a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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Overview CHAPTER THREE: METHODS The objective of this dissertation is to explore the effects of social influence on employees’ POS. To test the hypotheses, a field study was conducted utilizing student- employees from a section of the admissions department at a large university in the eastern United States. The unit is regarded as a specific organization in and of itself. Organization members completed a sociometric survey which consisted of a roster including the names of all employees in the organization. On this survey, they indicated whether or not they considered their coworkers to be friends, sources of advice, and/or role models, and assessed the strength of their relationships with these individuals. In addition, employees completed the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support and provided information regarding their tenure in the organization, race, gender, and whether or not they held leadership positions in the organization. All data was collected at one point in time. This dissertation utilized social networks analysis. While traditional social science methodologies focus on individual attributes to explain phenomena, social networks analysis examines relationships among actors in order to explain social phenomena (Bonacich, 1972; 1987; Burt, 1992; Freeman, 1979; Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Social networks research can focus on the individual level, the dyadic level, and the group level (Raider & Krackhardt, 2001). In this dissertation, I focused on the dyadic influence that occurs when two individuals have a relationship with each other. Accordingly, Quadratic Assignment Procedure regression was utilized to test all hypotheses. 53
Research Setting Hypotheses were tested in a field study of a recruiting department at a large university. Marsden (1990) suggests that membership in a specific organization, such as a work organization, is a natural boundary for a social network. Consistent with this suggestion, many social networks studies utilize single organizations as samples for research (e.g. Ibarra & Andrews, 1993; Meyer, 1994; Umphress et al., 2003). Further, I am interested in how individuals’ relationships within their organization are related to their POS. Accordingly, it makes sense to test the hypotheses in a single organization. This setting meets data requirements for social networks research. First, the organization is comprised of 138 members, a sample large enough for meaningful social networks analysis. Samples in social networks studies generally are not as large as other social science studies because of the length of the surveys participants must complete (Marsden, 1990). Usually, sociometric surveys require that an individual provide information related to his or her relationship(s) with every other member of their organization, a rather cumbersome process in larger organizations (Marsden, 1990). It is also important that a relatively high response rate be achieved to ensure that significant portions of the network are not missing (Marsden, 1990). Generally, social networks studies have response rates ranging between 65% and 90% (Stork & Richards, 1992). Participants The sample in this study consists of student-employees who are members of the recruiting organization mentioned previously. This organization is run by a group of five elected leaders with the assistance of an admissions sponsor. This organization is responsible for 54
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TITLE PAGE A SOCIAL INFLUENCE ANALY
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Copyright by Thomas J. Zagenczyk 20
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with the expectation that reciproca
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LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Hypothesize
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PREFACE Thank you to my chair, Audr
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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 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: ties (and other combinations of str
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
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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
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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.
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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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