APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY LABORATORY East Tennessee State University etsu/apl/

1. Analysis Of Perceived Organizational Support In College Students: Are There Differences Between Job Categories? APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY LABORATORY East Tennessee State University http://www.etsu.edu/apl/ Johnson City, Tennessee Wesley D. Ramey, Spencer L. Oatts & Chris S. Dula, Ph.D. INTRODUCTION RESULTS DISCUSSION : • There was a statistically significant difference observed between health and social services job types, retail/sales job types and restaurant job types in levels of perceived organizational support. • This may be a product of employees’ perceived organizational support toward their companies or the product of an extraneous variable. • Employees within health and social service jobs had the highest levels of perceived organizational support whereas employees within retail/sales and restaurant industries had low levels of perceived organizational support. • This may be due to an employees commitment to the company or an employees level of job satisfaction. • The current study follows prior findings indicating job type and employee positions within the organizational hierarchy effect their overall perceived organizational support (Riggle, Edmondson, & Hansen, 2008). Data were subjected to a one-way ANOVA (Table 1). Tukey HSD post hoc test (multiple comparisons) indicated a significant effect between retail job types and health and social service job types and restaurant job types and health and social service job types between total scores of perceived organizational support (Table 2). • Perceived organizational support (POS) refers to employees’ beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa, 1986). • There are five outcome variables that are affected by POS: organizational commitment, job satisfaction, performance, contextual performance, and intention to leave (Riggle, Edmondson, & Hansen, 2008). • Organizations are investing significant resources to POS programs, but without empirical evidence there is not anyway to tell how effective these programs are with maintaining organizational commitment. • Organizations perceived higher in organizational support tended to have employees that were more satisfied not only with their job, but also more committed to the organization (Riggle, Edmondson, & Hansen, 2008). It was also found if employees perceived the organization to be high in support provided; employees would be significantly less likely to leave the organization. • The effects of POS were significantly less pronounced across all outcome variables except contextual performance for employees who worked on the frontlines for an organization (Riggle, Edmondson, & Hansen, 2008). • Performance of the POS programs are influenced by the type of job employees hold, as well as distance from upper management (Riggle, Edmondson, & Hansen, 2008). • This study sought to observe if there was a difference in levels of perceived organizational support between job types: Restaurant, retail, health/social services, office, and manual labor. Table 1. Differences Between POS for Restaurant vs. Other Jobs Table 2. Multiple Comparison of Perceived Organizational Support LIMITATIONS • Participants were all college students at a University in the Southeastern United States. A more diverse sample may produce better generalizability of results. IMPLICATIONS & FUTURE DIRECTIONS • Future research should examine job commitment along with perceived organizational support. This would allow us to examine if employees who are highly committed to their organization also have high perceived organizational support towards their organization. HYPOTHESIS REFERENCES • It was hypothesized there would be a significant difference between scores of total perceived organizational support between restaurant job types and other job types. Allan, C., Bamber, G. J., & Timo, N. (2005). McJobs; students attitudes to work and employment relations in the fast-food industry. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 12, 1-11. Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., & Sowa, D. (1986). Perceived Organizational Support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 500-507. Eisenberger, R. , Fasolo, P. , & Davis-LaMastro, V. (1990). Perceived Organizational Support and Employee Diligence, Commitment, and Innovation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 51-59. Riggle, R., Edmondson, D., & Hansen, J. (2009). A meta-analysis of the relationship between perceived organizational support and job outcomes: 20 years of research. Journal of Business Research, 62(10), 1027-1030. . METHOD • Participants : Participants undergraduate students (N=96). # were females (#); # were males (#); and one participant did not answer. The average age of participants was 23.71 (SD=#), ranging from 18 to 65. • Measures: Scale of Perceived Organizational Support (POS α= .97, Eisenberger et al, 1986). A short survey of demographic and job information. • Method: Data was collected using SONA systems, an online participant pool. Participants were granted a modest amount of extra credit for their participation. CONTACT: Wesley D. Ramey zwdr5@goldmail.etsu.edu or Chris S. Dula, dulac@etsu.edu