Demands, Control, and Support: A Meta-Analytic Review of Work Characteristics Interrelationships

The job demands control support model (DCS; Karasek, 1979) is an influential theory for understanding how work characteristics relate to employee well-being, health, and performance. However, previous research has largely neglected theory-building regarding the interrelationships between job demands, control, and support. We remedy such theoretical underdevelopment by reviewing and integrating theory on the relationships between demands, control, and support to develop five hypotheses. We test our hypotheses within a meta-analytic framework using a set of 106 studies. Our results show negative demands supervisor support and demands-coworker support relationships, but no significant demand control relationship. Our findings also indicate positive control supervisor support and control-coworker support relationships. Using the meta-analytic effect sizes, we also estimate two competing structural equation models intended to discern which theoretical model using DCS work characteristics to predict occupational strain and well-being is more consistent with our data. Our results suggest that job control and both sources of social support should be treated independently, as opposed to indicators of a shared latent factor, in terms of their prediction of well-being and job demands. Our study offers support for the usefulness of the DCS and more modern conceptualizations of the working environment in understanding the employee work experience and for predicting important work outcomes.