied in collecting data in future studies.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded by the Key Program of the National Society Science Foundation of China (Grant No.13AJY002) and Soft-Science Projects of Shandong Province (Grant No.2014RKB01823).

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