The effects of perceived organizational support and social comparison on work attitudes

Abstract

This study is based on the results of a survey research conducted by JobStreet Indonesia on its members, which has surprisingly found that more than 70% of employees lack clarity on the goals of their career. Drawing from the social exchange theory, employees tend to show positive work attitudes when they perceive that their organization paid attention to them. The objective of this study is to assess how significant the influence of Perceived Organizational Support (POS) is on career satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. Besides organizational perspective, as stated by the social comparison theory, the way individuals perform both upward and downward comparisons could be expected to affect career satisfaction. Also, this research uses career commitment as a moderator variable that can strengthen or weaken the influence among variables, which is the employee’s commitment towards their organization and competitiveness within their respective work group. The research has found some interesting results. It was shown that there is no significant relationship between POS and career satisfaction, career satisfaction and turnover intention, organizational support and turnover intention, and both upward and downward social comparison and turnover intention. The moderating effects of career commitment were not proven. In comparison, all of the moderating effects of a competitive work group were proven together with the relationship between upward social comparison and turnover intention.

Keywords

• career satisfaction
• organizational commitment
• social exchange theory
• turnover intention