A Construct Validity Study of the Survey of Perceived ... - CiteSeerX

Journal of Applied Psychology 1991, Vol. 76, No. 5,637-643

Copyright 1991 by the American Psychological Association. Inc. 0021-9010/91/S3.00

A Construct Validity Study of the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support Lynn McFarlane Shore

Lois E. Tetrick

Department of Management and W T. Beebe Institute of Personnel and Employment Relations Georgia State University

Wayne State University

Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, and Sowa (1986) recently conducted a study focused on a measure of perceived employer commitment that they called the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS). In the present study, confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the dimensionality of the SPOS and to determine the distinctiveness of this construct from other similar constructs. Participants were 330 employees in a large corporation headquartered in the southeastern United States. The results support the SPOS as a unidimensional scale that is distinguishable from affective and continuance commitment. However, the data raise some question as to the empirical distinction between the SPOS and satisfaction.

A great deal of research has been conducted on the concept of organizational commitment (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Many other commitment concepts have been proposed and researched as well (Morrow, 1983), such as job involvement (Lodahl & Kejner, 1965; Kanungo, 1979), career salience (Greenhaus, 1971), union commitment (Gordon, Philpot, Burt, Thompson, & Spiller, 1980), and occupational commitment (Vandenberg & Scarpello, 1988). Each of these attitudes focuses on the individual's attachment to a particular aspect of the work situation, such as a job, union, or organization. What has been less thoroughly studied are employee perceptions of employer commitment to the individual (i.e., perceived organizational support). Recently, Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, and Sowa (1986) suggested that perceived organizational support is an antecedent of organizational commitment and offered a measure of perceived employer commitment, which they called the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS). They used a social exchange view to explain the relationship between these two forms of commitment. Essentially, this view suggests that an employee's inferences about the organization's commitment to him or her contributes to the employee's subsequent commitment to the organization. Eisenberger et al.'s (1986) results strongly supported this social exchange perspective of the commitment process. The notion that an employee's commitment to the organization develops as a result of an exchange relationship is not new in the commitment literature (Gouldner, 1960; Scholl, 1981). According to Etzioni (1961), employees become attached to an organization because they see a beneficial or equitable exchange relationship between their contributions to the organization and the rewards they receive for service. Consistent with

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lynn M. Shore, Department of Management, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 4014, Atlanta, Georgia 30302-4014. 637

this perspective is Becker's (1960) notion of side bets: investments in the organization serve to bind the employee to the organization. Thus, attachment to an organization is seen as a state that can arise not necessarily through some crucial act on the part of the employee but rather through the accumulation of a series of relatively small side bets. Kanter (1968) also suggested that investment was an important mechanism for producing member continuance. To the extent that such investments are seen as irreversible, they provide employees with a personal stake in the fate of the organization, as well as making leaving costly. The social-exchange literature hence suggests that organizational commitment reflects employees' perceptions about the nature of the relationship that exists between themselves and the employing organization. However, this perspective appears to be very similar to the construct of perceived organizational support. According to Eisenberger et al. (1986), "employees develop global beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being" (p. 501). Whereas measures of organizational commitment tend to focus on employees' attitudes toward the organization (e.g., "I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to my organization"), the SPOS focuses on the employees' perceptions of the organization's attitude toward them (e.g., "The organization fails to appreciate any extra effort from me"). In fact, research shows that perceived organizational support is significantly associated with organizational commitment (Eisenberger et al., 1986) and affective and calculative attachment to the organization (Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davis-LaMastro, 1990). Given the conceptual similarity between organizational commitment and perceived organizational support, it is critical to investigate the distinctiveness of measures of these constructs. Another conceptual issue pertaining to the SPOS is whether employees have developed perceptions of organizational support that are distinct from their satisfaction with various aspects of their work experience. Much research has explored the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational

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commitment (e.g., Farkas & Tetrick, 1989; Vandenberg & Lance, in press). Porter, Steers, Mowday, and Boulian (1974) argued that the two constructs are distinct because commitment represents a global reaction to the organization as a whole whereas satisfaction is an affective reaction to various facets of the work situation. Furthermore, there is empirical evidence that satisfaction and commitment are distinct (Brooke, Russell, & Price, 1988). Like organizational commitment, perceived organizational support represents an attitudinal response to the organization as a whole. It could therefore be argued that this new construct should also be distinct from satisfaction. In addition, because organizational commitment is correlated with both perceived organizational support (Eisenberger et al., 1986) and job satisfaction (e.g., Farkas & Tetrick, 1989), it could also be logically inferred that perceived organizational support and satisfaction should be related. However, because of a lack of empirical evidence, the extent to which the individual really distinguishes satisfaction from perceived organizational support and the nature of the relationship between these two constructs is unclear. Thus, a comparison of the SPOS with work satisfaction would assess the degree of independence that perceived organizational support has from satisfaction with a number of facets of work, such as the supervisor, co-workers, pay, opportunities for growth, job security, the job itself, and the organization. Although initial research on the psychometric properties of the SPOS appears promising (e.g., Eisenberger et al., 1986; Kottke & Sharafinski, 1988), little evidence has accrued about the construct that underlies this scale. In particular, there has been no systematic study of the distinctiveness and redundancy of the SPOS in relation to other similar constructs, which is one means of establishing the construct validity of a scale (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955). Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the construct validity of the SPOS by using confirmatory factor analysis techniques. The SPOS was compared with the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ; Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979) and the Affective Commitment Scale (ACS) and Continuance Commitment Scale (CCS; Meyer & Allen, 1984). In addition, the SPOS was compared with the Specific Satisfactions Scale from the Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham, 1975) and the Overall Job Satisfaction Scale (Seashore, Lawler, Mirvis, & Cammann, 1982) because much controversy exists in the literature on the nature of the relationship between satisfaction and commitment (Farkas & Tetrick, 1989; Scholl, 1981).

Method

Sample Participants were 330 employees holding a variety of job positions (e.g., mechanics, secretaries, and supervisors) in a large multinational firm headquartered in the southeastern United States. There were 272 male and 58 female employees, and the average age of the employees was 47.39 years. Average organizational tenure for participants was 22.48 years.

Data Collection Procedures and Measures The present research was part of a larger organizational survey with several purposes. A stratified random sample (by age and tenure) of 1,071 employees were contacted by mail and asked to participate in a longitudinal study of employee attitudes. Three hundred and eight of those contacted were newly hired and were not included in the present study. Of the remaining employees who agreed to participate (N = 348), 95% (7V= 330) returned their surveys. Thus, 43% of the employees who were asked to participate in the present study (N= 763) actually did so. The survey consisted of a series of questions on employee work attitudes, ratings of job performance, employee development experiences, and demographic information. Only measures used in the present study are described. These included the SPOS (Eisenberger et al., 1986); the short form of the OCQ (Mowday et al., 1979); the ACS and CCS (Meyer & Allen, 1984); the Specific Satisfactions Scale, which includes measures of satisfaction with security, pay, growth, coworkers, and supervision (Hackman & Oldham, 1975); the Overall Job Satisfaction Scale (Seashore et al., 1982); and a single item asking respondents how satisfied they were with the organization. Attitude measures on the employee survey utilized 5-point scales and were scored such that higher values reflected a higher degree of support, commitment, or satisfaction. For the Specific Satisfactions Scale, anchors ranged from very dissatisfied (1) to very satisfied (5), and for the other attitude measures the anchors ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Items were grouped by scale in the questionnaire (i.e., they were not randomly intermixed).

Analysis Data were analyzed in a two-step process. First, using LISREL-PC, Version 7 (Jbreskog & Sorbom, 1988), we assessed the covariance matrix of the items for each measure against a one-factor model to determine whether the scale was unidimensional. Then, four manifest indicators of each commitment construct, represented by the scales, were formed to test the distinctiveness of perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, affective commitment, continuance commitment, and satisfaction. This procedure was elected to avoid the use of item-level factor analysis as well as to enhance the subject-to-degrees-of-freedom ratio for testing the relations of interest (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The indices of fit provided by LISREL-PC that were used to assess the goodness of fit of the models estimated were the ratio of chi-square to degrees of freedom, the goodness-of-fit index (GFI), the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI), and the root-mean-square residual (rmsr). In addition, the normed fit index (NFI; Bentler& Bonett, 1980) and the parsimonious fit index (PFI; Mulaik et al., 1989) were used on the basis of a null model of complete independence. Although Bentler and Bonett suggested that a NFI of .90 or greater signifies that the model estimated has accounted for the sample covariance matrix, Tanaka (1987) reported that this may be overly severe. Therefore, for this study, a criterion of .80 for the NFI in conjunction with the PFI was used to assess the adequacy of fit for the models estimated.

Results Prior to examining the relations among the SPOS, OCQ, ACS, CCS, and satisfaction, we submitted each scale to confirmatory factor analysis to establish its unidimensionality (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The results of these confirmatory factor analyses are shown in Table 1 along with the means, standard deviations, and coefficient alpha estimates of internal consistency. A single-factor model was found to adequately ac-

SURVEY OF PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT

639

Table 1 Results of Tests ofUnidimensionality for the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS), Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ), Affective Commitment Scale (ACS), Continuance Commitment Scale (CCS), and Satisfaction Fit indices Scale SPOS OCQ ACS CCS Satisfaction Facets of satisfaction Security Pay Growth Co-workers Supervision Job Organization

No. of items

M

SD

a

x2

df

on

AGFI

rmsr

NFI

PFI

9 8 8 18

3.44 4.06 3.96 3.47 4.04

0.72 0.61 0.78 0.76 0.64

.95 .88 .90 .83 .92

364.68 119.10 158.76 119.21 1,163.48 320.56

119 27 20 20 135 122

.874 .927 .873 .906 .702 .899

.838 .878 .722 .831 .622 .859

.037 .028 .057 .091 .102 .045

.906 .917 .887 .870 .663 .907

.791 .688 .633 .621 .585 .723

2 2 4 3 3 3 1

4.58 4.02 3.87 4.13 3.76 4.16 3.95

0.64 0.98 0.91 0.67 1.06 0.72 0.89

.56 .88 .87 .68 .90 .82 —

17

Note. All chi-square values were significant, p < .001. GFI = goodness-of-fit index; AGFI = adjusted goodness-of-fit index; rmsr = root-mean-square residual; NFI = normed fit index; PFI = parsimonious fit index.

count for the covariance matrices among the SPOS, OCQ, ACS, and CCS items (NFI = .906, .917, .887, and .870, respectively). Therefore, having obtained evidence of the unidimensionality of these scales, we followed Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) recommendation against using single items as indicators by forming composites of the items within each scale to serve as indicators of perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, affective commitment, and continuance commitment. That is, each item from a given scale was randomly assigned to one of four composites, which served as an indicator of that respective construct. The means and standard deviations of the resulting indicators for each construct are shown in Table 2. The single-factor model for the 14 items of the Specific Satisfactions Scale plus the 3 items of the Overall Job Satisfaction Scale and the Organizational Satisfaction item did not adequately account for the covariance matrix (NFI = .663). Subsequently, a seven-factor model was estimated, which did receive support (NFI = .907). Therefore, the data indicated that each facet of satisfaction should be treated as a separate variable. However, because there were, at most, only 4 items to measure a specific satisfaction, a single composite indicator for each facet of satisfaction was formed as shown in Table 2. Thus, the covariance matrix among the 23 manifest indicators (4 manifest indicators each for SPOS, OCQ, ACS, and CCS plus the 7 manifest indicators of satisfaction with security, pay, growth, co-workers, supervision, job, and organization) was computed and submitted to further analyses. Examination of the correlation matrix among the manifest indicators (see Table 2) reveals that the indicators of a given construct were generally more strongly correlated with each other than with the indicators of the other constructs. However, there were moderate to strong correlations among all of the indicators of perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, affective commitment, and satisfaction. Only the

indicators of continuance commitment appeared to be independent of the other variables. On the basis of this pattern of correlations, a two-factor model was estimated in which the indicators of the SPOS, OCQ, ACS, and satisfaction scales loaded on one factor and the indicators of the CCS loaded on a second factor. This model did not attain adequate fit, x2(229) = 1420.22 (GFI = .627, AGFI = .551, rmsr = .036, NFI = .765, PFI = .693), signifying that perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, affective commitment, and satisfaction were differentiable, at least in part. Next, an 11 -factor model was estimated in which the underlying, correlated dimensions were perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, affective commitment, continuance commitment, and seven specific facets of satisfaction (security, pay, growth, co-workers, supervision, job, and organization). On the basis of the overall fit indices (NFI = .940, PFI = .702) and the difference in the chi-square, Ax2(40) = 1,054.39, p < .001, this model represented substantial improvement in fit over the two-factor model. The standardized factor loadings were all above .60 but are not reported here to conserve space. Examination of the factor correlations presented in Table 3 indicated that the OCQ and the ACS were strongly correlated with each other (r = .89). This is consistent with prior research, which has suggested that the OCQ and the ACS both measure affective commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1984). Furthermore, the SPOS was strongly correlated with both of these measures of commitment (r= .71 and .70, respectively). When the correlations with the specific facets of satisfaction differed for the SPOS, OCQ, or ACS, the SPOS appeared to be more strongly correlated (i.e., satisfaction with supervision correlated .65 with SPOS and only .44 and .45 for the OCQ and ACS, respectively). One exception was that the OCQ was correlated .71 with overall job satisfaction whereas the SPOS correlated only .61 with overall job satisfaction. This pattern of correlations raises questions

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LYNN McFARLANE SHORE AND LOIS E. TETRICK

Table 2 Zero-Order Correlations Among Manifest Indicators of the Survey of Perceived Organizational Scale (ACS), Continuance Commitment Scale (CCS), and Specific Satisfactions (Security, Pay, Indicator

M

SD

1

2

3

1. SPOS1 2. SPOS2 3. SPOS3 4. SPOS4 5. OCQ1 6. OCQ2 7. OCQ3 8. OCQ4 9. ACS1 10. ACS2 11. ACS3 12. ACS4 13. CCS1 14. CCS2 15. CCS3 16. CCS4 17. Security 18. Pay 19. Growth 20. Co-workers 21. Supervision 22. Job 23. Organization

3.40 3.50 3.49 3.36 4.19 4.42 3.48 4.11 4.21 4.10 3.86 3.67 3.54 3.64 3.29 3.40 4.58 4.02 3.87 4.13 3.76 4.16 3.95

0.75 0.82 0.75 0.79 0.64 0.53 0.90 0.66 0.79 0.86 0.95 0.93 0.94 0.93 0.87 0.91 0.64 0.98 0.91 0.67 1.06 0.75 0.89

.81* .85* .87* .55* .49* .67* .61* .62* .54* .51* .55* -.08 -.05 -.06 -.01 .47* .43* .64* .58* .63* .55* .66*

— .80* .83* .55* .53* .59* .58* .61* .57* .54* .59* -.13 -.12 -.08 -.06 .47* .40* .56* .48* .53* .56* .63*

.85* .49* .44* .57* .55* .59* .50* .47* .53* -.10 -.06 -.08 -.01 .48* .37* .61* .54* .60* .55* .60*

4

5

— .56* — .52* .79* .65* .67* .61* .75* .63* .68* .56* .71* .54* .69* .58* .62* -.08 -.04 -.05 -.06 -.05 .02 -.02 -.02 .49* .40* .42* .34* .65* .58* .57* .42* .61* .35* .58* .65* .63* .60*

6

7

— .58* — .68* .62* .63* .58* .69* .56* .64* .58* .59* .57* -.10 -.01 .04 -.08 -.01 .08 -.08 .10 .30* .44* .25* .42* .50* .57* .44* .44* .31* .46* .58* .58* .49* .61*

8

9

— .67* — .68* .78* .67* .68* .62* .69* -.08 -.06 -.05 .01 -.05 .03 -.09 -.01 .44* .42* .41* .30* .55* .59* .47* .48* .41* .44* .57* .63* .56* .61*

* p