Team identification relates to lower burnout—Emotional and instrumental support as two different social cure mechanisms

Abstract

Team identification is associated with less exhaustion and disengagement through more social support and higher collective self-efficacy. However, previous studies did not distinguish between emotional and instrumental support, even though both forms of support may relate differently to collective self-efficacy. By distinguishing between both support forms, we expected an indirect effect―the ‘supportive structure’ mechanism―of team identification on burnout mediated via emotional support. For a second mechanism―the ‘supportive action’ mechanism―we expected an indirect effect serially mediated by instrumental support and collective self-efficacy. We tested our hypotheses among N T1 = 567 employees in a four-wave study with 3-month time lags between measurement points. Partially in line with our expectations, emotional support (T2) mediated the relation between team identification (T1) and disengagement (T4), but not emotional exhaustion (T4). Moreover, as expected, the results showed an indirect association between team identification (T1) and emotional exhaustion and disengagement (T4) via instrumental support (T2) and collective self-efficacy (T3). Accordingly, employees benefit from both support forms but through different mechanisms. We discuss our findings and implications for future research.