a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

More documents

Recommendations

Info

formation of POS. Research on POS only considers the role that formal organizational agents, such as managers and supervisors, play in shaping employees’ beliefs about their relationships with the organization. This perspective ignores the increasingly influential role that coworkers play in today’s workplace. Figure 1 – Model of Extant Perceived Organizational Support Research Fairness Org Agents HR Practices Attribution POS Felt Obligation Attitudes Behaviors Recent organizational studies reveal that an employee’s coworkers are an important source of social influence within organizations (e.g. Umphress et al., 2003). In fact, Morrison (1993) found that employees turn to co-workers as opposed to managers and supervisors for information on organizational norms and values because coworkers are more likely to have a view of the organization that is similar to their own. Employees who have less direct access to their supervisors are more likely to turn to their coworkers for information and advice because 27
coworkers are able to provide information more quickly than supervisors (Cross & Prusak, 2002) especially in decentralized or team-based work environments. The increased interaction with coworkers results in more exposure to the coworkers’ beliefs about organizational events, policies, and procedures. As a result, the opinions of coworkers are important in shaping employees’ perceptions of their jobs and organizations. Given the importance of coworkers as a source of information in today’s organizations, research is needed that examines the role that they play in shaping employee perceptions of support. I propose that we can gain a clearer picture of the formation of POS by using social influence processes to predict employees’ perceptions of support. I will draw on psychology and sociology research that examines how social relationships can affect the formation of attitudes and perceptions. For instance, Festinger’s (1954) work on social comparison displays the importance of social factors on judgments. He proposes that when individuals evaluate their opinions and beliefs, they utilize the opinions and beliefs of others as a reference point. Specifically, this dissertation will focus on the influence exerted by employees’ coworker relationships. In the following sections, I will present research on social influence and the relationship between similarity in POS and these important coworker relationships are developed further. Social Influence Processes in Organizations In this dissertation, I examine the influence of advice, friendship, role model and multiplex relationships, as well as the strength of these relationships, on interpersonal similarity in POS. The fundamental expectation is that employees’ POS will be more similar to the POS of coworkers with whom they maintain relationships than to other coworkers to whom they are not connected. Thus, the presence of POS similarity is a social influence effect. Utilization of 28
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 and 22: Eisenberger and colleagues (1986) a
Page 23 and 24: In subsequent studies, researchers
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: on their daily tasks. Examining thi
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
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 and 102:
theoretical foundation of POS is so
Page 103 and 104:
consistent with past research (Ibar
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
show all

a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?