a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

CHAPTER FIVE:
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
This dissertation addresses the effects of social influence on employees’ beliefs
concerning the support that they receive from their organization. In the past, POS has been
conceptualized by researchers as a perception which forms only as a result of an employee’s
relationship with the organization or key organizational representatives, such as supervisors.
Contrary to this perspective, the results of this dissertation indicate that an employee’s POS may
also be influenced by coworkers’ beliefs regarding the support that they are provided by the
organization, particularly when those coworkers are regarded by the focal employee as role
models. Specifically, when reciprocated ties are considered, employees tend to have similar POS
to the POS of their strong role model ties, strong advice-role model ties, and strong friend-
advice-role model ties. However, when reciprocity was not a requirement for strong ties
between employees, only strong friend-advice-role model ties were related to similarity in POS.
This pattern of results suggests that strong multiplex ties in which two-way information sharing
occurs are more likely to lead to similarity in beliefs about POS. Therefore, this dissertation
offers some new insights into the relationship between social influence and POS, as well as the
importance of role models as a social influence agent.
Reciprocal Ties Analysis
Consistent with expectations, overall, employees’ perceptions of organizational support
were similar to the perceptions of other employees with whom they maintained strong multiplex
ties characterized by reciprocity. Strong friend-advice role model ties and advice-role model ties
were significantly related to similarity in POS. These findings suggest that employees come to
have similar beliefs about their relationship with the organization to those employees who 1)
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