Shared Perceptions of Supervisor Support: What Processes Make Supervisors and Employees See Eye to Eye?

• Author: Eva Knies,Julia Penning de Vries,Peter Leisink
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20942814
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X20942814

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2022, Vol. 42(1) 88 –112

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20942814

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Article

Shared Perceptions of

Supervisor Support:

What Processes Make

Supervisors and Employees

See Eye to Eye?

Julia Penning de Vries1, Eva Knies1,

and Peter Leisink1

Abstract

This paper aims to find out what processes contribute to horizontal (between

employees) and vertical (between employees and their supervisor) shared

perceptions of supervisor support by public frontline supervisors. Informed by

a multilevel qualitative study among supervisors and teachers in public secondary

schools, we develop theoretical propositions regarding these processes. We propose

that employees’ expectations based on experiences with previous supervisors can

decrease horizontal shared perceptions. Subsequently, a contingent or consistent

approach to supporting employees contribute to the development of horizontal and

vertical shared perceptions, depending on the legitimacy attributed by employees

to the reason behind this approach. Over time, supervisor support experienced by

employees at meaningful work-life events contributes to the emergence of horizontal

and vertical shared perceptions. This research shows that instead of merely looking

for correlates of shared perceptions, scrutinizing the processes that contribute

to horizontal and vertical shared perceptions increases our understanding of this

complex phenomenon.

Keywords

supervisor support, frontline supervisors, shared perceptions, qualitative research,

employees’ perceptions

1Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Julia Penning de Vries, School of Governance, Utrecht University, Bijlhouwerstraat 6, Utrecht, 3511ZC,

The Netherlands.

Email: j.penningdevries@uu.nl

942814ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X20942814Review of Public Personnel AdministrationPenning de Vries et al.

research-article2020

Penning de Vries et al. 89

Introduction

New public management oriented reforms have led to the devolution of managerial

authority and the human resource (HR) function in public organizations (Brown, 2004;

Podger, 2017; Tessema et al., 2009). Public frontline supervisors have increasingly

been charged with managing employees (Brewster et al., 2015; Meyer &

Hammerschmid, 2010; Perry & Kulik, 2008). This includes supporting employees in

the work they do (Knies & Leisink 2014a). However, only few public management

and human resource management (HRM) scholars have studied the role of frontline

managers in managing and supporting personnel (Knies et al., 2018). This is unfortu-

nate, since supervisor support is particularly relevant as a motivating mechanism in a

public sector context where managers generally have less monetary resources to

incentivize and reward employees (Favero et al., 2016). More research is needed to

understand supervisor support, considering the critical role it has in managing human

resources in public organizations. Therefore, the present study focuses on public front-

line managers’ supervisor support.

Like with many other leadership and managerial behaviors (Bergner et al., 2016;

Lee & Carpenter, 2018), employees’ perceptions of supervisor support are generally

less positive than supervisors’ perceptions (Knies, 2012). This is considered undesir-

able, since leaders who overrate or underrate their behavior are generally less effective

than leaders that have similar perceptions to their followers (Yammarino & Atwater,

1997). Also, employees themselves differ in their perceptions of their supervisor’s

support. Whereas some employees perceive high levels of support from their supervi-

sor, others perceive less support by the same supervisor (Knies, 2012; Sanders et al.,

2011). Variation in perceptions of supervisor support does not necessarily have to be a

bad thing, as this can result from the supervisor taking certain individual circum-

stances into account through idiosyncratic deals (Rousseau et al., 2006). However,

variation can potentially create feelings of injustice or unfairness (Collins, 2017). Fair

treatment of employees has been known to contribute to employees’ trust in their orga-

nization and supervisor (Cho & Sai, 2013; Quratulain et al., 2019). This is particularly

relevant in a public sector context, where HRM has traditionally been highly standard-

ized due to the importance attached to equal treatment of employees (Boyne et al.,

1999; Brown, 2004). So, as more HR responsibility is decentralized to frontline super-

visors, it is important to understand how these supervisors support their frontline

employees and how perceptions of this support come to be shared or unshared.

Therefore, this article focuses on both vertical shared perceptions and horizontal

shared perceptions: shared perceptions between supervisors and employees and shared

perceptions between employees that have the same supervisor respectively. A number

of studies has looked into antecedents of shared perceptions (for overviews, see

Fleenor et al., 2010; Fulmer & Ostroff, 2016). This has resulted in the insight that

demographic similarity/homogeneity and supervisor characteristics are correlated

with shared perceptions (e.g., Bergner et al., 2016). However, there remains a lacuna

when it comes to how shared perceptions come about and what processes contribute to

the emergence of these shared perceptions. Considering the importance of employees