a social influence analysis of perceived organizational support

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A second contribution this dissertation makes to social influence literature is its attention to reciprocated vs. non-reciprocated ties. The results suggest that Nelson’s (1989) observation that all elements of Granovetter’s (1973) definition of tie strength are captured by frequent contact may not be the case when social influence is the outcome. In this study, frequent contact and reciprocity were not synonymous. It may be important to pay attention to the reciprocal nature of ties in the future research. Third, results of this study suggest that role models are an important source of social influence. Past social influence research has largely considered the effects of friendship and advice ties, but had not considered the possibility that whether or not an employee was considered by others to be a role model could make that employee more or less influential. The results of this study indicate that advice ties regarded as role models are more influential than advice ties that are not regarded as role models. This is significant because employees today change jobs more frequently than they have in the past, or have collocated work arrangements in which they spend a great deal of their time away from their organization at client sites. Because employees do not remain with their organizations long enough to develop a meaningful relationship with a mentor, or because they are unable to interact frequently with a supervisor, employees create their own developmental relationships to quickly acquire the information and learn the norms and behaviors that will make them successful in the organization (Higgins & Kram, 2001). Some researchers suggest that role models are one example of such a developmental relationship (Ibarra, 1999; Gibson, 2003; 2004). The results of this research show that employees’ role models can influence their beliefs about the treatment that they receive from their organizations. 89
Fourth, when studying social influence, it is important to consider not only whether or not ties are present, but also how strong these ties are and whether or the ties are multiplex. Most social influence studies do not consider tie strength, but the results of this study demonstrate that, overall, strong ties are more influential than are weak ties. Therefore, future social influence studies should pay attention to tie strength. In addition, results of this study indicate that in general, multiplex ties are more influential than simplex ties. Most social influence studies in organizations pay little attention to multiplex ties, despite the fact that researchers such as Portes (1998) and Coleman (1990) have emphasized how potentially influential such ties can be. Understanding the fact that multiplex relationships are influential is important, as it suggests that future social influence studies should utilize measures that not only differentiate friendship and advice ties, but also examine the effects of combinations of ties. This may have implications for managers as well; if managers can devise strategies to develop advice relationships between employees and their role models, role models may have a stronger positive effect on employee learning. Fifth, this study offers a new way to measure role model ties in an organization, and highlights the usefulness of a social networks methodology as a way to assess their effects on outcomes. Previous research on role models has utilized experimental methodologies in which subjects are exposed to hypothetical role models in laboratory settings (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; 1999) and qualitative methodologies such as interviews (Gibson, 2003; Ibarra, 1999). While these methodologies can generate a great deal of useful information, experimental methodologies are difficult to apply in field settings, and it may be difficult to measure some outcomes with qualitative methods, especially when large samples are needed. Operationalizing role models as a social network tie allows researchers to answer a number of questions about role 90
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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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epresentatives of the organization
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Researchers also consider the conte
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Exploring the effects of social inf
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW Orga
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Levinson’s work explained the lar
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Eisenberger and colleagues (1986) a
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In subsequent studies, researchers
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the organization is based on percei
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esearch exploring the antecedents o
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a manager with high formal status s
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to carry out tasks on their own, an
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occurs because the norm of reciproc
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on their daily tasks. Examining thi
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coworkers are able to provide infor
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when forming perceptions and evalua
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identifies with and interacts with
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Miles, and Grover (2003) showed tha
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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 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: to provide false information is les
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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