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What is this research project about and why is it important?

The project explored the impact of Perceived Organisational Support (POS) on the
performance of homeless employees in social enterprises (SE). The key theorist of POS, Robert
Eisenberger, defines POS as when “employees form a general perception concerning the degree
to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being”
(Eisenberger et al, 1997, p. 812). POS has been explored in various contexts but not yet in the
SE literature. Doherty, Haugh and Lyon (2014, p. 417) note that “social enterprises pursue the
dual mission of achieving both financial sustainability and social purpose”; the social missions
of the SEs in this study are centred around helping homeless people.

Social Bite is a SE with the mission to ensure no-one is homeless in Scotland, partially pursued
by offering places at their ‘Social Bite Academy’ to homeless people, leading to employment
with partners via paid work experience in their cafes. According to the Social Bite Impact
Report (2019) between 2018 and 2019, 32 vulnerable people were employed, providing
valuable training.

Homeless employee needs are complex and demand additional employer support. While
organisational support may be perceived by homeless employees as caring about their well-
being, Teasdale (2012, p. 525) writes of an activity called “creaming off”, whereby an SE
receives funding on a person-by-person basis, so may be inclined to accept only homeless
people with the least complex needs. This calls into question the sincerity of an SE’s mission,
so reducing the homeless employee’s POS.

Aims and Objectives

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of POS on the performance of homeless
employees in SE, specifically those centred around homelessness.

To fulfil this aim, the following objectives have been formulated:

1. Consider the extant research around POS and SE, towards a critical understanding of
both.
2. Gain a clear sense of homeless employees’ POS, relating to wellbeing and appreciation
of contribution.
3. Gain a clear sense of homeless employee performance at work.

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4. Produce clear findings on the relationship between homeless employee behaviour and
POS.
5. Produce clear findings on the relationship between homeless employee performance
and POS.

Theory
POS signifies the extent to which employees believe their organisation appreciates the
contribution they make to its success, alongside the extent to which employees feel the
organisation cares for their wellbeing (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002). Based on this,
employees will assess the organisation's willingness to reward an increase in work effort
(Eisenberger et al., 2002). POS usefully explores the employee's perception of their
organisation, and the value it holds for them, so influencing the employee's performance in the
workplace.

Harris and Kacmar (2017) write that the academic foundations of POS are in Social Exchange
Theory (SET). SET assumes social life is built upon numerous consecutive exchanges between
two or more parties (Mitchell, Cropanzano and Quisenberry, 2012). Similarly, POS concerns
itself with “the quality of exchanges between an employee and his/her employer” (Eisenberger,
Fasolo and Davis-LaMastro, 1990), as employees make decisions regarding their behaviour
through comparing the benefits and drawbacks they expect (Blau, 1986). Eisenberger, Fasolo
and Davis-LaMastro (1990, p. 51) write “[p]ositive discretionary actions by the organization
that benefited the employee would be taken as evidence that the organization cared about one’s
well-being and therefore could be counted on for subsequent rewards”, suggesting that
employees may trust their employers based on previous favourable decisions, so leading to a
satisfied and well achieving workforce. This could also be due to employees believing that in
exchange for their commitment, the organisation will value them and care for their wellbeing.

Employee perception of the supportiveness of their organisation and the perceived care the
organisation holds for their wellbeing directly correlates with positive workplace outcomes
such as increased performance and commitment to the organisation (Gouldner, 1960).
Furthermore, Gouldner (1960) found that employees perceiving a supportive organisation
would behave less negatively. Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002) find that greater levels of POS
in an organisation lend itself to reduced absenteeism and withdrawal behaviours. Palmer et al
(2017) study the relationship between negative personality attributes such as narcissism,
Machiavellianism, psychopathy and counterproductive workplace behaviour, including theft,
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sabotage and abuse. Gouldner (1960) found that individuals possessing such traits engaged in
the counterproductive behaviours in the workplace less often when they perceived
organisational support, so suggesting positive POS leads to more effective performance.

Just as employees will assess the extent to which they are valued by their employing
organisation, similarly they consider their value to their supervisor, including the extent to
which the supervisor cares for their wellbeing (Kottke and Sharafinski, 1988). As supervisors
are agents of the organisation, so employees may associate a supervisor's attitude towards them,
positive or negative, with that of the organisation (Eisenberger et al., 1986).

POS is used to understand phenomena in various contexts. Zagenczyk et al. (2010) explored
the influence of social networks within the organisation on POS. This was in the contexts of a
university admissions department and a commercial company trading in food and animal safety
products. Bogler and Nir (2012) investigated the importance of teachers’ POH in relation to
job satisfaction, concluding that a large part of job satisfaction came from status and respect
bestowed by the organisation.

As such, the theoretical lens of POS can help explore the perception homeless employees in
social enterprises have of the organisation which employs them. It could help explain both; the
extent to which the homeless employees feel the social enterprise appreciates the contribution
they make to its success, and their belief of the genuine interest the social enterprise has for
their wellbeing. This is an interesting context as there is a lack of literature exploring the link
between POH and performance of homeless employees in social enterprises.

Context
The United Kingdom has been internationally acclaimed since the late 1990s for their
promotion of Social Enterprises (SE) to transform the lives of the country's disadvantaged
people (Pearce, 2003). DTI (2017, p. 7) defines SE as a “business with primarily social
objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose”. A predominant mission
of SE is to improve the lives of homeless people through providing employment and training
opportunities.

Between 1997 and 2010, the Labour Government sought to integrate homeless people back
into the workforce by using initiatives such as Spark. Spark invested funds into SE which
placed emphasis on vocational skills, work experience and paid employment (Spark Social
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Enterprise, 2019). This was to encourage as many potential businesses to consider running as
a SE instead of a traditional commercial business through funding incentives. Teasdale (2012,
p. 516) writes that “resource transfers provide social enterprises with a competitive advantage
that can offset the extra costs associated with employing homeless people whose productivity
may be low”, also noting the unique selling point of employing homeless people. Yet it is worth
considering the additional support and assistance homeless employees would need in
comparison to traditional employees.

Mozier and Tracey (2010) found that homeless employees require more social support in the
workplace and are less economically productive, with Ferguson (2007, p. 103) finding that “job
training programs often fail to address the mental health issues that constitute barriers to their
productive employment”. While SE may not always adequately support homeless employees,
they can potentially offer benefits, such as empowerment (Dobson and McNeill, 2011). Yet,
Tanekenov, Fitzpatrick and Johnsen (2017) concluded from a study conducted that many of
the homeless people questioned did not know that they employed by a SE rather than a
traditional charity, so gaining no unique ‘empowerment’ from the SE.

Research Philosophy

There are two main philosophical approaches to research; objectivism and subjectivism
(Cameron and Price, 2009). Huizing and Vries (2008, p. 92) suggest that the primary concern
of objectivism is to provide “law-like, rational knowledge that will help them function
successfully in the external world”. Leading to the assumption that there exists an objective
reality which we can study (Cameron and Price, 2009). However, Putnam (1983) writes that
subjectivism is driven by the assumption that the individual perceptions of humans are relative
to their social and physical environments. In addition, Putnam writes their mental framework
and understanding of how the world functions will impact on their perception further.
Therefore, the way by which we perceive ontology will have a subsequent effect on our stance
regarding epistemology.

Epistemology is a theory of knowledge and justification (Audi, 2011). Ryan (2006) proposes
that positivist researchers believe that a complete understanding of epistemology can be
reached through experiment and observation. Furthermore, Marsh and Furlong (2002, p. 22)
write that “we can establish regular relationships between social phenomena, using theory to
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generate hypotheses which can be tested by direct observation”. Hence, laws and
generalisations are reached through experiments. Conversely, interpretivists view
epistemology as socially constructed (Marsh and Furlong, 2002, p. 26). Farzanfar (2005) writes
that the purpose behind conducting research is to gain understanding of a specific phenomenon
or context, not to seek generalisations for a population. Therefore, Tuli (2010, p.100) writes
that the interpretivist perspective is used mostly in qualitative research.

A subjective ontology would be useful when conducting research regarding the impact of
Perceived Organisational Support (POS) received by homeless employees in social enterprises
(SE), because it assumes individual perceptions will vary on several factors including mental
framework. Timms and Balazs (1997) write that homeless people are more likely to have
mental disorders such as psychoses, alcoholism, depression, and personality disorders.
Therefore, such variations in mental frameworks would alter their ontological outlook. Leading
to the conclusion that a subjective ontology would fit the study in hand best. Furthermore, since
the research question is considering a specific population of homeless employees and context
of SE, an interpretivist epistemology would be most appropriate. Generalisation is not sought;
rather a deeper understanding into the population and context. The researcher's values and
ethics will also be important when researching at risk groups.

Data Collection Methods

There are two main data collection methods available; qualitative and quantitative. Although
they have distinct characteristics, Hardy and Bryman (2004) argue that both share the same
aim: to answer research questions about the nature of society. Antwi and Hamza (2015) write
that quantitative methods are based upon the scientific method as they heavily rely on
hypothesis and theory testing. Antwi and Hamza write that such methods are used to study
phenomenon which can be observed and subsequently measured. Tools associated with
quantitative data include self-administered, closed-question questionnaires and structured
interviews. In business research, quantitative methods continue to be dominant (Bell, Bryman
and Harley, 2019).

On the other hand, Hair et al. (2015, p. 276) write that “qualitative research is discovery
orientated, with analysts using the data collected to generate ideas and theories”. Following
this, Hair et al (2015) suggest that qualitative research aims to identify patterns and
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relationships in data to help shape theories, therefore inductive reasoning is at the core of the
method. The objective of qualitative research is to view the research question from the
participant's perspective and to understand the how and why behind their perspective (Cassell,
2004), so being a valuable way of uncovering participant's experiences and perspectives;
providing the researcher with a deeper understanding of the phenomenon (Antwi and Hamza,
2015).

Returning to the study of the impact of POS received by homeless employees in SE, it would
be sensible to gravitate towards collecting qualitative data in order to create a full and rich
picture of the perspective in question. The necessary reduction in richness and depth presented
by quantitative data would be inadequate for exploring individual experiences and stories.
Cassell (2004) writes that semi-structured interviews should feature open-ended questions and
focus on specific events in the participant’s life. This would allow the homeless employees to
confidentially share their experiences in a one-to-one setting, and fully open up and expand on
specific examples where they have experienced POS in an SE. The participants would be able
to shape the course of the interview through their answers and opening areas of discussion the
researcher had otherwise not considered (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2019). However, the
interviews will remain similar regarding the researcher having the same bank of themes and
questions (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2019).

Hour-long interviews with approximately 15 participants, audio-recorded for later

transcription, should offer a sufficient dataset for this research (Baker and Edwards, 2012).
Participants will be recruited by approaching management at appropriate SEs (e.g. Social Bite)
and asking them to speak to homeless employees about participating.

Data Analysis Techniques

The success of qualitative research depends on interactions between the collection of data and
the analysis of it. Bell, Bryman and Harley (2019) suggest that difficulty of analysing
qualitative data lies in the richness of it. Meaning is found in words and images, therefore
qualitative data needs to be analysed carefully to account for various meanings and
interpretations (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2019).

Following the transcription of the interviews, analysis will begin. Braun and Clarke (2006, p.
4) write that thematic analysis is the “foundational method for qualitative analysis”. Saunders,
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Lewis and Thornhill (2019) indicate it is a systematic approach to analysis, offering a sensible
and logical way to analyse data. Central to the technique is the ability of the analyst to code
and develop themes present in the data. A theme is “a category identified by the analyst through
his/her data” and “relates to the analysts research focus” (Bell, Bryman and Harley, 2019, p.
580).

An alternative technique such as content analysis could be used. Collis and Hussey (2003,
p.250) define content analysis as “a way of systematically converting text to numerical
variables for quantitative data analysis”. This could enable patterns to be established,
quantifying the qualitative data (Wilson, 2014). Yet, again, this reduction of potentially highly
idiosyncratic meanings and stories to statistics would not adequately serve the purposes of the
research.

When considering the given research question, and the data collection method, thematic
analysis is a sensible analysis technique to select, following the generation of qualitative data
through semi-structured interviews.

Ethical Issues
Bersoff and Bersoff (1999) write that issues appear regarding ethical research when researchers
view their participants as cold data. To avoid this, researchers must treat participants with
respect, cause them no harm, and maintain confidentiality and anonymity e.g. by keeping all
data securely password-protected (Bell, Bryman and Harley, 2019). Wester (2011) notes that
participation must be voluntary, participants must provide informed consent, and have the right
to withdraw from the study at any time. As such, an information sheet and consent form must
be read and signed by the participant before each interview.

In the context of SEs employing homeless people, great care must be taken when interviewing
participants, who must be treated with respect and not subjected to harm. It will be important
to ask questions in a sensitive way, avoiding distress. As the participants are homeless/ex-
homeless individuals, recalling past experiences for them may be painful and difficult. It is
crucial that options to withdraw or decline to answer a specific question are clear. The
researcher should also seek out specialist guidance on research into homeless people prior to
undertaking any such study.

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