Perceived organizational support: the interactive role of coworkers’ perceptions and employees’ voice

Date06 January 2020
Pages107-124
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/ER-05-2018-0137
Published date06 January 2020
AuthorFlorence Stinglhamber,Marc Ohana,Gaëtane Caesens,Maryline Meyer
Subject MatterHr & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law
Perceived organizational support:
the interactive role of coworkers
perceptions and employeesvoice
Florence Stinglhamber
Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Marc Ohana
Kedge Business School, Bordeaux, France
Gaëtane Caesens
Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and
Maryline Meyer
Montpellier Business School, Montpellier, France
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a focal employees perception of
organizational support (POS) is shaped by the social context or, more specifically, by his/her coworkersPOS.
The authors further aim to identify the conditions under which coworkersPOS may have more influence or,
on the contrary, less or even no influence.
Design/methodology/approach Data were obtained from questionnaires distributed among a sample of
195 employees and among their supervisors.
Findings Coworkerslevels of POS are positively related to the focal employees POS with positive
consequences in terms of job satisfaction and, finally, organizational citizenship behaviors. This influence of
coworkersPOS is strengthened when the focal employee experiences low voice in the workplace.
Research limitations/implications Overall, this research co ntributes to organizational supp ort theory
by showing that POS may also de velop based on a socially cons tructed process and not o nly on an
individual-level psychological process.
Practical implications Our findings have practical implications for HR policies employed by
practitioners to socialize newcomers and to manage perceived support in a context of organizational change.
Originality/value Building on a few recent studies suggesting that the social context may influence
employeesperceptions of organizational support, the present study is the first to show that the influence of
the social context is more likely to occur under specific conditions, i.e. when employees experience low voice.
Keywords Voice, Social influence, Job satisfaction, Perceived organizational support,
Organizational citizenship behaviours, Employee-employer relationships
Paper type Research paper
Perceived organizational support (POS) is defined as employeesperceptions of the extent
to which their organization cares about their well-being and values their contributions
(Eisenberger et al., 1986, p. 501). Since its emergence in the literature, a huge body of
research has been devoted to its study. On the contrary, studies on its consequences have
accumulated evidence showing that a high POS is predictive of outcomes beneficial for
both the employee and the organization (e.g. an increasing job satisfaction and
performance) (Kurtessis et al., 2017). However, research on its predictors has indicated that
the receipt of favorable treatment by organizational members (e.g. supervisors),
contextual indicators of the employeeorganization relationship quality (e.g. procedural
justice), and HR practices and job conditions (e.g. job security) are important determinants
in its formation (Kurtessis et al., 2017).
To date, most POS studies have adopted an approach in which it is examined how
people personally perceive to be more or less supported by their organization based on
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 42 No. 1, 2020
pp. 107-124
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-05-2018-0137
Received 18 May 2018
Revised 5 May 2019
Accepted 3 June 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
107
Perceived
organizational
support
their own work experiences. In this way, most POS research studies have focused on
employeesindividual relationship wi th the organization and its agents. Researchers have
indeed neglected an important source of information in the formation of employeesPOS,
i.e. the social environment. Yet, Salancik and Pfeffer (1978) noted that employeesattitudes
and beliefs regarding their job are influenced by social information processing of the
expressed attitudes and behaviors of fellow employees. In line with this view, we argue in
this study that employeesPOS is also a socially constructed concept, i.e. it is influenced
by information that employees acquire from their direct coworkers. Through coworkers
POS, the social environment would provide cues that the focal employee uses to form
his/her own views regarding the organizations valuation of him/herself. Accordingly, our
first goal in this paper is to examine whether coworkersPOS influences the focal
employeesPOS, which, furthermore, should serve to evaluate his/her job satisfaction and
to accordingly display organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB).
By pursuing this first objective, our approach in the present research is in line with the
two studies which constitute exceptions to the main stream literature on POS, namely
Zagenczyk et al.s (2010), and, more recently, Vardaman et al.s (2016) work. Our research
shares with these studies the view that considering the social context is useful for
understanding how POS shapes and impacts employeesattitudes and behaviors. More
precisely, the central theoretical claim of this study is aligned with Zagenczyk et al.s (2010)
work as we proposed that, by sharing their perceptions of organizational support among
colleagues, a sort of social contagion effect takes place in the formation of a focal employees
POS. However, we tested this contagion effect by examining whether the focal employees
POS is associated with the POS of his/her direct coworkers, i.e. the people pertaining to
the same workgroup. The social referent considered here is, thus, the people with whom the
focal employees must interact because they are by default part of his/her work environment
without him/her having to say anything on the matter. On this point, our approach is more
in line with Vardaman et al.s (2016) work who were interested in the effects of social
comparison in the formation of POS within the focal employees workgroup. On the contrary,
it differs from that of Zagenczyk et al. (2010) who focused on the similarity between
perceptions of support among the focal employee and either people the focal employee has
chosen to listen to (people who give him/her advices) or monitor the opinion (people who
occupied similar positions in organizational networks).
The second goal of this paper completely departs our research from what has been done
previously and is, therefore, an important originality and contribution of our research. We
indeed go beyond what prior studies have done (i.e. Zagenczyk et al., 2010) by getting a
better understanding of the social contagion effect. More precisely, we aimed to identify
conditions under which coworkersPOS may have more influence or, on the contrary, less or
even no influence on the focal employees POS. In particular, we propose that social
information should have more influence when the employee directly experiences low
procedural justice, especially voice, in the workplace. Because low voice entails uncertainty
and makes the employees feel like a non-valued organizational member, he/she would rely
on othersjudgments to a greater extent to build his/her own perceptions. Figure 1 provides
with an overview of our conceptual model. The specific assumptions examined in our
research are developed below.
Organizational support theory and social information processing
When proposingPOS as a new construct, Eisenbergeret al. (1986) applied the socialexchange
theory and the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) to the employeremployee relationship.
Organizationalsupport theory indeedsuggests that the employeeorganization relationshipis
fostered through the trade of mutual positive benefits between employees and their
organizations.Employees trade their efforts and dedication to their organizations for tangible
108
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