Perceived Organizational Support and Employee Outcomes

Perceived organisational support (POS) refers to employees’ beliefs that their organisation values their contributions and cares for their well-being. Grounded in social exchange theory, POS shapes a wide array of employee outcomes, including job satisfaction, affective organisational commitment, organisational citizenship behaviour, work engagement and innovative performance. When employees sense strong support, they reciprocate with heightened motivation, discretionary effort and loyalty. Conversely, low support can erode trust, elevate stress and precipitate burnout or turnover intention. Research has demonstrated that POS operates through mediating processes such as self-efficacy and psychological empowerment, and can be moderated by individual factors (for example, proactive personality) and contextual factors (for example, cultural norms or leadership style). Globally, organisations leverage POS to improve retention, foster innovation and enhance service quality, with practical applications ranging from supervisor training to the design of inclusive reward systems.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have explored how POS influences knowledge transfer and innovation across cultural contexts. Work conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan and mainland China adopted a two-wave survey to examine links among POS, self-efficacy, knowledge transfer and innovative behaviour in information service firms. Findings reveal that strong organisational support bolsters employee self-efficacy, which in turn drives innovative behaviour in both regions. Notably, POS promoted knowledge transfer in Taiwan but not in mainland China, highlighting the role of local knowledge-sharing norms. The study underscores the importance of culturally sensitive support strategies to sustain innovation and suggests that managers invest in practices that build employee confidence and facilitate collaborative knowledge exchange, particularly under crisis conditions.

Perceived Organizational Support and Employee Outcomes publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in perceived organizational support and employee outcomes across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Perceived organisational support (POS): Employees’ belief that their organisation values their contributions and cares about their welfare.

Affective organisational commitment: The emotional attachment and identification an employee feels toward their organisation.

Self-efficacy: An individual’s belief in their capacity to execute behaviours necessary to produce specific performance attainments.

Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB): Voluntary, discretionary actions by employees that go beyond formal job requirements to benefit the organisation.

Work engagement: A positive, fulfilling work-related state characterised by vigour, dedication and absorption.

Knowledge transfer: The process through which employees share, receive and apply knowledge within an organisation.

References

1. The impact of perceived organizational support on employees’ knowledge transfer and innovative behavior: comparisons between Taiwan and mainland China. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2023).
2. Perceived organizational support and job satisfaction: a moderated mediation model of proactive personality and psychological empowerment. Future Business Journal (2020).
3. The impact of corporate social responsibility directed toward employees on contextual performance in the banking sector: A serial model of perceived organizational support and affective organizational commitment. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management (2022).
4. Preconditions for nurses' perceived organizational support in healthcare: a qualitative explorative study. Journal of Health Organization and Management (2021).
5. Effects of Organizational Support and Organizational Justice on Police Officers’ Work Engagement. Frontiers in Psychology (2021).