a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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to integrate these views, I consider the strength of ties under two different assumptions: the assumption that only frequent contact is an indicator of tie strength, and the assumption that both frequent contact and reciprocity represent tie strength. Hypotheses In this dissertation, I argue that advice ties between employees will be related to similarity in POS because they serve as a source of social information. Friendship ties, on the other hand, will result in similarity in POS because they are utilized for social comparison. When an employee’s friend shares his or her beliefs about how he or she is treated by the organization with the employee, that information may serve as signal to the employee about how the employee is treated by the organization (Felson & Reed, 1986). Finally, role models will result in similarity in POS because employees learn from the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of role models. In addition, ties that are strong should be more highly associated with POS because they are characterized by frequent interaction, and, when reciprocal, information sharing. I also expect that multiplex ties, such as advice-role model ties and friend-advice-role model ties, will be particularly influential with respect to similarity in POS because they will serve as a source of social information, social learning, and/or social comparison (See Table 1 for a summary of the hypothesized relationship in this study). Table 1: Hypothesized Relationships Between Network Ties and POS Tie Type Strength Theoretical Framework Outcome H1 Advice Strong Social Information Processing Positive Relationship w/POS H2 Advice- Strong Social Information Processing Positive Relationship w/POS Role Model and Social Learning H3 Friendship Strong Social Comparison Positive Relationship w/POS H4 Friendship- Strong Social Information Processing, Positive Relationship w/POS Advice- Social Comparison, and Social Role Model Learning 45
To test the effects of social influence, I examine interpersonal similarity in POS between employees and their weak and strong friendship ties, weak and strong advice ties, weak and strong role model ties, weak and strong role model-advice ties, weak and strong role model- friendship ties, and weak and strong role-model-friendship advice ties. While all of these ties are considered, I only offer hypotheses for strong ties that exist between employees. This is because research on social networks shows that because weak ties characterized by infrequent interaction are unlikely to be related to similarity in perceptions (Erickson, 1988). I provide hypotheses only for strong advice ties, strong advice-role model ties, and strong friend-advice role model ties because I was most interested in how the exchange of information related to the job and the organization was related to similarity in POS among employees. I included a hypothesis for strong friendship ties to test the associative and comparative functions of social comparison theory. Chapter 4 contains the results for all different combinations of strong and weak ties relevant to the study. In addition, I examine employees’ relationships with coworkers rather than their relationships with supervisors (although I control for the effects of employees who occupy leadership positions in the organization). This is not to imply that supervisors are not a source of information for employees. Morrison (1993) argues that supervisors are an important source of information for feedback, role demands, and expectations. However, employees are less likely to ask their supervisors questions about the extent to which they are supported by the organization because they would likely believe that responses from supervisors related to this issue are biased. Further, employees will likely discuss perceptions of support with coworkers because they are more easily accessible (Morrison, 1993; Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1992) and will serve as a better comparison for employees because they are at similar levels in the 46
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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 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: eside outside of the focal individu
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
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employees who were widely regarded
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etween employees, only strong frien
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of structure and behavior. Academy
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organizational support. In J. A-M.
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Hammer, M. (1985). Implications of
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Kohlberg, L. (1963). Moral developm
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Mehra, A., Kilduff, M., & Brass, D.
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Rogers, E.M. (1995). Diffusion of i
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networks: An introduction to Markov
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Name of employee Yes Yes No No Name
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