a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

Miles, and Grover (2003) showed that employees’ performance of organizational citizenship
behaviors was related to the frequency and consistency of organizational citizenship behavior
performance by other employees in their workgroup. In addition, Ibarra (1999) showed that
employees at an investment bank and a management consulting firm making the transition from
entry-level to management positions observed and interacted with employees whom they
admired in order to learn what behaviors, attitudes and perceptions made the admired employees
successful. They then adopted these behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions to see if what they
learned would help to make them successful (Ibarra, 1999). These studies show that social
learning can affect the behavior, attitudes and perceptions of employees.
Social Networks: Defining Relationships
Social networks analysis focuses on patterns of social relations among a set of actors to
explain social phenomena (Wasserman & Faust, 1994) and thus provides the conceptual and
methodological basis for measuring social influence (Burkhardt, 1994; Erickson, 1988; Ibarra &
Andrews, 1993; Meyer, 1994; Rice & Aydin, 1991). An individual’s social network contacts are
important to the formation of perceptions because they provide an opportunity for that individual
to understand what other individuals think, feel, say, and do about what is happening in an
organization. Thus, social networks are the medium through which social influence occurs in an
organization (Ibarra & Andrews, 1993) because they provide access to the beliefs of other
employees who may be useful in helping an employee to better understand the work environment
or their relationship with the organization.
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