The bittersweet of colleague support in the relationship between challenge and hindrance appraisals and employee well-being

Abstract Social dynamics are particularly salient in highly interdependent work contexts, however, the extent to which colleague support influences employees’ stress appraisals remains underexplored. This study examines two novel aspects of stress appraisals from a resource-based perspective. First, the consequences of challenge and hindrance appraisals on employee well-being. Second, the interaction between stress appraisals and colleague support in shaping employee outcomes. Using a five-day daily diary design, data were collected from employees in an engineering company. The analytic sample included only those who completed all five daily diaries (61 participants x 5 days), resulting in 305 day-level observations. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted to examine the main effects of the study variables. Daily challenge appraisals were negatively associated with daily exhaustion (β = -0.17, p = 0.04) and positively associated with daily work engagement (β = 0.18, p = 0.01). In contrast, daily hindrance appraisals were positively associated with daily exhaustion (β = 0.24, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with daily work engagement (β = -0.14, p = 0.02). At the between-person level, colleague support was positively related to work engagement (β = 0.35, p = 0.003) and showed no significant relationship with exhaustion. Cross-level moderation analysis indicated that colleague support weakened the positive relationship between daily challenge appraisals and daily work engagement (β = -0.23, p = 0.04). Overall, the study provides insights into how stress appraisals and colleague support jointly shape employee outcomes in daily work settings.