Subjective well-being at work: Disentangling source effects of stress and support on enthusiasm, contentment, and meaningfulness

• We develop a scale of nonhedonic well-being at work using IRT and CTT frameworks.
• We assess the impact of role stressors and support on hedonic and nonhedonic (i.e., meaningfulness) well-being.
• Positional status determines impact of stressors and support.
• Type of communication determines direct and moderating impact of support.
• Supervisors are important sources of the experience of meaningfulness and well-being at work.

The experience of meaningfulness in one's work is an important predictor of individual and organizational outcomes. We advance a model of nonhedonic (i.e., meaningfulness) subjective well-being (SWB), to assess the potential impact of work role stress (specified by source) in this new model of SWB, and examine the direct and indirect effects of potentially supportive communication (specified by source and type of support). Item Response Theory (IRT) and Classical Test Theory (CTT) frameworks confirmed the proposed factor structure of SWB. Results suggest that positional status of the source of stress determines the magnitude of effect. Specifically, supervisors who are sources of role stressors have the largest negative impact on SWB. Alternatively, social support had the largest positive effect on SWB when the source was a supervisor and communication type was positive or non-work related. In addition, role stressors and communication from supervisors have the strongest direct effect on nonhedonic SWB. Unexpectedly, communication wherein content was negative had the strongest effect when source was a coworker, followed by the subordinate. Finally, positive communication with coworkers attenuated the effect of supervisor role stress on one dimension of SWB (enthusiasm). Overall, supervisors have a strong ability to affect subordinates' SWB, particularly in terms of meaningfulness.