Abstract
Working mothers in Malaysia face poor psychological well-being due to stress, worklife balance issues, and workplace bullying. Meanwhile, the presence of supervisor support could improve employees_ psychological well-being and mitigate work-related effects. However, studies regarding supervisor support and psychological well-being among low-income working mothers in Malaysia are scarce. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between work stress, work-life balance, workplace bullying and psychological well-being, the moderating role of supervisor support in these relationships, explored the experience of working mothers on supervisor support received in the workplace and identified essential supervisor support required. Employing mixed methodology and purposive sampling, 269 Malaysian working mothers (Mage = 38.15, SDage = 8.14) completed a survey, and 9 participants partook in a semi-structured interview. Accordingly, work stress was reported as the largest contributor to psychological well-being (_ = -.41, p = .004), followed by workplace bullying (_ = -.23, p = .048), while work-life balance reported a nonsignificant relationship. Moreover, supervisor support weakened the impact of work stress and psychological well-being (_ = -.14, p = .045). Next, qualitative analysis results showed the complex nature of supervisor support experiences which includes supervisorinstigated incivility and supervisor-employee disputes, as well as psychological reassurance and work optimisation and management. Further, participants require support whereby the supervisor acts as the medium for discussion for tangible support, a transformational leadership style, and emotional salary. Following these, supervisors should be trained with adequate psychological knowledge to ensure the satisfactory psychological well-being of low-income working mothers. These findings guide supervisors and upper management on strategies to empower psychological well-being through effective supervisor support, stress management techniques, as well as worklife balance and workplace bullying policies.