Date of Award
1993
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Abstract
Organizations can no longer rely on traditional means of competitive advantage (financial, strategic, and technological capabilities) to maintain a footing in the global marketplace. Recent literature has emphasized organizational capability (managing people in a manner that generates commitment) as a means to sustain competitive advantage.;The central thesis of this dissertation is that employees whose personal values are congruent with the cultural values of the organization will be more committed to the organization, experience higher satisfaction, have lower turnover intent, behave in a more prosocial manner, and be less absent, than those employees whose values are incongruent. While this proposition is intuitively appealing, it has been subject to very little empirical validation. Advancements have been impeded by the absence of a conceptual lexicon to compare employees and the normative aspects of their work environments.;This two-stage research study operationalizes the construct of individual-organizational value congruence and tests hypothesized associations with positive employee consequents. The first stage describes practitioner interviews to gauge the relevance of individual-organizational value congruence and establish commensurate dimensions of congruence. The second stage describes survey research to operationalize individual-organizational value congruence and assess its construct validity in a corporate setting. This stage utilizes questionnaire data from a random stratified sample of 334 employees within a single organization.;This study makes five major research contributions: First, interview data support the importance of shared values in organizations and the integration of vision and values within a conceptual framework. Second, a typology of twenty-four shared value dimensions relevant in the context of modern business and commensurate across individual and organizational levels is derived from content analysis of interview data. Third, multiple-method instrumentation to operationalize individual-organizational value congruence is developed based on the shared values typology. Fourth, survey data support the construct validity of individual-organizational value congruence and hypothesized relationships with employee outcome variables including commitment, satisfaction, and turnover intent. And fifth, factors affecting employee awareness of the organization's required values are identified.;It is concluded that individual-organizational value congruence is a valid psychological construct capable of being operationalized. Furthermore, individual-organizational value congruence is an important consideration in establishing organizational capability.
Recommended Citation
McDonald, Paul R., "Individual-organizational Value Congruence: Operationalization And Consequents" (1993). Digitized Theses. 2189.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/2189