Can workplace social capital boost the positive effect of other job resources on job performance? A multilevel study on the reinforcement proposition of job-demands resources theory

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The aim of this study is to explore the role of workplace social capital (WSC), a construct that encompasses trust, reciprocity and organizational network, as an important resource at the organizational-level of analysis that interacts with other resources at the task-level in determining employee job performance. Based on job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, we hypothesized that WSC strengthens the positive relationship between job resources (i.e., job autonomy, colleagues’ social support and performance feedback) and both in-role and extra-role job performance. Five-hundred forty-seven employees nested within 115 organizations participated in the study. Multilevel analyses revealed that extra-role job performance was higher when both task-level resources and WSC were high. The moderating effect of WSC on the link between task-level resources and in-role performance was not supported. These findings highlight the role of WSC as an important organizational resource and contribute to JD-R theory by showing that resources from different levels of analysis reinforce one another in explaining job performance.