CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 238Job Satisfaction and Organizational BehaviorSocial Power and Status DynamicsPsychometric Methodologies and Testing

Scale indicators of social exchange relationships: A comparison of relative content validity.

Colquitt, Jason A., Baer, Michael D., Long, David M., Halvorsen-Ganepola, Marie D. K.·2014·Journal of Applied Psychology
DOI 10.1037/a0036374
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Although social exchange theory has become one of the most oft-evoked theories in industrial and organizational psychology, there remains no consensus about how to measure its key mechanism: social exchange relationships (Blau, 1964). Drawing on Cropanzano and Byrne's (2000) review of contemporary social exchange theorizing, we examined the content validity of perceived support, exchange quality, affective commitment, trust, and psychological contract fulfillment as indicators of social exchange relationships. We used Hinkin and Tracey's (1999) quantitative approach to content validation, which asks participants to rate the correspondence between scale items and definitions of intended (and unintended) constructs. Our results revealed that some of the most frequently utilized indicators of social exchange relationships--perceived support and exchange quality--were significantly less content valid than rarely used options like affect-based trust. Our results also revealed that 2 direct measures--Bernerth, Armenakis, Feild, Giles, and Walker's (2007) scale and a scale created for this study--were content valid. We discuss the implications of these results for future applications of social exchange theory.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1037/a0036374

Cites

8 of 8 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • LMX quality has been identified as the second most common operationalisation of SET with higher content validity than the more commonly used perceived organisational support.

    “Most critical would be LMX quality which has been identified as the second most common operationalisation of SET with higher content validity than the more commonly used perceived organisational support (Colquitt et al., 2014).”

    From A meta-analysis of the role of trust in the leadership- performance relationship (2021) · cites this paper as Colquitt et al., 2014

  • Colquitt and colleagues (2014) identified affective trust as one of the most 'content-valid indicators of social exchange relationships'.

    “Indeed, Colquitt and colleagues (2014) identified affective trust as one of the most 'content-valid indicators of social exchange relationships' (p. 609).”

    From A meta-analysis of the role of trust in the leadership- performance relationship (2021) · cites this paper as Colquitt et al., 2014

  • This is supportive of the argument that affective trust most accurately captures features of the social exchange relationship by evoking sentiments such as commitment and intrinsic significance.

    “This is supportive of the argument that affective trust most accurately captures features of the social exchange relationship by evoking sentiments such as commitment and intrinsic significance (Colquitt et al., 2014).”

    From A meta-analysis of the role of trust in the leadership- performance relationship (2021) · cites this paper as Colquitt et al., 2014

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Colquitt, J. A., Baer, M. D., Long, D. M., & Halvorsen-Ganepola, M. D. K.
Affiliations
  • University of Georgia (US)
  • William & Mary (US)
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Applied Psychology
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2014-07
Volume
99
Issue
4
Pages
599-618
ISSN
  • 0021-9010 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1854
DOI
10.1037/a0036374
OpenAlex
W1969761561
Cited by
238
References
8
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 4
FWCI
32.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
correction (2014-07-07)
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Journal of Applied Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Power and Status Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
Keywords
social exchange relationships, social exchange theory, content validity, scale development, perceived support, affective commitment, trust, psychological contract fulfillment, employee-employer relationship
MeSH terms
Adult, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Social Support, Trust, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review