a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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etc. are often chosen for comparison; and (3) social comparisons will have strong effects when objective nonsocial comparisons are unavailable and when others’ evaluations are important to the individual. Generally, individuals engage in social comparison for purposes of self-evaluation, self- improvement, and self-enhancement (Wood, 1989). Self-evaluation occurs when one compares oneself to others in an effort to create an accurate assessment of one’s personal attributes. Self- improvement refers to situations in which an individual compares him or herself to others who are better off in order to improve him or herself. Finally, self-enhancement occurs when an individual compares him or herself to others who are worse off in an effort to improve their own self-esteem. Consistent with this framework, research shows that social comparison can affect an individual’s evaluation of his or her attractiveness (Richins, 1991), coping abilities (Wood, Taylor, & Lichtman, 1985), and skills (Gibbons, Benbow, & Gerrard, 1994). Social comparison can also be used to understand an individual’s beliefs concerning how he or she is treated by a third party, such as an organization (Ho, 2002). In this vein, social comparison occurs when individuals evaluate the outcomes that they receive from a third party, especially when the value of the outcomes is subjective and the individuals have no objective standard for comparison. When an individual discusses his or her beliefs about treatment from a third party with another individual with whom he or she identifies, the beliefs of the individuals may change. Specifically, social comparison can either result in association with others, which yields similar perceptions, or comparison with others, which yields dissimilar perceptions. These processes are discussed in greater detail in the following paragraphs. Social comparison may result in similar perceptions between two individuals when an individual associates him or herself closely with another individual. When an individual 31
identifies with and interacts with another individual who provides information to the first individual regarding how he or she is treated by a third party, that information may serve as signal to the first individual regarding how he or she is treated by the third party as well (Felson & Reed, 1986). When the second individual indicates that he or she has been treated poorly by the third party, the first individual will interpret this information as a signal that he or she has also been treated poorly by the third party. Therefore, the first individual’s interaction and identification with the second individual makes him or her believe that the treatment that the other receives is indicative of the way that he or she is treated by the third party. Social comparison can also lead to dissimilarity in perceptions when ego utilizes alter as a point of comparison. Crosby (1984) argues that an individual will not evaluate how much of an outcome s/he receives from a third party objectively, but instead base his/her evaluation on how much of an outcome s/he receives relative to similar others. When an individual feels that s/he does not receive as much of an outcome as another person, ego’s evaluation will become less favorable, and as a result be dissimilar to the other person’s evaluation. This comparative function would yield dissimilarity between the perceptions of the individuals with respect to the outcome. It seems that the associative and comparative functions present differing hypotheses about whether social comparison will result in similarity or dissimilarity among individuals’ perceptions. However, self-evaluation maintenance theory (Tesser, 1988) presents a way to integrate these seemingly different predictions by paying attention to the outcomes being evaluated. The self-evaluation maintenance model is based on the assumption that individuals want to maintain or enhance their self-evaluations. In some situations, an individual will “bask in the reflected glory” of another similar individual who has succeeded. In these cases, an 32
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 and 36: on their daily tasks. Examining thi
Page 37 and 38: coworkers are able to provide infor
Page 39: when forming perceptions and evalua
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
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