Social influence and perceived organizational support: A social networks analysis

Thomas J. Zagenczyk, Kristin D. Scott, Ray Gibney, Audrey J. Murrell and Jason Bennett Thatcher

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2010, vol. 111, issue 2, 127-138

Abstract: We suggest that employees' perceptions of organizational support (POS) are not solely a product of independent evaluations of treatment offered by the organization, but are also shaped by the social context. We argue that coworkers will directly (through inquiry via cohesive friendship and advice ties) and indirectly (through monitoring of employees structurally equivalent in advice and friendship networks) affect employees' perceived organizational support. Network studies in the admissions department of a large public university and a private company specializing in food and animal safety products indicate that employees' POS are similar to those of coworkers with whom they maintain advice relationships as well as to those who hold structurally equivalent positions in organizational friendship and advice networks. Our work contributes to organizational support theory by developing and testing a theoretical explanation for the relationship between the social context and perceptions of support among employees. Implications for research and practice are offered.

Keywords: Employer-employee; relationship; Perceived; organizational; support; Social; influence; Social; networks; Social; exchange (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749-5978(09)00105-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:111:y:2010:i:2:p:127-138

Access Statistics for this article

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is currently edited by John M. Schaubroeck

More articles in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().