a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

existed for it to be included as a strong friendship or advice tie in the analysis. This
methodology increases the accuracy of the measurement of social networks (Hammer, 1985),
because it is more likely that a tie actually exists when it is acknowledged by both parties. The
reciprocity requirement also decreases single-source bias because reciprocal measures are not
derived solely from the perceptions of one employee, but rather are verified by another
individual in the organization. However, a potential shortcoming of this approach is that it does
not account for employees’ perceptions of the network, which may be more relevant than ties
that actually exist in some cases (Kilduff & Krackhardt, 1994). These authors found that being
perceived as having a powerful friend, not actually having a powerful friend, was related to
reputation for performance among employees. Thus, it may be that employees who perceive that
they have a tie with is more important than who they actually have ties with when perceptions of
support are considered. As a result, employees who have different beliefs about what a friend or
advice tie entails may respond to these questions in different ways. While these potential
shortcomings are noteworthy, including reciprocity as a requirement for a strong tie is consistent
with Granovetter’s (1973) definition of tie strength.
The non-reciprocated ties analysis tested employees’ perceptions of their own social
networks. That is, if an employee believed that s/he had a strong friendship tie or an advice tie
with another employee, that tie was included in the analysis, regardless of whether or not the tie
was acknowledged by both employees. Defining ties in this fashion is beneficial because it
includes all of the relationships that an employee considers to be relevant, regardless of whether
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