Exploring family supportive supervisor behaviours from a police perspective to ensure life satisfaction: an empirical investigation using importance-performance analysis

Purpose – The primary aim of this research is to analyse the impact of family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSB) on the level of life satisfaction among individuals working in the police force. FSSB is informal support by supervisors, which is an emerging topic. Further, this study examines the intermediary role of career calling and job embeddedness in the association between supportive family behaviours of supervisors and life satisfaction. However, only limited studies have been conducted on how informal support by the supervisor performs for police personnel. This research aims to fill this gap. Design/methodology/approach – For the purpose of data collection from police personnel, we used a structured questionnaire. Variance-based partial least squares structural equational modelling (PLS-SEM) methodology was applied using SmartPLS software to investigate the conceptual model of the study. Additionally, using importance-performance map analysis (IMPA), we evaluate the importance and performance of each construct. Findings – Thedataanalysisfindingsindicatethatjobembeddednessandcareercallingfunctionascomplete mediating factors in the association between FSSB and life satisfaction. Additionally, the study revealed that careercallingisthe mostperformingconstructforpromotinglifesatisfaction butisnotperceivedas important by the police department. Originality/value – According to the authors ’ knowledge, there has been no research in the Indian context that examines the effects of supervisor family supportive behaviours, especially among police. The incorporation of career calling and job embeddedness as mediators provides a novel perspective in the examination of the correlation between FSSB and life satisfaction.


Introduction
Police personnel are continually serving and protecting the public while facing multiple issues, such as stress and pressure.The nature of the police job is all about dealing with violent, inflexible and terrible situations under the threat of physical danger.The job of the policemen pushes them to play multiple roles; they have to be like a hard nut for standing against crime, but on another side, they have to be soft in helping the public.However, police personnel have to perform a variety of functions (Verma and Gavirneni, 2006).Moreover, as a result of a lack of clarity of role while working in a critical environment, the task of maintaining a balance between lives has become critical for the police (Ahmad and Islam, 2019).
This type of work environment results in multiple issues, such as unusual amounts of stress and dissatisfaction in their personal and professional lives.Multiple studies related to police personnel have stated that the police profession is among the most highly stressful professions (Buker and Wiecko, 2006;He et al., 2002;Webb and Smith, 1980;Zhao et al., 2003).To overcome such negative aspects of the working environment, police organisations should promote a supportive environment in the police stations by promoting support from their senior officers so that police personnel feel free to discuss work as well as nonwork-related issues and satisfiability (Singh and Nayak, 2015).
Previous research has focused less on how FSSB influences employees' calling and embeddedness towards their jobs and its ultimate effect on their life satisfaction.According to Thomas and Ganster (1995), "the supportive supervisor is one who empathises with the employee's desire to seek a balance between their work and family responsibilities".Due to the lack of information and communication systems in the family, supportive policies (paid leaves and flexible work schedules) by the supervisor are not used by organisations to manage the adverse effects of work.As a result, family-supportive supervisory behaviours, which are based on the family-supportive concept, have gained attention from researchers (Crain and Stevens, 2018;Li and Liu, 2023).Yragui et al. (2017) discovered that "family supportive supervisor behaviour (FSSB) serves as an important resource for employees, creating a positive context where employees feel valued and respected, thereby mitigating the negative effects of physical and psychological aggressions on employee work and well-being outcomes".
Research gap of the study: As per the prior studies, limited studies concern the impact of job embeddedness on various organisational aspects, especially as a mediator (Karatepe, 2014;Karatepe and Karadas, 2012).Limited research is available on the usefulness of supervisory work-family support; as a result, it helps to examine how work-family support by supervisors can create different resources for employees (Goh et al., 2015).Another significant research gap identified is the insufficient focus on the effect of factors of professional life on individuals' life satisfaction (Erdogan et al., 2012;Ampofo et al., 2017).After a review of the literature, it seems necessary to clarify the practices that help organisations create a calling among individuals about their careers (Steger et al., 2010;Duffy et al., 2011).
However, there are not many studies investigating the role of police personnel in their professional and personal lives.To overcome this gap, the target audience of our research is police personnel.Therefore, based on the above-given research gaps, we focus on the following research questions:

RQ1.
To what extent do supportive family behaviours of supervisors, career calling and job embeddedness impact life satisfaction among police personnel?
RQ2.What is the importance and performance of supportive family behaviours of supervisors, career calling, and job embeddedness in building life satisfaction among police personnel?
2. Literature review 2.1 Theoretical framework Blau (1964) stated that social exchange generates some hope for future returns based on individuals' trust, which is unspecified.Obligations to reciprocate arise when people gain anything from another person's or an organisation's actions (Homans, 1958;Emerson, 1976;Lambert, 2000).As per the past studies by Eisenberger et al. (1986Eisenberger et al. ( , 2001)), employees respond favourably to cared-for and appreciated treatment by their organisation, which is all about the principle of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960).Positive treatment is based on the reciprocity rule, which is ultimately beneficial for both parties and for the growth of an organisation as a whole (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002).Prior studies demonstrated that in the presence of a supportive supervisor, the positive attitudes and behaviours of subordinates will come under consideration (Allen, 2001;Hammer et al., 2009).
According to the said theory, it is argued that the act of supervisors providing support to employees directly contributes to improving their sense of career calling and job embeddedness.This effect is attributed to the establishment of a social exchange connection between supervisors and employees.Furthermore, we propose that this enhanced degree of career calling and job embeddedness eventually contributes to higher levels of life satisfaction among employees.

Conceptual modelling and hypotheses
The hypotheses have been shown in the study model depicted in Figure 1, which illustrates both the direct and indirect relationships among constructs.
2.2.1 Family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSB) and life satisfaction.Hammer et al. (2009) define behaviours that show support for employees' families at work as a multidimensional construct, which is defined by different four elements such as emotional, instrumental, role-modelling behaviours and managing work-family creatively.Many suggested in their studies that informal support (work-family support) encourages employees to compete with the unfavourable consequences of their lives (Hammer et al., 2009;Goh et al., 2015).
As per Eisenberger et al. (2002), a supportive supervisor is more impactful than organisational support.As they stated in their study, supervisors have more contact with their employees as compared to upper-level managers.Similarly, when employees perceive a supportive family environment at their organisation, it will help them improve their nonwork lives (Haar and Roche, 2010).However, Anderson et al. (2002) examined supervisory assistance as an informal workplace practice for the growth of employees.This revealed a positive association with the employees' ability to do work.The positive effects of the familysupportive behaviours of supervisors have previously been supported by the researchers, which helps the organisation shape employees' life satisfaction.Researchers stated that if the supervisors are supportive, such as by assisting their subordinates with high work and family demands, then there are more satisfied subordinates with their lives (Straub, 2012;Zhang and Tu, 2016).The regular practice of supervisory support presence at work displays a positive relationship with life satisfaction (Zhang et al., 2019;Dousin et al., 2021).In line with these findings, we propose: H1. Family supportive supervisor behaviours positively influence life satisfaction among police personnel.
2.2.2 Family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSB) and career calling.Support for family demands from their staff results in positive outcomes.However, supportive practices such as family-supportive supervisors had direct positive effects on work as well as on the family matters of employees (Thomas and Ganster, 1995).
According to Bunderson and Thompson (2009), the concept of calling is a recent phenomenon in the management literature.It is stated that employees are positive about their work.However, the literature suggests that the presence of a calling towards their job among people is all about a meaningful career with a spirit of selfless giving (Dik and Duffy, 2009;Steger et al., 2010).Support from the supervisor is like a connection tool for employees who report low calling (Mansfield, 2018).Supportive supervisors promote the level of calling among their subordinates (Presbitero and Teng-Calleja, 2020).In other words, when facing FSSB, employees might mitigate the adverse emotions linked to WDB (work-related distress) and enhance their emotional commitment to the organisation (Lei et al., 2023).According to Zhang et al. (2020), family supportive behaviours of supervisors work as a key instrument for promoting career calling among employees.In line with these findings, we propose: H2.Family supportive supervisor behaviours positively influence career calling among police personnel.

2.2.3
Family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSB) and job embeddedness.Job embeddedness is defined by Mitchell et al. (2001) while using three components: the first is "links", which shows connections between the employees within and outside the organisation; the second component is "fit", which is all about comfort with the environment of the organisation.The last third one is "sacrifice", which refers to the result of leaving an organisation because of perceived costs or psychological advantages.According to Mitchell et al. (2001), embeddedness is defined as the reason employees choose to remain with the organisation.However, as per limited studies, employees who have supervisors who provide support are more connected to their work (Bergiel et al., 2009;Wheeler et al., 2010).Supervisors provide additional support to their subordinates and assist the organisation in maintaining a higher level of job embeddedness.It is all about the willingness of employees to maintain connections and stay in the organisation (Harris et al., 2011).To boost job embeddedness among employees, the supervisors need support from their subordinates.As a result, employees embedded with the organisation can handle workrelated difficulties easily without having the intention to quit their jobs (Karatepe, 2014).
H3. Family-supportive supervisor behaviours positively influence job embeddedness among police personnel.

2.2.4
Life satisfaction, job embeddedness and career calling.Support from the supervisor protects subordinates against the adverse impact of work and nonwork demands by helping them to run their work smoothly (Dechawatanapaisal, 2023).Employees who see their work as a calling ranked highest in life as well as work satisfaction are ready to make personal sacrifices for their work (Peterson et al., 2009).However, past studies have supported the positive side of career calling, which is represented by satisfaction in life.As a result of studies by researchers, it was stated that a sense of calling among employees results in a positive and beneficial experience (Davidson et al., 1994;Bunderson and Thompson, 2009;Steger et al., 2010).Moreover, similar associations were found by Duffy et al. (2012) that, instead of multiple beneficial results, evidence suggests that satisfaction in life is highly connected with the existence of a career calling.
H4. Career calling positively influences life satisfaction among police personnel.
H6. Career calling mediates the association between family-supportive supervisor behaviours and life satisfaction among police personnel.
As per the literature, most of the studies have examined job embeddedness and its job-related outcome (T.Mitchell et al., 2001;Karatepe and Ngeche, 2012;Bambacas and Kulik, 2013;Tian et al., 2016).Insufficient attention has been given to the role of job embedded in association with life satisfaction (Ampofo et al., 2018).Studies have found that employees feel more embedded when their working environment provides them with an opportunity to retain and grow in the organisation (Ampofo et al., 2017).
H5. Job embeddedness positively influences life satisfaction among police personnel.
H7. Job embeddedness mediates the association between family-supportive supervisor behaviours and life satisfaction among police personnel.
After reviewing the literature, several research studies have been identified that particularly investigate the consequences of supportive supervisors on individuals' life satisfaction (Anderson et al., 2002;Dousin et al., 2021;Goh et al., 2015;Zhang et al., 2019).Instead of family supportive supervisor support and its influence on life satisfaction (Haar and Roche, 2010;Zhang and Tu, 2016), only a few studies to date have concentrated on its effect on career calling (Zhang et al., 2020) and job embeddedness.Moreover, still-limited researchers concentrated on the link between calling and life satisfaction among employees (Steger et al., 2010;Duffy et al., 2011Duffy et al., , 2017;;Duffy et al., 2012;Hirschi and Herrmann, 2012) and job embeddedness and life satisfaction (Ampofo et al., 2017;2018;Dechawatanapaisal, 2023).Moreover, to our knowledge, this will be counted as a unique addition to the literature that has analysed this model-based association for police personnel.

Research methodology
3.1 Research respondents and data collection procedure Data from the respondents were gathered by a quantitative descriptive study using a structured questionnaire survey.The data was gathered from non-gazetted police staff such as inspectors, sub-inspectors, assistant sub-inspectors, head constables and constables who are serving in police stations in Chandigarh by applying a multistage sample technique.In the first stage, using a simple random sampling method, four police stations were selected from each of the three police subdivisions.Next, police personnel were chosen in the second stage using an accidental sampling from selected police stations.However, according to the report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2021, Chandigarh, as a union territory (UT), recorded the highest rate of rape cases as compared to Delhi.Additionally, Chandigarh ranks second among UTs after Delhi in terms of kidnapping and abduction of women (National Crime Records Bureau, 2021).

Sample size
The G*Power software version 3.1.9.7 is used to determine the size of the sample to obtain the minimum acceptable sample size (Faul et al., 2007(Faul et al., , 2009)).As per the G*Power software, the study requires a minimum sample size of 74 respondents, whereas 186 people were included in the sample, which is an appropriate size sample as per the required minimum sample size estimations (see Figure 2).The exogenous construct of behaviours that show support for employees' families at work was adopted from Hammer et al. (2013), which comprises four items.The career calling (an endogenous construct) was measured by nine items, adopted from the work of Hagmaier and Abele (2012).We adopted job embeddedness (endogenous construct) from Crossley et al. (2007) with seven items.We measure our intervening construct, i.e. life satisfaction, with five items adopted from Diener et al. (1985).The study's components were evaluated using a fivepoint Likert scale, with responses ranging from 1 "strongly disagree" to 5 "strongly agree".
About 320 respondents in total were contacted.In return, a total of 218 respondents (a response rate of 68.125%) responded to the survey questionnaire, out of which 102 incomplete responses were eliminated.

Statistical method
PLS-SEM, which stands for partial least squares structural equational modelling, was used to analyse the data in SmartPLS software (version 4.0.9.5) (Ringle et al., 2022).PLS-SEM was determined to be acceptable for the present study because it is well-recognised as a nonparametric statistical method that may be utilised even with smaller sample sizes and offers greater adaptability in complicated models (Hair et al., 2019).PLS-SEM was utilised to investigate the theoretical model and analyse the mediation effects (Hair et al., 2021;Hult et al., 2022).

Data analysis and findings 4.1 Statistical descriptions
Table 1 illustrates the respondent's demographic statistics.The respondents' age ranged from 20 to above 50 years old; however, as per the response, the majority of respondents belong to the 20-30-year age group with 30.73%.Out of the total respondents (N 5 218), there were 154 individuals identified as male and 64 individuals identified as female.The large number of respondents were constables, which constituted 29.36%, and 28.44% were head constables.The sample comprises police inspectors with over three years of experience, based on their years of work.Figure 3 shows that the first-order measurement model assessments were done using the prescribed criteria outlined by Hair et al. (2017Hair et al. ( , 2022)).We checked the reliability and validity of the measurement model by checking (see Table 2) internal consistency, including Cronbach's alpha, rho-A and composite reliability.Convergent validity was assessed using outer loading and average variance extracted (AVE).Next, discriminant validity was conducted through the examination of cross-loadings, heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) and the Fornell-Larker criterion using confirmatory analysis in partial least squares structural modelling.
In this paper, the reliability of all the indicators while analysing Cronbach's Alpha, rho-A and composite reliability was greater than the minimum criteria of 0.80 (Table 2) (Hair et al., 2019;Hair et al., 2020), This shows no issue of internal consistency or construct reliability of the model.Next, AVE and outer loadings were assessed to analyse convergent validity, which shows all the scores of AVE were higher than the threshold limit of 0.50 (Sarstedt et al., 2017) and factor/outer loadings of all the items to their parent constructs, which represented outer loadings of all indicators (Reflective Construct) were above 0.70 (Sarstedt et al., 2017)  one indicator, L SAT5 (outer loading: 0.674).However, the indicator with 0.674 loadings was retained as their value was above 0.60, while the respective construct of the indicator had AVE above 0.50 (Hair et al., 2022).On the other hand, Table 3 represents the cross-loadings of each item based on its parent construct (italic values) as compared to non-associated constructs (Hair et al., 2011).Subsequently, a thorough assessment of discriminant validity was conducted in this work using Fornell and Larcker's criteria, which involve calculating the square root of the AVE values.
According to the findings shown in Table 4, it can be justified that the square root of AVE on the diagonal exhibited higher values than the inter-construct correlation values (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).As per the results of the HTMT criteria, it is stated in Table 5 that the ratios of all the constructs were found to have a value below 0.85, in accordance with the established threshold level of Henseler et al. (2015).This analysis suggests that the current measurement approach does not demonstrate any concerns about reliability and validity.

Assessment of the structural (inner/path) model
After doing a thorough assessment of the measurement model, this study analyses the structural model using PLS-SEM while evaluating hypotheses or relationships among constructs (Hair et al., 2017;Hair et al., 2022).Firstly, to diagnose multicollinearity, the variance inflation factor (VIF) was analysed while employing inner values, which were found to be less than 3.33 (Hair et al., 2019).After finding no issue of collinearity, the next R2 value of the dependent constructs was examined.The R2 measures the variance, which represents the prediction accuracy of the model.R2 5 0.269 for career calling, R2 5 0.353 for job embeddedness and R2 5 0.615 for life satisfaction (Figure 4).In social sciences studies, an R2 value of 0.2 and above is deemed to be statistically significant (Hair et al., 2014;Rasoolimanesh et al., 2017).According to the guidelines provided by Cohen (1988), f2 is all about the effect size and the cut-off values for measuring effect size are f2 5 0.02 (representing "small effect"), 0.15 (representing "medium effect") and 0.35 (representing "large effect").The results revealed that FSSB has strongly affected career calling (f2 5 0.368).FSSB has also strongly affected job embeddedness (f2 5 0.545).Job embeddedness has shown a large effect on life satisfaction (f2 5 0.445), FSSB has shown a slight effect on life satisfaction (f2 5 0.028) and career calling has shown a minor to moderate effect on life satisfaction (f2 5 0.062).
Further, the study used the bootstrapping process (10,000 subsamples) to assess the structural model relationships (Table 6) (Hair et al., 2020).
The method devised by Zhao et al. (2010) was employed to test the mediating effect by applying the bootstrapping method with 10,000 subsamples in the connection between FSSB and life satisfaction.Table 6 represents a significant indirect influence of FSSB on life satisfaction via an intermediating construct of calling (H6: β 5 0.101, t 5 2.217, p < 0.05).As per the second mediator analysis, results (see Table 6) demonstrated a statistically significant indirect link between family supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSB) and life satisfaction, mediated by job embeddedness (H7: β 5 0.334, t 5 6.023, p < 0.05).The results revealed the full mediation roles of career calling and job embeddedness.

Importance-performance map analysis (IPMA)
To clarify the results of this study, we used importance and performance map analysis to know the constructs that determine life satisfaction and identified the constructs with strong total effects on the target construct.Table 7 shows the total effects of calling, FSSB and job embeddedness on life satisfaction.
As per the results, if one unit of FSSB increases from 60.819 to 61.819, then there will be an increase in life satisfaction from 65.385 to 65.953.Further, if one unit of job embeddedness increases from 64.645 to 65.645, then there will be an increase in life satisfaction from 65.385 to 65.946.Which observed that life satisfaction among police personnel was primarily driven by the FSSB and job embeddedness.This outcome can help higher authorities in the police department understand how family-based support by the supervisor and job embeddedness can help their police staff be satisfied in their lives (Figure 5).
However, the IPMA grid observed that career calling is a performing construct for increasing life satisfaction, but the police department does not perceive this as important for enhancing life satisfaction.

Discussions and implications
In this study, researchers explored the positive side of supervisor's support, which ultimately affects the work aspects of police personnel, such as job embeddedness and calling towards their career, and it ultimately affects their non-work aspects, such as life satisfaction.However, we found the significant mediating role of career calling and job embeddedness from FSSB to life satisfaction.However, the results identify an insignificant direct path from FSSB to life satisfaction.This can be due to the overburden of work responsibilities and multiple external factors such as health and family issues, etc. which may be the reason behind not having the desired association between informal support and an employee's life satisfaction.
As researchers Behson (2005) outcomes among their subordinates.In particular, this study found that the familysupportive behaviours of supervisors connected significantly with employees' career calling and job embeddedness.It shows the more influencing role of informal support practices on life satisfaction as a mediator through the positive work attitude of career calling and job embeddedness among police because of their supervisors' family-supportive behaviours.The key implication of this research is to suggest family-supportive practices to the police department that assist the police personnel while working in stressful environments, which can be fruitful for the police personnel as well as for the nation.

Conclusion
Police personnel who were more likely to be supported by their supervisors were also likely to report that they were satisfied with the feeling of a calling and embeddedness in their job.In this way, employees may feel more connected and meaningful in their lives with a positive work attitude to creatively pursue their role at work.The results of this study may provide opportunities to explore the value of one's calling and embeddedness, which may lead to meaning and fulfilment in the personal and professional lives of police personnel.Police departments can boost their life satisfaction through practices that increase their embeddedness and calling towards their profession.According to a review of studies (Hammer et al., 2011;Kossek et al., 2011;Yragui et al., 2017), supervisory work-nonwork support is more beneficial than general support in moderating stress caused by professional constraints.Therefore, employees with high levels of intrinsic motivation will feel more like they are growing at work when an FSSB is present (Shen et al., 2022).For such results, supervisors can uplift and encourage subordinates' levels of output and involvement through the use of combined formal as well as informal support.The results depicted that FSSB, career calling and job embeddedness appeared as key variables that increased life satisfaction among the police.However, this research is subject to some limitations that can serve as future research directions for researchers.Due to regional limitations, the Chandigarh region was the only area included in this study.This limits the generalizability of the findings.Future research can be extended to another region to examine the similarities and differences.Another limitation is that, due to a lack of access to the police staff list, random sampling is not used to choose the sample from the police stations.Additionally, males represented the majority of study respondents, which reflected the perspectives of male staff as compared to females.In future studies, researchers can make a conscious effort to balance the representation of both genders in the sample to better understand differences.
Figure 1.Proposed conceptual model

Table 3 .
Italic Values in the above table are cross-loadings of each item loads highest on its associated construct, FSSBs5 Family supportive supervisor behaviours Italic values in the above table are the square root of AVE values of constructs, FSSBs 5 Family-Cross loadings 194, t 5 0.194, , Goh et al. (2015) and Hammer et al. (2009) stated, there are limited studies on how informal support practices by supervisors help to positively influence