a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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A second benefit that may accrue to managers who pay close attention to informal employee networks such as the advice network and to which employees are perceived to be role models by coworkers relates to mentoring programs. Employees who provide advice for many other employees, or are widely regarded as role models may be highly effective peer mentors early in their careers. Employees who are admired and emulated by their coworkers may someday make for effective mentors in an organization. Limitations This study has a number of important weaknesses which bear mentioning. First, the cross-sectional nature of this study makes it impossible to rule out the possibility that similarity in POS among individuals actually drives whether or not they have ties. It is conceivable that employees who are dissatisfied with the way that they are treated by the organization would commiserate together, consistent with the idea that “misery loves company.” However, most research reveals that relationships are formed as a result of similarity that exists between individuals with respect to variables such as gender, race, or religious affiliation (e.g. Brass, 1985). These variables are probably more salient than are beliefs regarding organizational support when it comes to relationship formation. Indeed, most network studies that utilize perceptual similarity as a dependent variable consider it to be the result of interaction between employees, not a force that drives interaction between employees. Burkhardt’s (1994) longitudinal study on social network positions and attitudes towards technology provides some support for this position. Second, friendship ties may have been defined in a manner that is too stringent. The measure of friendship ties utilized in this dissertation specified that employees select only friends that they see both inside and outside of their role in the organization. While this measure is 93
consistent with past research (Ibarra, 1992; Ibarra, 1995, Ibarra & Andrews, 1993; Krackhardt, 1990; Morrison, 2002), it may have limited the number friends who employees selected. Certainly, employees indicated that they had few friends in the organization relative to advice ties. The stringent definition of friendship ties may have limited the effect of friendship ties on similarity in perceived organizational support. Employees who are only friends in the context of the organization may actually spend more time discussing their perceptions of the organization than employees who are friends both inside and outside of the organization, because individuals who are friends outside the organization may have more to talk about that does not concern the organization. In recent studies, some social networks researchers allowed employees to select whomever they considered to be their friends, reasoning that employees have different definitions of what a friend is, and that employees’ personal definition was most relevant (e.g. Dabos & Rousseau, 2004). Therefore, the results concerning friendship ties in this study should be interpreted with caution. A third potential limitation of this dissertation is its utilization of a sample consisting of employed undergraduate students who worked 25 hours per week. These employees differ from more traditional employees because they do not view the organization for which they work as a long-term employment option. However, as employees adopt more careerist attitudes towards the organizations that they work for (Feldman, 1991), voluntary turnover increases as employees job-hop, and contingent workers become more common in organizations (Tekleab et al, 2003), this may not be as great a concern, as the employees in this sample may be quite similar to contingent employees or careerist employees who have no intention of remaining with the organization in the long term. However, these employees may not have the same expectations 94
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TITLE PAGE A SOCIAL INFLUENCE ANALY
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Copyright by Thomas J. Zagenczyk 20
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with the expectation that reciproca
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LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Hypothesize
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PREFACE Thank you to my chair, Audr
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epresentatives of the organization
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Researchers also consider the conte
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Exploring the effects of social inf
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW Orga
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Levinson’s work explained the lar
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Eisenberger and colleagues (1986) a
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In subsequent studies, researchers
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the organization is based on percei
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esearch exploring the antecedents o
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a manager with high formal status s
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to carry out tasks on their own, an
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occurs because the norm of reciproc
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on their daily tasks. Examining thi
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coworkers are able to provide infor
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when forming perceptions and evalua
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identifies with and interacts with
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Miles, and Grover (2003) showed tha
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instance, a researcher may find a p
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likely to discuss sensitive issues
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it does not require that the role m
Page 51 and 52: among tellers. In one branch, no se
Page 53 and 54: eside outside of the focal individu
Page 55 and 56: To test the effects of social influ
Page 57 and 58: disseminating organizational inform
Page 59 and 60: less positive. Thus, the POS of the
Page 61 and 62: ties (and other combinations of str
Page 63 and 64: Research Setting Hypotheses were te
Page 65 and 66: network data concerning recurring i
Page 67 and 68: I explored these different requirem
Page 69 and 70: or not the employees with whom they
Page 71 and 72: frequent contact with person j, or
Page 73 and 74: employee held a leadership position
Page 75 and 76: correlation analysis has two steps.
Page 77 and 78: Organizational Support was .84, whi
Page 79 and 80: Table 5: Descriptive Statistics for
Page 81 and 82: Correlations. Two different types o
Page 83 and 84: Control Variables Table 7: Pearson
Page 85 and 86: Control Variables Table 9: Pearson
Page 87 and 88: Results of Hypotheses Tests using Q
Page 89 and 90: positions had perceptions of organi
Page 91 and 92: CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND CONCLU
Page 93 and 94: elationship may not have been consi
Page 95 and 96: social learning theory (Bandura, 19
Page 97 and 98: to provide false information is les
Page 99 and 100: Fourth, when studying social influe
Page 101: theoretical foundation of POS is so
Page 105 and 106: employees who were widely regarded
Page 107 and 108: etween employees, only strong frien
Page 109 and 110: of structure and behavior. Academy
Page 111 and 112: organizational support. In J. A-M.
Page 113 and 114: Hammer, M. (1985). Implications of
Page 115 and 116: Kohlberg, L. (1963). Moral developm
Page 117 and 118: Mehra, A., Kilduff, M., & Brass, D.
Page 119 and 120: Rogers, E.M. (1995). Diffusion of i
Page 121 and 122: networks: An introduction to Markov
Page 123 and 124: Name of employee Yes Yes No No Name
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