Influencing employees' generalization of support and commitment from supervisor to organization

This research explored the extent to which employees perceive supervisors as representing the organization in their words and deeds (supervisor's organizational embodiment: SOE) and how the strength of this belief affects employees' perceptions of support, affective commitment, and positive organizational behaviors. It was hypothesized that employees would generalize perceptions of support and affective commitment from supervisors with high SOE into beliefs regarding support from and commitment to the organization that would then influence several pro-organizational employee behaviors.; A series of three sets of hypotheses were employed to explore the possible influence of SOE on employees' relationships with the organization. In order to better understand the factors that contribute to employee beliefs regarding SOE, the first set of hypotheses tested a variety of possible antecedents to SOE. This model included supervisor' informal status, formal status, and value congruence with the organization, as well as measures reported by supervisors such as a supervisor's perceived organizational support. The second set of hypotheses tested a model of moderated mediation where perceived organizational support was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between perceived supervisor support and employee behaviors, especially when SOE was high. The third set of hypotheses tested a similar moderated mediation model where affective organizational commitment was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between affective supervisor commitment and employee behaviors, especially when SOE was high.; All studies were performed by collecting survey data from employees and their supervisors. Two separate samples were used, the first made up of employed university alumni working in a variety of organizations, and the second from a single, large social services organization. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the models proposed in the three sets of hypotheses.; Results of the antecedent model suggest that the perceived organizational support of the supervisor is strongly related to the supervisor's informal status and value congruence with the organization, both of which are positively related to SOE. SOE was found to moderate both the relationship between perceived supervisor support and perceived organizational support (both samples), and the relationship between affective commitment to the supervisor and the organization (organizational sample only). Neither sample found support for the hypotheses regarding moderated mediation.; SOE appears to be a useful tool in indicating how the actions of some supervisors can be interpreted as highly organizationally representative while the same action by other supervisors is not. The identification of supervisors with the organization appears to strengthen employee generalization of supervisory actions into organizational actions.