The doubts and questions in POS theory

Purpose – This paper aims to advance theoretical understanding of the concept of Perceived Organizational Support and its role in human resource development in critical approach. We intend to point out, describe and reflect on potential fragile parts or possibilities to enrich the construct of POS. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper. We employ the critical method of analysis according to Johnson and Duberley who proposed three steps of an examination: insight, critique and transformative redefinitions (Johnson, Duberley, 2000). In the insight stage we study a current state of the knowledge of Perceived Organizational Support, we seek out linked empirical themes in the related fields. In the critique step we identify the dominance of taken-for-granted processes, ideas, goals, and theory contexts. We recognize the role of the critique as a troubling of the certainties that may narrow the perspective or mislead in development the POS construct. At the last stadium we are looking for the practical applications for the ideas generated from our analysis, enabling the alternative responses. We hope that we contribute a new perspective in this paper, the relevant knowledge and practical understandings of mechanisms underlying Perceived Organizational Support. We trust that we point out new paths in POS theory and also extent the current viewpoint of it. We do not divide the article into sections in line these three steps, we treat every aspect separately with described order.Findings/Originality/value – The critical approach in HRD pays particular attention to the importance of the context and patterns of the relationships between organizations and employees. After the literature research we emphasize the areas in developing construct of Perceived Organizational Support that may need some more attention in a future. In our view, for instance, the researches on personality characteristics as direct predictors of many variables in employee-organization relation, are crucial. For example, personality traits and dispositional traits are evidenced to influence turnover intentions significantly (Chiu, Francesco 2003), suggesting that training methods for different employees should be different (Chiu, Lin, Tsai, Hsiao 2005). We do not find in the literature any study of the relation between psychological and perception variables and POS. We think this kind of investigation may be useful to fully understand Perceived Organizational Support. The theoretical investigation based on POS literature that we have conducted according to critical approach is the first one. This paper addresses these gaps.Research limitations/implications – The literature investigations that we have done doesn’t embrace the whole literature in POS field. We tried to examine as many publication as possible but we are aware that within the area every month appears a bunch of new articles. Another limitation is that we haven’t exhausted every issue worth discussion. Studying some feature of POS we were overwhelmed with popping following doubts and questions. The third limitation that we know is that we are not confident with the critical method of analysis yet. We followed the path of critical investigation, although we find it very creative and refreshing, we expect some critic feedback.