a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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Therefore, I argue that a role model tie exists when an employee admires another employee and believes that the employee is a good example of what the organization represents. Such a tie does not need to be reciprocated because a role model does not need to know that he or she is regarded as a role model by another in order to influence that individual (Crosby, 1999; Gibson, 2003; 2004). As Crosby (1999) states, “the role model may not be aware that he or she is a role model for the (other) person and may not even know of the existence of the (other) person (Crosby, 1999: 15).” Thus, an employee-role model relationship may be conceptualized as a non-reciprocated social network tie. Role models have become increasingly important in today’s organizations because changes to the employment contract and organizational structure have made it difficult for employees to receive developmental support from organizationally-sponsored mentoring relationships and supervisory relationships (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Hall & Mirvis, 1996; Higgins & Kram, 2001). Individuals utilize informal developmental relationships, such as role model relationships, to acquire information regarding what behaviors and attitudes will help them to succeed in the organization. Traditionally, role models have been viewed as individuals in influential role positions, such as supervisors or mentors, who serve as examples for others to emulate (Erickson, 1985). For instance, Kram (1985) defines role modeling as a function performed by a mentor for a protégé. Crosby (1999) considers role modeling a function that is performed by a senior person for a junior person in a developmental relationship. She defines a role model as “a senior person with whom a more junior person identifies emotionally and whom the junior person wishes to emulate in some way” (Crosby, 1999: 15). Crosby’s definition is different than Kram’s because 39
it does not require that the role model interact with the employee who considers him or her to be a role model. More recently, however, researchers have recognized that employees consider coworkers who are at the same or lower hierarchical levels in the organization to be role models. For instance, Gibson defines role models as “person(s) an individual perceives to be similar to some extent, and because of that similarity, the individual desires to emulate (or specifically avoid) aspects of that person’s attributes or behaviors” (2003: 592). Gibson’s definition highlights the fact that employees select other employees who are not mentors or other senior organizational members as role models. Gibson’s qualitative study, which required employees to describe the characteristics of their role models, revealed that employees do indeed select other employees who are at the same level of the organization to be their role models. Overall, these definitions of role models agree that role models are organization members who are emulated by others because they have admirable attributes or useful skills. Indeed, the definition of role models offered by Shapiro and colleagues may best capture all of the definitions presented above; these researchers described role models “as individuals whose behaviors, personal styles, and specific attributes are emulated by others” (52). In this study, I define a role model in an organizational context as an individual who is perceived by another employee to have a high level of performance and serve as an excellent example of the goals and values of the organization. I emphasize that the employee is a role model in the context of the organization and that the employee is knowledgeable and successful within that context. This definition also allows for employees to select role models from any level of the organization, rather than just supervisors or mentors. In addition, my focus is not on whether or not an individual is or is not a role model, but whether or not he or she is perceived to 40
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 and 46: instance, a researcher may find a p
Page 47: likely to discuss sensitive issues
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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