Mutual investment Employee-Organization Relationship (EOR): how and when it is Functional? The mediating role of social exchange and empowerment contingent on the moderating role of LMX and job complexity

A conceptual model is delineated of a doctoral thesis on the process how and when Mutual Investment EOR, relative to other EOR forms, leads to employee reactions. Besides the widely used exchange-based model that is used to explain this process, we build on theory to hypothesize that Mutual Investment EOR is also associated to improved employee reactions through an empowerment-based model. The exchange-based model asserts that Mutual Investment EOR sends signals of valuing and caring for the employees, which leads to social exchange. As a result, the employees reciprocate their organizations by exhibiting improved employee reactions. The empowerment-based model holds that Mutual Investment EOR provides employees with feelings of empowerment, which results in improved employee reactions. Furthermore, to address the question pertaining to when Mutual Investment EOR is effective, social and structural context variables are acknowledged. For social context variables, the focus goes to LMX quality. The influence of Mutual Investment EOR on empowerment and social exchange, is proposed to depend on LMX quality. For structural context variables, job complexity is focused upon. Empowerment and social exchange are hypothesized to be more effective in high-complexity jobs. The implications of the conceptual model are discussed