Perceived Organizational Support scale

1. Abstract

The Perceived Organizational Support (POS) scale, originally conceptualized and validated by Robert Eisenberger, Robin Huntington, Steven Hutchison, and Deborah Sowa in 1986, is one of the most prominent psychometric instruments in industrial and organizational psychology. The instrument operationalizes an employee’s global belief regarding the degree to which their employing organization values their active contributions and genuinely cares about their personal well-being. Built upon the theoretical foundations of social exchange theory and the universal norm of reciprocity, the scale captures the socioemotional exchange relationship established between the individual worker and the personified employing organization. While the original survey inventory consisted of 36 items, standard psychometric practice has converged on highly robust shortened iterations, notably the 17-item scale, an 8-item brief scale, and a 9-item derivative that capture the core latent construct without loss of psychometric integrity.

The instrument is administered using a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”). Extensive empirical research across thousands of diverse occupational sectors, cultural contexts, and organizational types has demonstrated that the scale exhibits exceptional psychometric properties. Internal consistency reliability estimates consistently yield Cronbach’s alpha values ranging between .74 and .95 across independent samples. Factor analytic investigations have repeatedly substantiated a dominant unidimensional structure, indicating that employees treat supportive organizational actions, fair treatment, supervisor support, and favorable job conditions as indicators of a unitary underlying construct of perceived support. Furthermore, POS has demonstrated rigorous construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. It positively predicts vital work-related attitudes and behaviors—such as job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, extra-role organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and objective job performance—while negatively predicting adverse organizational outcomes such as turnover intentions, absenteeism, stress, and burnout.

2. Keywords

Perceived Organizational Support, POS, Social Exchange Theory, Norm of Reciprocity, Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, Employee Well-being, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Organizational Support Theory, Psychometrics

3. Authors

The Perceived Organizational Support scale was conceptualized, designed, and psychometrically validated by a seminal team of researchers affiliated with the Department of Psychology at the University of Delaware:

• Robert Eisenberger, Ph.D.: Principal investigator and lead author. Currently Professor of Psychology at the University of Houston and Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware. Dr. Eisenberger is the preeminent pioneer of Organizational Support Theory (OST) and has authored landmark studies on motivation, reward systems, and social exchange dynamics in work settings.
• Robin Huntington, Ph.D.: Co-author and organizational researcher, who contributed substantially to the initial scale construction, item development, and empirical field studies published in 1986.
• Steven Hutchison, Ph.D.: Co-author, industrial-organizational psychologist, and human resource systems analyst whose research focused on employee attitudes, psychometric measurement, and institutional commitment structures.
• Deborah Sowa, Ph.D.: Co-author and applied psychologist who collaborated on the psychometric evaluation, factor analytic validations, and sample collection across diverse occupational populations for the foundational 1986 validation study.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Perceived Organizational Support scale is to quantify, assess, and understand the subjective psychological perceptions that employees hold regarding their organization’s commitment to them. Before Eisenberger and colleagues introduced the scale in 1986, organizational scholarship had focused predominantly on employee commitment to the organization (e.g., Mowday, Steers, & Porter’s organizational commitment framework). Eisenberger et al. inverted this conceptual paradigm by examining the reciprocal dynamic: the extent to which employees perceive that the organization is reciprocally committed to them. The instrument measures an employee’s generalized cognitive and affective appraisal that the employing organization values their hard work, values their individual contributions to collective goals, and genuinely prioritizes their personal welfare, safety, and psychological well-being.

In academic research, the POS scale serves as a foundational operational instrument to examine employee-organization relationship dynamics, tests of social exchange theory, and models of psychological contract fulfillment. Researchers deploy the instrument to investigate the complex mediating and moderating mechanisms that link human resource practices, leadership styles, structural workplace features, and organizational justice to individual performance and emotional states. The scale provides empirical clarity regarding why and under what psychological conditions favorable organizational treatments translate into positive cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes.

In applied organizational diagnostics and clinical/workplace well-being consulting, the POS scale acts as an actionable assessment tool for organizational development, climate evaluation, and occupational health monitoring. Organizations routinely implement the scale within engagement surveys and human capital audits to diagnose structural deficits in managerial support, corporate culture, reward allocation, and procedural fairness. Low POS scores signal institutional vulnerability, warning leaders of looming employee disengagement, elevated absenteeism, demoralization, emotional exhaustion, and voluntary turnover. Conversely, elevated POS scores identify strong psychological contracts and protective cultural factors that buffer employees against workplace stressors, facilitate organizational agility, and foster innovative work behaviors.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the Perceived Organizational Support scale is defined as the global, generalized belief held by an employee regarding the extent to which their organization values their active contribution and cares about their personal well-being. Perceived Organizational Support is not merely an inventory of concrete, objective workplace policies (such as specific dental coverage or explicit vacation day allocations); rather, it represents a cognitive schema and subjective psychological reality derived through an ongoing appraisal of the organization’s underlying motives, benevolent intent, and moral character.

Personification of the Employing Organization

A central pillar of the POS construct is organizational personification. In the cognitive architecture of the employee, the formal employing collective—despite being a legal abstraction or structural entity—is endowed with humanlike moral agency, intentionality, and emotional qualities. Employees personify their organization because the organization establishes overarching policies, legal responsibilities, standard operating procedures, and authoritative chains of command. The organization acts through its managerial agents, rewarding or penalizing behavior. Consequently, an employee interprets supportive or hostile administrative decisions not as isolated managerial idiosyncrasies, but as expressions of the organization’s overarching character and attitude toward them.

Core Dimensional Facets of the Construct

Although empirically validated as a predominantly unidimensional construct, POS comprehensively incorporates two interwoven psychological facets that function synergistically:

• Valuation of Employee Contribution: This facet captures the employee’s perception that the organization actively acknowledges, notices, and values their performance, dedication, discretionary efforts, and creative problem-solving. It measures whether the worker believes that going “above and beyond” will be recognized and respected rather than taken for granted, exploited, or ignored. For instance, statements such as “The organization values my contribution to its well-being” and “The organization takes pride in my accomplishments at work” capture this dimension.
• Care for Employee Well-Being: This facet taps into the employee’s perception that the organization demonstrates genuine benevolence, empathy, and concern regarding their personal life, health, occupational stress, and general psychological comfort. It reflects the degree to which the organization will extend itself to offer assistance during personal hardships, respect individual goals, provide safe working environments, and make decisions that safeguard the worker’s best interests. This is manifested in items such as “The organization really cares about my well-being” and “The organization cares about my general satisfaction at work.”

Fulfillment of Socioemotional Needs

At a deeper psychological level, POS captures the fulfillment of fundamental socioemotional needs in the workplace context. High levels of POS fulfill an employee’s needs for esteem, approval, belonging, and emotional security. When an employee feels supported by the organization, they experience an elevated sense of organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), feeling that they are a respected, valued, and competent organizational member. This psychological climate directly reduces feelings of isolation and psychological vulnerability, transforming the workplace from an impersonal transactional environment into a supportive community.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework underpinning the Perceived Organizational Support scale is fundamentally anchored in Organizational Support Theory (OST), formulated by Robert Eisenberger and colleagues (1986), which synthesizes classical social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), the sociological norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), and attribution theory (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1973).

Social Exchange Theory and the Norm of Reciprocity

Classical social exchange theory posits that human social interaction consists of the exchange of material and non-material goods, including status, emotional recognition, and tangible resources. Alvin Gouldner’s universal norm of reciprocity asserts that individuals are morally obligated to help those who have helped them, and should avoid injuring those who have provided support. Within Organizational Support Theory, this logic is mapped onto employee-employer relations:

• When employees perceive that their organization treats them favorably, provides discretionary rewards, ensures safety, and respects their voice, they experience an internalized psychological obligation to reciprocate that goodwill.
• Because employees cannot always repay a personified organization directly in an interpersonal manner, they reciprocate through elevated attitudinal attachment (e.g., affective commitment) and proactive behavioral performance (e.g., higher job effort, increased organizational citizenship behaviors, decreased tardiness, and reduced turnover intentions).
• Conversely, if an organization is perceived as indifferent, uncaring, or predatory, employees feel relieved of their reciprocal obligations, leading to emotional detachment, minimal compliance, and eventual departure.

Attribution Theory and Discretionary Treatment

Crucial to Organizational Support Theory is the psychological attribution of organizational intentionality. According to attribution theory, people assign greater emotional and relational value to actions that they perceive as voluntary and discretionary rather than mandated by external constraints. Eisenberger et al. emphasized that favorable organizational actions do not automatically lead to high POS unless the employee attributes those actions to the organization’s free will, authentic care, and genuine respect.

For example, if an organization raises wages or implements parental leave solely because of newly enacted government legislation or aggressive union pressure, employees attribute the favorable outcome to external coercion rather than internal organizational benevolence. Under such circumstances, POS increases minimally. Conversely, if an organization provides flexibility, customized development, or unexpected aid during an individual crisis—actions that go beyond legal requirements or industry baselines—employees infer internal, benevolent motivation. These discretionary, non-mandated organizational actions serve as powerful antecedents of high POS.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Perceived Organizational Support scale has been rigorously documented across four decades of empirical investigations, including comprehensive meta-analyses (e.g., Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002; Kurtessis et al., 2017) encompassing hundreds of independent empirical samples and hundreds of thousands of working adults globally.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity has been established through exhaustive exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. In their seminal validation study, Eisenberger et al. (1986) demonstrated that all items loaded robustly onto a primary underlying dimension representing global support. Later confirmatory factor analytic studies (e.g., Wayne, Shore, & Liden, 1997; Eisenberger et al., 1997) have explicitly addressed potential construct confounding, demonstrating that POS is empirically and conceptually distinct from related organizational constructs, including:

• Leader-Member Exchange (LMX): While LMX assesses the quality of the interpersonal dyadic relationship between an employee and their immediate direct supervisor, POS measures the relationship with the overarching corporate entity. Structural equation modeling consistently shows two distinct latent factors.
• Affective Commitment: Wayne et al. (1997) confirmed that POS and affective commitment do not collapse into a single general orientation construct. POS captures the organization’s perceived commitment to the employee, whereas affective commitment represents the employee’s personal emotional attachment to the organization.
• Perceived Organizational Politics (POP): Cropanzano et al. (1997) verified that POS is strongly and negatively correlated with perceptions of organizational politics, but factorially distinct, confirming that POS captures a benevolent supportive climate rather than self-serving political maneuvers.

Convergent and Criterion-Related Validity

The convergent and criterion validity of the POS scale is exceptionally well-supported across the literature:

• Job Satisfaction: Meta-analytic correlations between POS and overall job satisfaction consistently exceed r = .60, reflecting the profound role that supportive workplace environments play in driving day-to-day work contentment.
• Affective Commitment: Extensive studies (Eisenberger et al., 1990; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002) reveal average correlations of r = .65 to .72 between POS and affective organizational commitment, demonstrating that employees who perceive organizational investment reciprocate with deep institutional loyalty.
• In-Role Performance and OCBs: POS correlates positively with supervisor-rated employee task performance (r ≈ .20 to .30) and with organizational citizenship behaviors directed toward peers and the organization (r ≈ .25 to .35) (Moorman, Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998; Lynch, Eisenberger, & Armeli, 1999).
• Strain, Stress, and Burnout: Demonstrating powerful negative associations, POS exhibits robust inverse correlations with employee emotional exhaustion (r = -.35 to -.45), role conflict, and general workplace strain (Lee & Ashforth, 1993; Cropanzano et al., 1997).
• Turnover Intentions and Withdrawal: POS reliably predicts decreased intentions to quit (r = -.45 to -.55) and objectively lower rates of voluntary turnover and unplanned absenteeism (Eisenberger et al., 1986, 1990).

8. Reliability

The Perceived Organizational Support scale demonstrates outstanding internal consistency reliability and temporal stability across a diverse spectrum of occupational disciplines, industries, and multinational samples.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the original 1986 scale validation by Eisenberger et al., the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) for the comprehensive 36-item instrument was reported at an exceptional .97. When assessing the 17-item version (and the popular shortened 8- and 9-item scales), coefficient alpha values reliably fall well above accepted psychometric thresholds, typically clustering between .88 and .95:

• Eisenberger et al. (1990) observed Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .93 to .95 across multiple employee cohorts.
• Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey, and Toth (1997) documented an internal consistency alpha of .91 across diverse administrative and operational settings.
• Wayne, Shore, and Liden (1997) observed an alpha of .93 for the 9-item high-loading version.
• Moorman, Blakely, and Niehoff (1998) reported a reliability coefficient of .93 for the abbreviated scale.
• Lynch, Eisenberger, and Armeli (1999) and Hutchinson, Valentino, and Kirkner (1998) recorded alphas between .90 and .94.

Across meta-analytic syntheses (e.g., Kurtessis et al., 2017), the mean sample-weighted alpha reliability for POS scales across several hundred studies remains approximately .91. This indicates virtually negligible random measurement error and exceptionally high item homogeneity.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability assessments have further underscored the scale’s reliability as a steady evaluative belief. In longitudinal studies evaluating employees over intervals ranging from 6 weeks to 6 months, test-retest reliability coefficients have ranged from r = .70 to .83 (Eisenberger et al., 1986, 1997). While POS is responsive to significant organizational transitions, structural mergers, leadership overhauls, or psychological contract breaches, it represents a stable evaluative baseline in steady-state workplace conditions.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent structure of the Perceived Organizational Support scale has been subjected to extensive exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across numerous empirical studies.

Exploratory Factor Analytic Foundations

In the original 1986 investigation, Eisenberger and colleagues submitted the initial item pool to principal components factor analysis with varimax and oblique rotations. The results established the dominance of a single massive general factor. In the original 36-item pool, the primary factor accounted for nearly half of the total variance (48.3%), while all individual items loaded substantially on this general construct (all factor loadings exceeded .40, with the majority surpassing .60). A second minor factor emerged consisting primarily of reverse-scored items, which was psychometrically identified as a common method artifact rather than a substantive theoretical sub-dimension.

Confirmatory Factor Analytic Evidence

Subsequent investigations utilizing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) have systematically evaluated alternative structural models (single-factor vs. two-factor models separating contribution valuation from well-being care):

• Single-Factor Dominance: Rigorous structural equation modeling (e.g., Wayne et al., 1997; Eisenberger et al., 1997) indicates that single-factor models exhibit superior parsimony and acceptable-to-excellent fit indices when accounting for reverse-coded method variance (e.g., Comparative Fit Index [CFI] > .92 to .96, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] < .05 to .08, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual [SRMR] < .05).
• Cross-Construct Differentiation: In multi-trait CFA models, competing structures that attempt to merge POS with affective commitment, leader-member exchange, or supervisor support into a single macro-attitude consistently show significantly poorer fit (e.g., Δχ² tests yield p < .001). This proves that while employees integrate supportive actions into a global unidimensional schema of POS, that schema remains clearly distinct from adjacent psychological constructs.
• Item Loadings: In the 17-item instrument, the items chosen for the widely utilized 8- and 9-item short versions (denoted with an “(S)” in the questionnaire) exhibit the highest standardized factor loadings (typically ranging from .70 to .88), maximizing construct variance extraction while minimizing respondent burden.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

Below are the structural, administrative, and psychometric specifications of the Perceived Organizational Support scale:

• Instrument Name: Perceived Organizational Support scale (POS)
• Original Authors: Robert Eisenberger, Robin Huntington, Steven Hutchison, and Deborah Sowa (1986)
• Instrument Type: Self-report psychometric rating scale
• Format: Paper-and-pencil or digital/computerized survey format
• Item Count:
  • 17 items in the standardized intermediate form presented here
  • 9 items in the abbreviated subset (items marked with an “(S)” exhibit the highest historical factor loadings)
  • 36 items in the exhaustive original version; 8 items in the ultra-brief version
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert-type agreement scale:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Moderately Disagree
  • 3 = Slightly Disagree
  • 4 = Neither Agree nor Disagree
  • 5 = Slightly Agree
  • 6 = Moderately Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 6 minutes for the 17-item scale; under 3 minutes for the 9-item short form
• Scoring Methodology:
  • Reverse-score all negatively worded items marked with (R): Items 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 13, and 14. The transformation formula is: Reversed Score = 8 - Original Raw Score (e.g., a score of 1 becomes 7, 2 becomes 6, etc.).
  • Sum or calculate the arithmetic mean across all 17 items (or the 9 items for the short version).
  • Higher aggregate mean scores (ranging from 1.00 to 7.00) reflect stronger perceived organizational support, with values above 4.00 indicating positive organizational support perceptions and values below 4.00 indicating perceived indifference or unsupportive climate.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The original Perceived Organizational Support scale was developed and published in 1986 in the Journal of Applied Psychology (American Psychological Association). The scale items are widely considered to be in the public domain for non-profit academic research, scientific inquiry, and educational purposes, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original authors (Eisenberger et al., 1986) and copyright acknowledgment is given to the American Psychological Association (APA).

No licensing fees or formal commercial royalties are required for academic scholars, university researchers, dissertation projects, or graduate students administering the scale for non-commercial investigations. However, organizational practitioners, corporate human resource departments, and management consultancies utilizing the scale as part of commercial diagnostic platforms, paid employee engagement software, or profit-generating advisory tools should consult American Psychological Association permissions guidelines or obtain formal clearance when reprinting the scale in commercial literature. The copyright is held by the American Psychological Association (Copyright © 1986).

12. References

• Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. John Wiley & Sons.
• Cropanzano, R., Howes, J. C., Grandey, A. A., & Toth, P. (1997). The relationship of organizational politics and support to work behaviors, attitudes, and stress. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18(2), 159–180. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(199703)18:2<159::AID-JOB795>3.0.CO;2-D
• Eisenberger, R., Cummings, J., Armeli, S., & Lynch, P. (1997). Perceived organizational support, discretionary treatment, and job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(5), 812–820. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.5.812
• Eisenberger, R., Fasolo, P., & Davis-LaMastro, V. (1990). Perceived organizational support and employee diligence, commitment, and innovation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(1), 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.75.1.51
• Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., & Sowa, D. (1986). Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71(3), 500–507. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.71.3.500
• Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25(2), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092623
• Hutchison, S., Valentino, K. E., & Kirkner, S. L. (1998). Toward a multi-workplace evaluation of perceived organizational support. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 13(4), 685–698.
• Kurtessis, J. N., Eisenberger, R., Ford, M. T., Buffardi, L. C., Stewart, K. A., & Adis, C. S. (2017). Perceived organizational support: A meta-analytic evaluation of organizational support theory. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1854–1884. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206315575554
• Lee, R. T., & Ashforth, B. E. (1993). A further examination of managerial burnout: Toward an integrated model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030140103
• Lynch, P. D., Eisenberger, R., & Armeli, S. (1999). Perceived organizational support: Inferior versus superior performance by wary employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(4), 467–483. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.84.4.467
• Moorman, R. H., Blakely, G. L., & Niehoff, B. P. (1998). Does perceived organizational support mediate the relationship between procedural justice and organizational citizenship behaviors? Academy of Management Journal, 41(3), 351–357. https://doi.org/10.5465/256913
• Rhoades, L., & Eisenberger, R. (2002). Perceived organizational support: A review of the literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 698–714. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.698
• Wayne, S. J., Shore, L. M., & Liden, R. C. (1997). Perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange: A social exchange perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 40(1), 82–111. https://doi.org/10.5465/257021

13. Items of the Scale