The project investigates how work-related social support is linked to men’s and women’s work outcomes. Although progress has been made toward gender equality in employment, substantial differences in pay, career advancement, and workplace opportunities remain. The project studies informal workplace relationships as a potential yet understudied way through which such inequalities may be maintained or reduced. Work-related social support, including instrumental support such as advice and task assistance, and emotional support such as empathy and encouragement, enables employees to access resources through others and can influence both individual and organizational outcomes. Specific attention is paid to getting and receiving support, access to and returns from support networks, and the role of the organizational context in shaping support relationships at work. The project contributes to the literature by analyzing gender differences in work-related support at three interconnected levels: the individual level, focusing on support and career outcomes; the interpersonal level, focusing on structural aspects of support relationships and networks; and the organizational level, focusing on workplace gender composition and gender norms. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective combining theories from sociology and psychology and leveraging multiple datasets, including a cross-national European dataset, the German Socioeconomic Panel, and an ego-network survey in a female-dominated Dutch organization, the project offers a comprehensive analysis of gendered workplace support. Four main conclusions are drawn. First, both giving and receiving support are beneficial. Employees who received support reported higher job satisfaction and salaries, while those who helped coworkers performed better themselves, and managers evaluated the performance of teams with higher levels of support more positively. These findings support social exchange theory, suggesting that reciprocal resource exchanges enhance both individual and collective outcomes. Second, instrumental support, particularly from supervisors, is more strongly associated with career success than emotional support. Career-related support from workplace contacts was more beneficial than support from non-work contacts, and supervisors were especially important. These findings indicate that the value of support depends not only on having supportive relationships but also on the type of resources exchanged and the position of the support provider. Third, workplace support relationships are gendered. While men and women received similar overall levels of support, women more often received emotional support, whereas men more often received instrumental support from work contacts. Moreover, men benefited more from support in terms of salary and job satisfaction, whereas women experienced weaker or no comparable returns. These findings suggest that gender stereotypes and status expectations shape workplace relationships and disadvantage women despite the presence of supportive ties. Finally, organizational characteristics shape support networks and their outcomes. Gender composition and managerial gender influenced who had supportive relationships with whom. However, even in female-dominated organizations, returns from support networks are only linked to work outcomes of men, suggesting that structural changes alone may be insufficient to reduce gender inequalities.

To Scoop website

PhD

MSc Paula Hoffmann

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Utrecht University

Supervisor

Prof. dr. Tanja van der Lippe

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Utrecht University

Supervisor

Prof. dr. Jojanneke van der Toorn

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Utrecht University

Supervisor

Dr. Eva Jaspers

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Utrecht University

• Cooperation
• Diversity and inclusion
• Employees
• Institutional change
• Psychology
• Sociology

• Employers’ organizations
• HR managers
• Managers
• Organisation science
• Social psychology
• Sociology

• Work

• External Shocks

• Reshaping organizational forms

The aim of this project is twofold. Firstly, it aims to understand how informal and formal networks in diverse organizations exacerbate or soothe unequal access to resources such as support, advice and opportunities at work for diverse employees. It will pay particular attention to what extent self-organized networks of minority co-workers, such as female business networks or LHBTI+ employee groups, help them gain sustainable access to organizational resources. Secondly, it aims to investigate whether access to these organizational resources may improve career successes of minority groups, but might also reduce cooperation between different groups of employees, instead alienating specific groups of workers or fueling competition in the longer run between them.

This project will analyze longitudinal (3 waves, 6 months apart) network data on employees in organizations with and without ERG’s to investigate multiplexity in the networks of employees with different social identities, and consequently cooperative behavior within and across group lines, as well as individual career successes. Employees will answer questions on whom in the organization they turn to for emotional and / or task support, to determine whether these are the same or different people. Additionally, they will be asked where they have met these colleagues, eg. via an ERG. Cooperation as well as individual job satisfaction and career success will be measured in subsequent waves, as happy and successful employees might attract more colleagues from all groups, thus changing the order of causation. A maximum of ten organizations will be selected from existing contacts within the UU Future of Work Hub, as well as via ERG platforms. We will offer ERG’s in organizations insight in their functioning and tailormade assessments on how they are doing in supporting their members. We specifically aim for organizations that have ERG’s for some groups, but not for all. For instance, an organization may have an ERG for women employees, but not for people of color. In such organizations, women might have better access to resources, but also have fewer ties to men. In these organizations, two or three departments will be surveyed. Meaning that all employees from two or three organizational units will be asked to participate. This will result in approximately 20-25 networks of employees. Four types of comparisons will be made. 1. Between members and non-members of an ERG with the same social identity, within the same organization. 2. Between individuals with different social identities, for which one would have access to an ERG that exists in the organization, whereas for the other group no ERG exists within the same organization. 3. Between individuals with the same social identities, within different organizations with and without ERG’s. 4. Between minority employees with and without ERG’s and the dominant majority. Dependent variables are on the individual level, and examine both individual access to resources and career success, as well as the diversity of the individual employee’s cooperative network. Furthermore, network data will be matched to organization level information on composition of the workforce, as well as the availability of ERG’s and other diversity initiatives.

NWO Gravitation Grant

024.003.025