Measures employees' global beliefs about the extent to which their direct supervisor values their contributions and cares about their wellbeing. Supervisor support is theoretically and empirically distinct from organisational support — employees treat supervisors as agents of the organisation, meaning high supervisor support contributes to perceived organisational support, but the two constructs have independent effects on outcomes. PSS predicts job satisfaction, commitment, emotional wellbeing, reduced strain, and lower turnover intention above and beyond POS. In service marketing research, PSS is a critical determinant of frontline employee service quality — employees whose supervisors value and support them provide higher quality, more emotionally committed customer service.
Likert (1–7, strongly disagree to strongly agree)
(R) = reverse-scored. Score = mean. PSS has become increasingly important as remote work and hybrid models reduce employees' direct experience of organisational culture — supervisor-level support becomes the primary organisational relationship. PSS and POS are conceptually parallel constructs at different hierarchical levels of the social exchange relationship.
Eisenberger, R., Stinglhamber, F., Vandenberghe, C., Sucharski, I.L., & Rhoades, L. (2002). Perceived supervisor support: Contributions to perceived organizational support and employee retention. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(3), 565–573.
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