a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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Empirical Measurement of Perceived Organizational Support Following the introduction of the POS concept, Eisenberger et al. (1986) tested their expectation that employees develop global perceptions of organizational support by creating a measure of POS. This measure was an important contribution because it empirically captured employees’ beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization was committed to them, and therefore made it possible to test the proposed social exchange approach to the employee- organization relationship. To develop the POS measure, Eisenberger and colleagues (1986) created thirty-six statements “representing various possible evaluative judgments of the employee by the organization and discretionary actions the organization might take in diverse situations to benefit or harm the employee” (501). These statements, labeled the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS), were administered to 361 employees in various organizational settings. Employees reported the extent to which they agreed with each of the statements using a seven- point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Results indicated that employees responded to SPOS items in a consistent manner, demonstrating that employees develop global beliefs regarding the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. Further, factor analysis revealed that items loaded higher on the POS factor than they did on a second factor, indicating that the scale was unidimensional. To create a scale that could be administered to employees in a more timely fashion, Eisenberger et al. (1986) selected the seventeen highest-loading items for the short version of the SPOS. The first study assessing the relationship between POS and an outcome variable (absenteeism) revealed that the reliability coefficient of the SPOS was .93 (Eisenberger et al., 1986). 13
In subsequent studies, researchers have often used the shortened seventeen-item version of the SPOS or even shorter versions of the scale. For instance, a number of researchers have measured POS with a nine-item version of the SPOS (Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davis-LaMastro, 1990), which had a reliability coefficient that varied between .95 and .74 across employees in five different organizations. In other studies, researchers have used the eight highest loading items from the initial SPOS (reliability coefficient of .90) (Eisenberger, Cummings, Armeli, & Lynch, 1997). A scale comprised of the six highest-loading items evidenced a reliability coefficient of .77 (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, & Rhoades, 2001). Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002) advocate the use of shorter versions of the SPOS because of its unidimensionality and high internal reliability. However, they stress that both facets of the construct (valuation of employee contributions, care for employee well-being) need to be included in the scale. Overall, research indicates that POS is unidimensional construct with high internal reliability, and it can be assessed using as few as six items. Conceptual Distinctiveness of Perceived Organizational Support Although Eisenberger et al. (1986) took steps to distinguish POS from other concepts, some researchers contended that “the fundamental nature of perceived organizational support is not yet clear” (Shore & Tetrick, 1991: 642). Distinguishing POS from measures of organizational commitment was initially an important task because Eisenberger et al. (1986) framed POS as being part of a “social exchange approach to organizational commitment” (501). On the other hand, affective commitment is defined as “an affective or emotional attachment to the organization such that the strongly committed individual identifies with, is involved in, and enjoys membership in, the organization” (Allen & Meyer, 1990: 2). Continuance commitment is defined as “a tendency to engage in consistent lines of activity based on the individual’s 14
Page 1 and 2: TITLE PAGE A SOCIAL INFLUENCE ANALY
Page 3 and 4: Copyright by Thomas J. Zagenczyk 20
Page 5 and 6: with the expectation that reciproca
Page 7 and 8: LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Hypothesize
Page 9 and 10: PREFACE Thank you to my chair, Audr
Page 11 and 12: epresentatives of the organization
Page 13 and 14: Researchers also consider the conte
Page 15 and 16: Exploring the effects of social inf
Page 17 and 18: CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW Orga
Page 19 and 20: Levinson’s work explained the lar
Page 21: Eisenberger and colleagues (1986) a
Page 25 and 26: the organization is based on percei
Page 27 and 28: esearch exploring the antecedents o
Page 29 and 30: a manager with high formal status s
Page 31 and 32: to carry out tasks on their own, an
Page 33 and 34: occurs because the norm of reciproc
Page 35 and 36: on their daily tasks. Examining thi
Page 37 and 38: coworkers are able to provide infor
Page 39 and 40: when forming perceptions and evalua
Page 41 and 42: identifies with and interacts with
Page 43 and 44: Miles, and Grover (2003) showed tha
Page 45 and 46: instance, a researcher may find a p
Page 47 and 48: likely to discuss sensitive issues
Page 49 and 50: 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
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CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND CONCLU
Page 93 and 94:
elationship may not have been consi
Page 95 and 96:
social learning theory (Bandura, 19
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to provide false information is les
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Fourth, when studying social influe
Page 101 and 102:
theoretical foundation of POS is so
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consistent with past research (Ibar
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employees who were widely regarded
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etween employees, only strong frien
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of structure and behavior. Academy
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organizational support. In J. A-M.
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Hammer, M. (1985). Implications of
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Kohlberg, L. (1963). Moral developm
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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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