a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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In addition, benefits accrue to individuals who maintain more advice ties with others. Baldwin, Bedell, and Johnson (1997) found that MBA students who had more advice ties enjoyed their program more, learned more, and had better grades. In a study of newly-hired accountants, Morrison (2002) showed that employees with more advice ties had greater organizational knowledge and task mastery than employees with fewer advice ties. The results of these studies suggest that employees who provide advice to others are powerful and evaluated favorably by supervisors, while individuals who maintain more advice ties have more knowledge about what is happening in the organization. Given that advice ties are such an important source of job- and organization-related information, I expect that such ties will be an important source of social information that is utilized by employees in order to better understand what is happening in an organization. This argument does not imply that advice ties will not be a source of social comparison or social learning, or that friendship ties or role model ties will not be a source of social information, as this is possible and even likely. However, research indicates that similarity is a key driver of social comparison, which suggests that friendship ties are more likely to be a source of social influence. Social learning theory emphasizes the importance of an individual’s admiration for another as a key driver of learning; advice ties likely will not be admired to the same extent as role models. Therefore, I expect that advice ties would most likely be used for social information processing. Friendship Ties. While advice ties are based on the exchange of job- and organization related information, friendship ties involve expressions of personal affect, social support, and a sense of identity and personal belongingness (Coleman, 1988; 1990). As a result, individuals are likely to depend on their friends for counseling and companionship (Fisher, 1982) and are more 37
likely to discuss sensitive issues with friends than with other organizational members (Sias & Cahill, 1998). As a result, friendship ties are related to different outcomes in organizations than are advice ties. For instance, Morrison (2002) found that friendship network size was positively related to organizational commitment, while advice network size was not. Krackhardt and Stern (1988) demonstrated that individuals were more likely to share resources with friends from other departments than with non-friends during a simulated organizational crisis. Finally, individuals tend to make career decisions that are similar to those of their friends (Kilduff, 1990; Krackhardt, 1992). A key point about friendship ties is that they often develop between individuals with similar personal characteristics such as race, gender, age, and religion (Marsden, 1988; Ibarra, 1992). As a result, friends are often utilized for social comparison. For instance, Wheeler and Miyake (1992) found that social comparison was most frequent among close friends, followed by friends with whom individuals were somewhat close, and least likely among individuals who were not friends. Friends are also likely to compare the treatment that they receive from other parties that they are affiliated with as well (Ho, 2002). Therefore, employees may compare their beliefs concerning the extent to which they are supported by the organization to friends’ beliefs about organizational support. Role Model Ties. While advice ties and friendship ties have been the focus of much social networks research in the past, the relationship between an employee and another individual whom the employee considers to be a role model has not been conceptualized as a network tie. Such a relationship is similar to a friendship or advice relationship; the only difference is the content of the relationship. In advice or friendship ties, the content is advice or friendship; in an employee-role model tie an employee admires the success or attributes of another employee. 38
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 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: instance, a researcher may find a p
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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