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a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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on their daily tasks. Examining this perspective, Orphen (1994) found that POS was positively<br />

related to work effort <strong>of</strong> employees.<br />

Besides obligating employees to have higher levels <strong>of</strong> performance, POS is expected to<br />

reduce withdrawal behavior in employees. Withdrawal behaviors include absenteeism, turnover<br />

intentions, and turnover. Generally, it is expected that employees who feel <strong>support</strong>ed by their<br />

organizations will be less inclined to leave and seek work elsewhere because <strong>of</strong> the strong<br />

exchange relationship they have with their employer. In addition, employees with high levels <strong>of</strong><br />

POS are expected to help their organizations succeed by attending work consistently. As<br />

expected, Allen et al. (2003) demonstrated that the positive relationship between POS and<br />

<strong>organizational</strong> attitudes makes employees less likely to seek employment with other<br />

organizations. Further, employees with high POS are less likely to intend to quit (Wayne et al.,<br />

1997; Masterson et al., 2000) or be absent from work (Eisenberger et al., 1986).<br />

Summary and Discussion <strong>of</strong> Perceived Organizational Support Research<br />

Figure 1 depicts the extant research on POS. Over the past fifty years, researchers have<br />

examined organizations and employees in the context <strong>of</strong> a rapidly changing business<br />

environment and society, drawing on work from the <strong>social</strong> sciences. Eisenberger’s initial work<br />

on POS drew on <strong>social</strong> exchange theory, the reciprocity norm and attribution theory. Research<br />

examining antecedents and outcomes <strong>of</strong> POS reveals that favorable treatment in the form <strong>of</strong><br />

fairness, <strong>organizational</strong> representatives, and human resource practices creates a felt obligation<br />

within employees to reciprocate favorable treatment by holding attitudes favorable to the<br />

organization and the job and behaving in a manner that helps the organization to reach its goals<br />

(Eisenberger et al., 2001; see Figure 1 for a model summarizing the extant research on POS.).<br />

However, the extant research deals only with the intrapsychic processes that are related to the<br />

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