This study aims to examine the mediating mechanism of thriving at work (TAW) between perceived organizational support (POS) and change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (CO-OCB), and the moderating role of task complexity (TC), given the context of startup companies in Vietnam.
Data were analyzed on 742 valid responses of employees in Vietnamese startups. Bootstrapping technique was performed to test the hypotheses with the assistance of SPSS and SmartPLS software.
The findings illustrate that POS has a positive effect on CO-OCB, and TAW plays as a mechanism between POS and CO-OCB. It is also found that both the direct and indirect relationship between POS and CO-OCB was moderated by TC, such that the positive association was stronger when TC is higher.
This study’s limitations suggest that future longitudinal research should address its cross-sectional design and regional focus while exploring additional factors, such as leadership style, to understand the impact of POS on TAW and CO-OCB in startups.
The authors suggest key strategies for startup firms encompassing clear feedback mechanisms, tailored tasks, well-defined roles and flexible work options.
This study leverages the integrating frameworks of organizational support theory and socially embedded model of thriving, which little has been done thoroughly in startup settings with POS as an antecedent. In addition, the inclusion of TC as a boundary condition extends the job characteristics model literature on job characteristics through a moderated mediation model.
