Three studies investigated the relationships among employees' perception of supervisor support (PSS), perceived organizational support (POS), and employee turnover. Study 1 found, with 314 employees drawn from a variety of organizations, that PSS was positively related to temporal change in POS, suggesting that PSS leads to POS. Study 2 established, with 300 retail sales employees, that the PSS-POS relationship increased with perceived supervisor status in the organization. Study 3 found, with 493 retail sales employees, evidence consistent with the view that POS completely mediated a negative relationship between PSS and employee turnover. These studies suggest that supervisors, to the extent that they are identified with the organization, contribute to POS and, ultimately, to job retention.
25E mployers would naturally prefer to have employees carry out their job responsibilities earnestly. Employers who take the human capital view believe that the great majority of employees have the potential to contribute to the organization's success and that the organization should help employees realize their potential. Employers who take the marginal capital position hold that most employees are, at best, a limited, short-term benefit to the organizationlosers who should be replaced as soon as convenient by such means as efficiencies or the hiring of others who are willing to the do the same job for less pay. But even employers taking the marginal capital view prefer a dedicated workforce, although not one deserving of more than the minimal needed resources to keep voluntary turnover at a level low enough to prevent costly disruptions in normal organizational functions.Employees, in contrast, are generally concerned with the organization's value for them. Employees believe they are recipients of enduring evaluations by the organization that influence how they are treated. As we discuss, employees' perceptions of positive valuation of the organization are welcomed because they fulfill socioemotional needs (e.g., approval, esteem, affiliation, emotional support), indicate the organization's readiness to provide future resources to help
In order to account for wide variation in the relationship between leader-member exchange and employees' affective organizational commitment, we propose a concept termed supervisor's organizational embodiment (SOE), which involves the extent to which employees identify their supervisor with the organization. With samples of 251 social service employees in the United States (Study 1) and 346 employees in multiple Portuguese organizations (Study 2), we found that as SOE increased, the association between leader-member exchange and affective organizational commitment became greater. This interaction carried through to in-role and extra-role performance. With regard to antecedents, we found in Study 1 that supervisor's self-reported identification with the organization increased supervisor's expression of positive statements about the organization, which in turn increased subordinates' SOE.
SummaryThe main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived support and affective commitment, and the linkages between these constructs and some of their common antecedents and consequences. More precisely, using a sample of 238 employees, we conducted a longitudinal study to examine the linkages between the favorableness of intrinsically and extrinsically satisfying job conditions, perceived organizational support, perceived supervisor support, affective commitment to the organization and supervisor, and turnover. Affective commitment to the supervisor was found to completely mediate the effect of perceived supervisor support on turnover, whereas neither perceived organizational support nor organizational affective commitment were significantly related to turnover. Perceived organizational support partially mediated the effect of favorable intrinsically satisfying job conditions on organizational affective commitment and fully mediated the effect of extrinsically satisfying job conditions on organizational affective commitment. Finally, perceived supervisor support totally mediated the effect of favorable intrinsically satisfying job conditions on affective commitment to the supervisor. As a whole, findings suggest that exchange relationships between employees and their supervisors should be further investigated in future turnover research.
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