We examine the relative efficacy of two theoretically distinct variables for predicting job satisfaction and turnover intentions for workers in nonprofit organizations. The first, perceived job characteristics, reflects the structure of jobs in terms of autonomy, skill variety, task identity, task significance, and feedback. The second, perceived organizational support, reflects the quality of the employee–organization relationship. We collected data from 196 full-time, nonprofit employees across two time periods, and we tested hypotheses using hierarchical regression and relative importance analysis. Results emphasize the significance of managing employees in a supportive manner and structuring jobs so that employees can work autonomously.

Using a social exchange perspective and responding to prior calls to separate resources exchanged from the relationship between parties, we develop a relationship typology based on rights and responsibilities arguments. We begin with the idea that various levels and types of rights and responsibilities are the exchange currency utilized by the employer and employee, respectively. Further, the degree to which an organization grants rights to an individual and the degree to which the individual voluntarily accepts responsibilities results in four distinct organizational membership profiles (i.e., peripheral, associate, detached, and full). We believe this membership typology is an important theoretical mechanism that may be used to link the exchange between the employee and employer (as represented by psychological contracts) to psychological attachment (as represented by perceived membership) between these two parties. Specifically, members in each profile will tend to have certain kinds of psychological attachments to the organization, causing them to (i) perceive membership in certain ways and (ii) behave in a manner consistent with that perception. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the propositions for both researchers and practitioners, as well as making suggestions for future research efforts.

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In order to clarify the roles of relational ties within the perceived organizational membership theoretical framework, we test the discriminant validity and concurrent predictive validity of perceived insider status, psychological ownership, and organizational identification. Hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical multiple regression for a sample of 347 workers across two industry segments. Results indicate that the constructs of interest each explain unique variance. Perceived insider status and psychological ownership were significant predictors of job satisfaction and turnover intentions, whereas organizational identification was only found to predict job satisfaction. Post hoc analyses indicate that relationship between organizational identification and turnover intentions is fully mediated by perceived insiders status and psychological ownership.