The Effects of Hazards on the Well-being of Employees in Europe

Despite extensive research on workplace hazards and employee well-being, theoretical understanding of how organizational support moderates the health-well-being relationship remains fragmented.Existing studies predominantly apply buffering hypotheses without examining dimensional specificity or integrating competing theoretical perspectives.This study integrates Spillover Theory and Compensation Theory to develop and test a dual-process framework explaining how perceived organizational support (POS) moderates the pathways from workplace hazards through health to employee well-being.We examine whether POS operates uniformly across physical and mental health dimensions or exhibits dimension-specific patterns.Using data from the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey 2021 (N = 10,879 employees across 36 countries), we employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test a moderated mediation model.The framework examined direct and indirect effects of physical and psychosocial hazards on well-being through physical and mental health, with POS as a moderator of health-well-being relationships.The results revealed that both physical hazards and psychosocial hazards significantly reduced well-being through their respective health dimensions.Also, POS negatively moderated the physical health-well-being relationship, consistent with Spillover Theory, but positively moderated the mental health-well-being relationship, supporting Compensation Theory.This dual-theory integration advances occupational health psychology by reconciling previously contradictory findings and provides actionable guidance for evidence-based well-being interventions.