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Abstract Large-scale organizational change,whether in the form of merger & acquisition,restructuring,or business transformation,shapes the current status of many Chinese companies facing intense competitive pressures from home and abroad .Organizational change has been seen as a primary source of workplace stress causing a lot of unpleasant results to employees both psychologically and behaviorally .Many employees in changing context feel role overloaded when the expectations of work go beyond their available time,resources,or personal capabilities .Role overload as well as other role stressors (e .g .role conflict and role ambiguity) is prevalent in many organizations under change but has not received enough attention in previous research .This study tries to fill this gap by analyzing the effects of role overload on key employee outcomes (i .e .turnover intention,task performance,and helping behavior ) . To reach this goal,a moderated mediation model was established and tested on the basis of role theory and social exchange theory . A sample of 380 employees from manufacturing,service and other industries in southeastern China was surveyed and data was collected from different sources .The employees all came from the companies that were undergoing or just completed organizational change . The model was analyzed with SPSS and SPSS PROCESS macro .Results revealed that employees' role overload was negatively related to their affective commitment to the organization .Affective commitment mediated the effects of role overload on turnover intention,task performance and helping behavior .More importantly,this study found that the extent of employee participation in the organization could moderate the relationships between role overload and these employee outcomes via affective commitment .Specifically,when employees had a high degree of participation,the positive effect of role overload on turnover intention and the negative effects of role overload on task performance and helping behavior both via affective commitment would attenuate .On the contrary,when employees had a low degree of participation,the positive effect of role overload on turnover intention and the negative effects of role overload on task performance and helping behavior both via affective commitment would amplify . This study contributes to the extant literature in at least three ways .First,it focuses on role overload which was less studied compared to other role stressors,and prior research did not reach a consistent conclusion about its effects .This study argues that the effects of role overload may depend on organizational context .When companies are in a routine state,some extent of role overload may not lead to bad results . However,when companies are in a changing state,employees already have some unpleasant feelings .If they feel role overloaded simultaneously,the negative effects are very likely to become salient .Second,after demonstrating the unfavorable effects of role overload under organizational change,this study goes a step further to identify employee participation as an important moderator to mitigate such effects,which extends our knowledge on role overload and its boundary conditions .What's more,this study is among the first of empirical research in China to apply the latest approach to accurately test and depict the moderated mediation model,which implies its unique value in methodology .These findings also have several implications for practitioners . In order to enhance the change effectiveness,organizational decision-makers should try to reduce employees' role overload by sending clear messages,reducing the chain of command or taking other possible steps . And encouraging employees to participate in management is another feasible way . This study is not without limitations and future research is suggested to adopt a longitudinal design to establish causal inferences and consider other important HR practices as moderators .
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2015, Vol. 1 
