Perceived Organizational Support Leads to Less Depression Among Hotel Employees in China

Given that the occurrence of depression in the workplace are severe in China, the present study empirically explored the combating effect of perceived organizational support on hospitality employees’ depression, and the mediating effect of person-organization fit, as well as the moderating role of organizational tenure on the relation between perceived organizational support and depression. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 250 frontline employees from the hotel industry in China. Depressive symptoms, perceived organizational support, person-organization fit and organizational tenure were measured anonymously. A total of 228 effective respondents became our final example. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to test the hypothesized model. Results showed that (a) workplace depression was negatively predicted by perceived organizational support and person-organization fit, (b) person-organization fit mediated the relation between perceived organizational support and depression, and (c) organizational tenure strengthened the negative relation between perceived organizational support and depression. This study contributes to the hospitality management literature by testing the organizational resources in mitigating depression, and investigating the pathway to link perceived organizational support to depression via person-organization fit. In practice, this study sheds light on the potential interventions that could be taken by the organization to reduce depression that is prevalent in the service industry.