R E S E A R C H
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Executive
Summary
KEY WORDS
Value Congruency
KEY WORDS
Socialization
Practices
Privatization
Normative
Commitment
Indian
Banking
Organizational
Culture
Efficiency
Profile
Performance
Person-Culture Fit and Employee
Commitment in Banks
Nazir A Nazir
This paper makes an attempt to ascertain the relationship between socialization, person-culture fit,
and employee commitment. In other words, it seeks to determine whether the organizations high
on socialization scores will experience high value congruency/person-culture fit and also whether
high value congruency leads to employee commitment.
In the recent past, the concept of culture has gained wide acclaim as a subject of study and
reflection. However, the parameters of culture are so intricate that they cannot be outlined or
defined. While contemporary research fully endorses the view that culture is an internal variable
and can be conceptualized in terms of widely shared and strongly held views, the researchers have
not empirically investigated the relevance of social learning in permeating these values into the
organizational members. This paper seeks to overcome this limitation and also deviates from the
earlier research studies undertaken in this field in the Indian context by exploring whether the
person-culture fit notion or the integration of organizational values and individual preferences for
those values could predict employee commitment.
This study was conducted on six banks including two public sector (banks 1 and 2), two private
sector (banks 3 and 4), and two foreign banks (banks 5 and 6) located in Delhi. It used three wellestablished scales — organizational culture profile (OCP), organizational commitment scale (OCS),
and socialization practices scale (SPS) — to collect data from two separate groups of respondents
through convenience sampling procedure. The first group consisted of 135 newly recruited
employees who were asked to complete the OCP indicating their individual preferences on the
given 54 value items and OCS for ascertaining their commitment. The second group comprised of
69 senior employees of the banks studied. An overall profile of the culture of each bank was
developed by averaging the individual responses of this group. These were then used to calculate
the person-culture fit scores for the newly hired employees.
The main findings of the study are as follows:
Moderate to strong person-culture fit score was found in one private and two foreign banks
and weak to moderate person-culture fit score was found in rest of the banks studied.
Two foreign and one private bank scored high to moderate on socialization practices
respectively. The other two public and one private bank scored low on this dimension.
Banks high on value congruency and socialization scores showed significant correlation
between person-culture fit and normative commitment.
Banks low on value congruency and socialization practices exhibited insignificant correlation between person-culture fit and normative and instrumental commitment.
On the whole, the study indicates the need for firms, especially public sector, service-oriented
firms, to pay attention to socialization practices which would result in strong cultures and employee
commitment.
VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 3 • JULY - SEPTEMBER 2005
39
O
rganizational culture has emerged as one of the
crucial and important concepts in the field of
organizational behaviour and human resource
management in the recent past. The efforts aimed at
ascertaining the factors responsible for various organizational outcome variables — employee commitment,
job satisfaction, turnover, absenteeism, etc. — have been
almost overshadowed by the recent penchant of scholars
towards understanding the cultures of organizations
and their strength in shaping the behaviour of organizational members (Calori and Sarnin, 1974; Denison and
Mishra, 1995; Gordon and DiTomaso, 1992; Kanungo
and Mendonca, 1994; Koene, 1996; O’ Reilly, Chatman
and Caldwell, 1991; Pathak, Rickards and Pestonjee,
1996; Sheridan, 1992; Wilderom and Van den Berg, 1998).
Further, with some differences over the definition and
measurement of organizational culture, researchers
suggest that culture may be an important factor in
determining how well an individual fits into an organizational context (Caldwell and O’ Reilly, 1990; Kilman,
Saxton and Serpa, 1986). The approach suggests that
both the characteristics of the individual and that of the
organization predict his/her behaviour at work (Schneider, 1987; Terborg, 1981). Drawing on interactional psychology, some researchers (Holland, 1985; Joyce and
Slocum, 1984) point out that certain aspects of individuals such as values, expectations, beliefs, etc., interact
with organizational facets such as reward systems, norms,
and traditions to influence the individuals’ attitudinal
and behavioural responses.
Having a set of values that is both commonly shared
and strongly held by the organizational members may
be especially beneficial to firms operating in the service
sector. As George and Marshall (1984) pointed out, the
members of these organizations are responsible for
delivering service. Further, it is in the service sector
organizations that members remain in close touch with
their clients and hence their behaviour, attitude, and
relationship may, by and large, truly represent the firm’s
espoused values. It becomes imperative for the management of such organizations, therefore, to imbue in letter
and spirit, the ethos and values of the firm in them so
that their behaviour, attitudes, and actions at workplace
are in consonance with the firm’s culture (Nazir, 2000).
In this context, the system of control mechanism
prevalent in the organization plays a pivotal role in
directing the actions of individual members. Researchers argue that the formal control mechanisms are more
40
relevant in the manufacturing sector because of processes and products being more tractable (Bravermann,
1974). On the contrary, since the service sector has a very
high frequency of off-site work, multiple engagements,
and a good number of professional staff, social control
mechanisms, such as cultural values, are found preferable to imbue member’s actions (Magnet, 1993; Norman,
1984). These control mechanisms have far-reaching
implications for organizational members.
One such implication is the congruency between
individual and organizational values. It has been argued
that, drawing on underlying values, individuals may
manage their lives in ways that help them choose congruent roles, occupations, and even organizations (Albert
and Whetten, 1985; Stryker and Serpe, 1982). Schneider
(1987) proposed that individuals may be attracted to
organizations they perceive as having values similar to
their own. Similarly, organizations attempt to select
recruits who are likely to share their values. New entrants are then further socialized and assimilated and
those who do not fit leave. Thus, basic individual values
or preferences for certain modes of conduct are expressed
in organizational choices and then reinforced within
organizational contexts. Moreover, according to Chatman
(1989), values provide the starting point and the process
of selection and socialization jointly acts as a complementary means to ensure person-organization/culture
fit. Thus, congruency between individuals and organizational values aimed through socialization may be at
the crux of person-culture fit.
Previous research has not studied the influence of
socialization in augmenting person-culture fit in organizations. For example, Chatman and Jehn (1994) studied
only the relationship of two individual characteristics
— technology and growth — with organizational culture. O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell (1991), while
measuring person-organization fit in government agencies and private accounting firms, neglected the role of
socialization in fostering value congruency in the sample
organizations.
Further, strong congruence between individual value
preferences and organizational values is believed to
result in strong employee commitment. For example,
Virtanen (2000) asserted that the strength of culture can
be easily conceptualized as the strength of commitment.
Brown (1995) indicated that a strong culture is usually
understood to be synonymous with consistency: beliefs
and values are “shared relatively consistently throughPERSON - CULTURE FIT
out an organization.” Thus, management of culture is
treated as management of commitment. It has been argued
that the fit between individual preferences and organizational cultures would lead to increase in commitment
because both job satisfaction and organizational commitment can be predicted with this fit (O’Reilly, Chatman
and Caldwell, 1991). However, research on assessing the
cultural gap, i.e., the difference between actual organizational norms and desired individual norms and their
impact on organizational outcome variables such as
performance, satisfaction, and employee commitment,
is still limited (Wilderom, Glunk and Maslowski, 2000).
This study, therefore, makes an attempt to assess
and compare the cultural gap, employee commitment,
and socialization programmes in six banks in India. In
this study, organizational culture has been conceptualized and quantified in terms of widely shared and strongly
held values.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The primary objective of this study was to discover the
compatibility between organizational culture values and
individual preferences and the role socialization played
in augmenting value congruency. The study also attempted to ascertain the relationship between value
congruency and employee commitment (Figure 1).
Hypothesis 1: The level of commitment will vary with
the level of value congruency — high
level of person-culture fit (value congruency) would be positively associated (and low level of person-culture fit
would be negatively associated) with
employee commitment based on organizational values.
Some studies have suggested that organizations
which emphasize on socialization process, viz., rigorous
recruitment and selection procedures, and focus on organizational values and reward system are more likely
to be high on value congruency resulting in cultural
continuity (Major, 2000).
In the course of socialization, new entrants are
introduced to organizational norms that apprise them
about how to behave in various situations. Besides, it
is believed to help them accurately grasp the organizations’ internal culture including values, attitudes, and
perspectives. Researchers such as Caldwell and O’Reilley
(1990) argued that socialization facilitates introduction
to the new recruits both with the specific job and with
the organization’s culture. Against this backdrop, the
following hypothesis was formulated to test whether
socialization influences value congruency.
Hypothesis 2: Organizations with high emphasis on
socialization will experience strong value congruency.
METHODOLOGY
Sample
Six banks including two public sector (banks 1 and 2),
two private sector (banks 3 and 4), and two foreign banks
(banks 5 and 6), participated in the study. Data were
collected from two separate groups of respondents
through convenience sampling procedure. Group 1 consisted of 135 newly recruited employees representing the
above six banks. They were asked to complete the organizational culture profile (OCP), to indicate their individual preferences on 54 organizational value items
Figure 1: The Model
Organizational culture
values
Value orientation/
Socialization process
Value
congruency
Employee
commitment
Employees’ individual
preferences
VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 3 • JULY - SEPTEMBER 2005
41
and organizational commitment scale (OCS) for ascertaining their level of commitment. In Group 1, men
comprised of 71 per cent of the employees and the average
experience of all the employees was 2.9 years. This group
was used to ascertain the individual preference profile.
Group 2 comprised of 69 senior employees of these
six banks. Eighty three per cent of these respondents
were men and they had more than five years’ experience
in their banks. An overall profile of the culture of each
bank was developed by averaging the individual
responses. These were then used to calculate the personculture fit scores for the newly hired employees (Group 1).
Measures Used
Three psychometrically valid and tested scales were
used for this study: Organizational culture profile (OCP),
organizational commitment scale (OCS), and socialization practices scale (SPS). However, the main scale was
modified to measure person-culture fit to suit the sociocultural context of this investigation. A brief description
of the scales used is given below:
Organizational Culture Profile (OCP)
Developed by O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell (1991),
this instrument contains value statements which are
characteristically relevant to the target organization and
to the individual preferences. The correlation between
the organizational value profiles and the individual value
profiles determines the person-culture fit. In order to
make the scale more relevant and reliable in our sociocultural setting, some suitable changes were made as
indicated earlier. This was done by placing the value
statements of the original scale before some management experts and scholars. Keeping in view the peculiar
demand of the scale, the total number of items in the
original scale stood unchanged. However, 15 items were
found replaceable after the above procedure was followed (see Box for a description of OCP).
Pilot Study: A pilot study of the scale was undertaken
on 35 employees and the split-half test was employed
to measure the reliability of the modified scale. This test
produced a correlation coefficient of 0.53. The reliability
of the overall scale was 0.69.
Organizational Commitment Scale (OCS)
The scale developed by O’Reilly and Chatman (1986)
was used to measure organizational commitment.
Twenty-one variables representing compliance, identi-
42
Box: Description of OCP
OCP is based on the Q-Sort profile comparison process in which
the respondents are presented with a large number of items. They
are then asked to sort them into a specific number of categories
ranging, for instance, from the most to the least desirable or from
the most to the least characteristic and to put a specified number
of statements in each category; the required item category pattern
is 2-4-6-9-12-9-6-4-2. OCP contains 54 value statements assessing
attitudes towards, for instance, quality, respect for individuals,
flexibility, risk-taking, etc., which emerged from a review of academic
and practitioner-oriented writings on organizational values and
culture.Thirty-eight business administration majors and four business
school faculty members screened an initial 110-item deck for items
that were redundant, irrelevant or difficult to understand. A similar
check was made with an independent set of respondents from
accounting firms. After several iterations, a final set of 54 values
was retained (O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell, 1991). Test-retest
reliability of the scale over a 12-month period was quite high (median
r=0.74, range = 0.65 0.65-0.87).
fication, and internalization dimensions were included
(Buchanan, 1974; Mowday, Steers and Porter, 1979). For
example, seven compliance items were developed based
on Kelman’s (1958) original formulation of compliance
as behaviour engaged in to obtain specific rewards (e.g.,
“Unless I am rewarded for it in some way, I see no reason
to expend extra effort on behalf of this organization” and
“In my job here, I somewhat have to act in ways that
are not completely consistent with my true values”). For
reflecting identification with the organization, again,
seven items were included in the scale (e.g., “This organization has a tradition of worthwhile accomplishments”). In order to assess internalization, a final set of
seven items in the concerned scale (e.g., “Since joining
this organization, my personal values and that of the
organization have become more similar”) was included.
Respondents were asked to indicate to what extent they
agreed or disagreed with each one of the statements on
a 7-point scale. A principal component analysis with a
varimax rotation on the 21 items of the scale showed four
interpretable factors defined by 12 of the 21 items. This
reduced set was again analysed and three clear factors
emerged, viz., internalization, identification, and compliance. To ensure orthogonality among the three commitment dimensions, the factor scores were further computed and used in subsequent analysis. Correlations
among the factors ranged from r=-0.01 to -0.06.
Socialization Practices Scale (SPS)
The questionnaire developed by Pascale (1985) was used
to measure the socialization practices of the banks studied. This scale consists of 16-items designed to measure
the degree to which companies engage in actions or have
policies similar to those of companies that have a repuPERSON - CULTURE FIT
tation for successfully recruiting and socializing newcomers. For comparison, the scale categorizes the organizations into strong, medium, and low levels of socialization based on the total scores obtained from each
organization.
RESULTS OF THE STUDY
The research design of the study required information
from two types of respondents using OCP. The Group
2 respondents labelled as raters were asked to describe
categories on the basis of how important each item was
to characterize their organization. The Group 1 respondents were asked to describe how important it was for
the person that the characteristic represented be a
part of an organization’s culture by sorting the 54 value
items into nine categories. In essence, the former group
was to describe the culture of their organization on
54 value items and the latter was to record their
individual preferences on the same 54 value items.
Therefore, it was imperative to ascertain whether the
OCP discriminated among the individuals and the organizations in terms of their central value system. Here,
it is important to mention that the dimensions of individual preferences and organizational culture should be
comparable because it is this comparability which can
ensure the validity of the person-culture fit notion used
in this study; otherwise, its relevance would be questionable. To address these vital issues, two separate
factor analyses using principal component analysis with
varimax rotation were conducted, one for individual
preferences and another for organizational culture. The
results of the analysis reported in Tables 1 and 2 indicate
that person-culture fit possesses predictive validity and
is organizationally useful.
Dimensionality of Individual Preferences and
Organizational Culture Values
The OCP responses in each firm from both types of subjects were factor analysed using principal component
analysis with varimax rotation method. Out of the entire
set of 54 value items from Group 1 (n=135), 29 items had
loadings greater than 0.40 on a single factor (Table 1).
From a scree test, seven interpretable factors with
eigen values greater than 1.0 and defined by at least three
items emerged: innovation, team orientation, orientation toward rewards, emphasis on aggressiveness, attention to detail, respect for people, and orientation
VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 3 • JULY - SEPTEMBER 2005
towards outcome. Six of the factors exactly resemble the
factor results of O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell’s (1991)
study. The uncommon factor in our study is ‘respect for
people’ while it is ‘supportiveness’ in the aforementioned study. These two factors can, however, be viewed
as synonyms. The factor pattern as presented in Table 1
is strongly supported by the extant literature on culture
(Chatman and Jehn, 1994; Deal and Kennedy, 1982;
Hofstede, 1998; Peters and Waterman, 1982; Schneider,
Gunnarson and Niles-Jolly, 1994).
The factor analysis using principal component
analysis with varimax rotation method was also performed on Group 2 (n=69). This was done with two
objectives in mind. One, to see whether OCP reflects the
meaningful organizational dimensions and two, to find
out whether the individual and organizational matrices
were similar. Here, 32 items with loadings above 0.40
were retained. Table 2 shows the factor loadings for 32
items that loaded cleanly on factors retained after a scree
test. Eight interpretable factors with eigen values greater
than 1.0 emerged: innovation, orientation towards customers, stability, emphasis on procedures, team orientation, orientation towards rewards, outcome orientation, and easy-goingness. A comparison between the
dimensions as envisaged in Tables 1 and 2 reveals that
while four factors, namely, innovation, rewards orientation, team orientation, and outcome orientation are
replicated almost exactly, the other two factors — attention to detail and respect for people (Table 1) and emphasis
on procedures and customer orientation (Table 2) —
also have close resemblance with each other. Although
research indicates that direct comparison of the factor
structures could be misleading because of the different
stem questions, the above results appear to depict a good
comparability between cultures as defined by individual
preferences and actual organizational descriptions. These
results suggest that OCP can provide a reasonable
mapping of organizational culture.
Assessment of Inter-rater Agreement on Firm Values
Before reporting the tests of hypotheses, the results of
OCP are presented. As discussed earlier, the important
assumption in the use of OCP is that a firm’s value
system can be represented in a single profile. This,
therefore, called for averaging the firm informant’s Q
Sorts to ascertain whether there was high consensus
among members about organizational values. As such,
the firm informant’s Q Sorts were averaged, item by
item, for each OCP dimension representing each firm.
43
Table 1: Results of Factor Analysis of Individual Preferences
Organizational Culture
Profile Items
High expectation for performance
High pay for good performance
Praises for performance
Ability utilization
Team orientation
People orientation
Supportiveness
Collaboration
Flexibility
Adaptability
Taking advantage of opportunities
Taking initiative
Being competitive
Highly organized
Aggressiveness
Action orientation
Individual responsibility
Being analytical
Attention to detail
Emphasis on paper work
Knowledge of procedures
Achievement orientation
Emphasis on quality
Result orientation
Social responsibility
Promptness in services
Interest in customers
Courteous treatment
Helpful attitude
Eigen values
Proportion of variance accounted for
Rewards
Orientation
Factor
1
Team
Orientation
Factor
2
Innovation
Factor
3
Aggressive
ness
Factor
4
Attention
to Detail
Factor
5
0.59
0.49
-0.64
0.87
0.12
0.03
0.31
0.16
-0.13
0.16
0.09
0.09
-0.02
0.11
0.17
0.13
0.11
0.13
0.07
0.11
0.05
0.12
0.05
-0.11
-0.16
0.17
-0.15
0.13
0.11
2.19
7.56
-0.30
0.25
0.05
-0.02
0.44
0.43
-0.49
0.52
0.10
-0.09
-0.25
-0.14
0.17
-0.24
0.21
0.08
-0.09
0.08
0.23
0.17
0.12
-0.16
0.18
0.19
0.05
-0.14
-0.13
0.12
-0.24
2.15
7.39
0.19
0.18
-0.03
-0.08
0.06
-0.21
0.13
0.07
0.56
0.11
-0.43
0.41
0.46
0.45
-0.03
0.23
-0.12
0.06
0.07
0.21
0.15
0.15
0.14
0.14
0.24
0.27
0.2
0.19
0.29
2.09
7.21
0.24
0.23
-0.18
0.19
0.27
0.11
0.16
0.15
-0.01
-0.13
-0.32
0.07
0.31
-0.14
0.63
-0.48
0.59
0.18
0.09
0.24
0.21
0.21
-0.07
0.17
-0.31
0.27
0.18
0.09
0.19
2.07
7.13
0.05
0.01
0.00
0.04
0.09
0.07
0.03
0.06
0.11
0.06
-0.06
0.00
-0.05
0.02
0.04
0.13
0.09
0.05
0.44
0.41
0.51
-0.09
0.03
0.04
0.01
0.04
0.12
0.08
-0.13
1.99
6.86
Outcome
Respect
Orientation for People
Factor
Factor
6
7
-0.06
-0.04
0.13
-0.06
0.23
0.18
-0.08
0.12
0.19
0.24
0.14
0.11
-0.15
0.10
0.05
0.06
-0.13
0.17
0.16
0.06
0.05
0.65
-0.47
-0.59
-0.18
-0.18
-0.07
0.11
0.27
1.52
5.24
0.04
-0.11
-0.06
0.08
0.03
0.09
0.01
0.08
-0.30
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.09
-0.15
-0.04
0.01
-0.09
0.04
0.07
0.11
0.05
0.06
0.11
0.04
0.51
0.42
0.49
0.51
-0.48
1.51
5.21
Note: Figures in bold represent loadings greater than 0.40 on that factor.
Using James’ (1982) formula, intra-class correlation
coefficients (ICCs) were calculated for ascertaining the
member consensus on each dimension. ICC was calculated by using the following formula:
Between MS - Within MS
ICC = ————————————————————
Between MS + (k - 1) (Within MS)
where MS is the mean squares and k is the number of
respondents in the sample organization. On account of
varied number of respondents in each bank ranging from
9 to 16, a harmonic mean of 38.46 was used as k for
calculating ICC (for further details, see Bartko, 1976;
James, 1982). The ICCs in Table 3 range from 0.199 to
0.325. All the ICCs are significant indicating that there
is a strong consensus among firm informants on the
prevalence of given organizational culture value.
44
Assessment of Person-culture Fit
(Value Congruency)
The person-culture fit score for each individual was
ascertained by correlating the individual preference
profile with the profile of the bank for which the
employee worked. Using Boyd, Westfall and Stasch’s
(1996) criteria for ascertaining the strengths and weaknesses of the correlations between the two variables, the
correlation coefficients in Table 4 show a moderate to
strong person-culture fit score for banks 4, 5, and 6 and
weak to moderate score for the rest of the banks studied.
The overall person-culture fit score was computed
by calculating the individual preferences based on the
responses of the newly recruited employees for each
individual firm separately. Secondly, the average firm
profile was calculated on the basis of the responses of
PERSON - CULTURE FIT
Table 2: Results of Factor Analysis of Firm Descriptions (n = 69)
Organizational Culture
Profile Items
High expectation for performance
Rewards Outcome Innovation Procedural
Team
Customer
Orientation Orientation
Orientation Orientation
Factor
Factor
Factor
Factor
Factor
Factor
1
2
3
4
5
6
Stability
Factor
7
Easygoingness
Factor
8
0.18
0.56
-0.13
-0.10
-0.06
0.03
0.23
0.12
-0.61
0.21
0.18
0.09
0.31
0.28
0.09
0.14
High pay for good performance
0.81
0.19
0.06
0.08
-0.09
0.11
-0.13
0.28
Praises for performance
0.59
0.11
0.31
-0.27
0.08
0.09
0.11
-0.13
Achievement
0.37
0.81
0.02
-0.11
0.23
0.14
-0.08
0.19
0.21
-0.49
0.14
-0.07
0.11
-0.17
0.03
0.06
-0.15
Professional growth
orientation
Emphasis on quality
Results orientation
0.03
0.64
0.27
0.12
0.09
0.14
0.07
Flexibility
0.33
0.04
-0.57
0.12
-0.15
0.11
-0.17
0.06
Adaptability
0.06
0.19
0.41
0.08
0.17
0.11
-0.16
0.09
Innovation
0.07
0.10
0.68
0.15
0.03
0.31
0.29
-0.24
-0.12
0.24
-0.71
0.29
0.13
0.09
0.13
0.17
Experimenting with new ideas
0.23
0.08
-0.48
0.14
0.11
0.07
0.12
0.09
Being careful
0.29
-0.13
0.15
-0.48
0.12
0.12
0.09
0.17
Attention to detail
0.15
0.12
0.17
0.57
0.15
0.19
0.22
0.08
Paper work
0.12
0.18
-0.12
0.61
0.22
0.06
0.23
0.02
Spirit rather than letter ethos
0.06
0.11
0.08
-0.52
-0.21
0.07
0.29
0.05
Knowledge of procedures
0.11
-0.01
0.10
0.76
0.31
0.09
0.23
0.34
Simplification of procedures
0.14
-0.31
0.18
0.52
-0.05
0.08
0.03
0.01
Taking advantage of opportunities
People orientation
0.15
0.26
-0.21
0.09
-0.56
0.21
0.03
0.13
Supportiveness
0.18
-0.08
0.21
0.06
0.42
0.32
0.19
0.18
Developing friends
0.03
0.36
0.24
0.12
-0.56
0.28
0.03
0.14
Collaboration
0.11
0.19
-0.08
-0.14
0.63
0.09
0.14
0.18
Interest in customers
0.04
-0.11
0.24
0.13
0.08
0.53
0.12
0.21
0.18
Courteous treatment
0.09
0.12
-0.15
0.17
0.06
0.59
0.23
Respect for timing
0.23
-0.10
0.14
0.01
0.18
0.49
0.12
0.08
Efficient dealing
0.08
-0.15
0.05
-0.18
0.22
0.57
0.09
0.05
Predictability
0.19
0.10
0.21
-0.14
0.30
-0.07
0.48
0.03
Individual responsibility
0.21
0.01
0.26
0.09
0.22
-0.12
0.62
0.02
Security
0.08
0.04
-0.12
0.06
0.23
0.06
0.51
0.11
Easy-goingness
0.09
0.12
0.14
0.12
-0.06
-0.04
0.18
0.59
Calmness
0.01
0.16
0.29
-0.02
0.14
0.06
0.08
-0.73
Decisiveness
-0.12
0.11
0.05
0.31
0.17
0.21
-0.07
0.43
Eigen values
2.46
2.06
2.53
2.49
2.02
1.93
1.53
1.09
Proportion of variance accounted for
7.68
6.44
7.89
7.81
6.33
6.02
4.78
3.40
Note: Figures in bold represent loadings greater than 0.40 on that factor.
Table 3: Results of ANOVA and ICC
Organizational Culture Profile
Reward orientation
Team orientation
Innovation
Easy-goingness
Procedural
Outcome orientation
Customer orientation
Stability
Mean Squares
Between Banks
(df = 5)
40.834
37.523
29.883
54.186
35.864
47.327
32.819
45.215
F Ratios*
ICC
19.519
12.034
10.537
17.077
11.124
12.144
11.646
13.306
0.325
0.223
0.199
0.295
0.208
0.224
0.217
0.242
Within Banks
(df = 63)
2.092
3.118
2.836
3.173
3.224
3.897
2.818
3.398
*All F’s are statistically significant (P <.001).
VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 3 • JULY - SEPTEMBER 2005
45
Table 4: Results of Correlation Coefficients between Individual Preferences and Organizational Culture Values
Bank 1 (n=23)
0.09
0.37
-0.12
0.03
0.11
-0.29
0.07
-0.06
0.05
0.11
0.13
0.18
-0.25
0.17
0.29
0.21
-0.11
0.08
0.10
-0.03
0.09
-0.23
0.03
Bank 2 (n=28)
Bank 3 (n=32)
Bank 4 (n=22)
Bank 5 (n=16)
Bank 6 (n=14)
0.11
0.13
0.14
0.07
-0.19
0.05
0.03
0.18
-0.06
0.09
0.14
0.10
-0.07
-0.05
0.11
0.13
-0.08
0.07
0.09
-0.01
0.03
0.06
0.11
0.27
-0.13
0.12
0.26
0.10
0.13
0.07
0.04
0.11
-0.18
-0.02
0.06
0.21
0.09
-0.29
0.07
-0.11
0.13
0.05
0.18
0.04
0.10
-0.02
0.09
0.25
0.36
-0.42
0.08
0.11
-0.20
0.06
0.09
0.05
-0.11
0.29
0.31
-0.05
0.53
0.11
0.06
0.18
0.21
0.57
0.02
0.19
0.05
0.48
0.31
0.05
0.44
0.37
0.39
0.09
-0.46
0.05
0.48
-0.24
0.07
0.23
0.54
0.47
0.11
0.31
0.08
0.63
0.18
0.71
-0.50
0.18
0.12
0.54
-0.25
0.57
0.48
0.13
0.10
0.74
0.46
0.12
0.18
0.73
0.62
0.08
-0.48
-0.06
0.73
0.19
0.12
-0.64
the relatively senior employees herein called as firm
informants for each firm. Then these averaged profiles
were correlated for ascertaining the overall correlation.
Overall, banks 5 and 6 show a near strong person-culture
fit score whereas bank 4 has a moderate score as revealed
by Table 5.
Person-culture Fit and Socialization Process in
Organizations
The results as depicted in Table 6 reveal that banks 5
and 6 are high ( X 5 = 60.91; X 6 = 62.56) on socialization
while bank 4 has a medium level of socialization score
( X 4 =39.20) as per the Pascale (1985) scale. Banks 1 and
3 are just above the level of weak socialization score ( X 2
= 26.27, X 3 = 28.37) and bank 2 ( X 2 = 18.69) is very weak
on socialization score as per the aforementioned scale.
Comparative scores of person-culture fit and socialization scores of all the banks contained in Table 7 support
hypothesis 2 that banks high on socialization score will
46
experience high value congruency.
Dimensionality of Organizational Commitment
Factor analysis using principal component analysis with
varimax rotation method was performed on a 12-item
commitment scale (Table 8). Out of 12 items, nine items
with loadings greater than 0.40 were retained. After a
scree test, two factors with eigen values greater than 1.0
emerged. These factors labelled as normative and instrumental commitment are somewhat consistent with the
recent findings (O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell, 1991;
O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986). Five items, representing
commitment based on the acceptance of organizations’
values, defined factor 1 as normative commitment. Factor
2 — instrumental commitment — was defined by four
items describing commitment based on exchange or in
response to specific rewards. Using the results depicted
in Table 8, two factor scores were computed for each
respondent for subsequent analysis.
PERSON - CULTURE FIT
Table 5: Results of Overall Correlation Coefficient between Individual Preferences Profile and Firm Profile
(Person-culture Fit)
Bank 1
Bank 2
Bank 3
Bank 4
Bank 5
Bank 6
0.12
0.09
0.14
0.53
0.69
0.73
Bank 2
Bank 3
Bank 4
Bank 5
Bank 6
18.69
28.37
39.20
60.91
62.56
Table 6: Mean Bank Socialization Scores
Bank 1
26.27
Table 7: Comparative Results of Bank Value Congruency and Socialization Scores
Items
Person-culture fit score
Socialization score
Bank 1
Bank 2
Bank 3
Bank 4
Bank 5
Bank 6
0.12
26.27
0.09
18.69
0.14
28.27
0.53
39.20
0.69
60.91
0.73
62.56
Person-culture Fit (Value Congruency) and
Employee Commitment
Correlation coefficients between person-culture fit and
employee commitment was computed separately for
normative and instrumental factors of commitment scale
as shown in Tables 9 and 10 respectively. It is important
to note that banks 4, 5, and 6 which were found high
on value congruency and socialization scores show
significant correlation (r4= -0.16, P <0.05), (r5 =0.22, P
<0.01) and (r6=-0.21, P<0.01), between person-culture fit
and normative commitment. Person-culture fit was also
found significantly related to instrumental commitment
for bank 4 (r=-0.16). However, with respect to banks 1,
2, and 3, the tables reveal that there was no significant
relationship between person-culture fit and normative
or instrumental commitment. The results, therefore,
support hypothesis 1 that high value congruency will
be positively related to employee commitment.
RESULTS IN THE LIGHT OF
CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH
The results of this study, on the whole, support the
assessment of validity of person-culture fit based on
value congruency. Further, they suggest that the organizational culture profile depicts reasonable reliability
and is organizationally useful. The cultural values of
individual preferences (Table 1) and firm descriptions
(Table 2) also appear to be comparable.
The results also suggest that person-culture fit may
provide meaningful insights into individual adjustments
to organizations (Louis, 1980; O’Reilly, Chatman and
Caldwell, 1991). The correlations in Table 9 bears testimony to this fact. Interestingly, high value congruency
in banks is found significantly related to normative,
value-based commitment but not instrumental, compliance-based commitment except in bank 4, where personculture fit is found related to both normative as well as
instrumental commitment. This indicates that employees were committed to the organization because of the
similarity between their own values and those of the
organizations they worked in. Caldwell, Chatman and
O’Reilly (1990) showed that normative commitment is
often associated with firms with strong cultures. Researchers have suggested that high commitment and
Table 8: Results of Factor Analysis of Commitment Scale (n=135)
Items
Normative
What this organization stands for is important to me
0.59
If the values of this organization were different, I would not be as attached to this organization
0.62
How hard I work for the organization is directly linked to how much I am rewarded
0.12
In order for me to get rewarded around here, it is necessary to express the right attitude
-0.04
Since joining this organization, my personal values and those of the organization have become more similar
0.61
My private views about this organization are different from those I express publicly
-0.28
The reason I prefer this organization to others is because of what it stands for, its values
0.67
My attachment to this organization is primarily based on the similarity of my values and those
represented by the organization
0.57
Unless I am rewarded for it in some way, I see no reason to expend extra effort on behalf of this organization 0.23
Eigen values
2.03
Proportion of variance accounted for
22.51
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Instrumental
0.12
0.28
0.43
0.67
0.34
-0.78
-0.17
0.23
-0.64
1.94
21.58
47
Table 9: Results of Coefficient Correlations between Person-culture Fit and Normative Commitment
r
P
Bank 1
Bank 2
Bank 3
Bank 4
Bank 5
Bank 6
0.09
n.s.
0.10
n.s.
0.14
n.s.
-0.16
0.05
0.22
0.01
-0.21
0.01
Table 10: Results of Correlation Coefficients between Person-culture Fit and Instrumental Commitment
r
P
Bank 1
Bank 2
Bank 3
Bank 4
Bank 5
Bank 6
0.03
n.s.
0.11
n.s.
-0.09
n.s.
0.28
0.01
-0.06
n.s.
0.12
n.s.
satisfaction are outcomes of person-organization fit
(Kilman, Saxton and Serpa, 1986; Ouchi and Wilkins,
1985). Except for bank 4, instrumental commitment is
not found significantly related to person-culture fit. These
results showing lack of significant correlation between
value congruency and instrumental commitment should
not be taken as a surprise owing to the fact that our
measures of congruence are predicated on a fit between
individual preferences and organizational values rather
than on the specific attributes of extrinsic rewards (Meyer
and Allen, 1984).
Posner, Kouzes and Schmidt (1985) found that value
congruence between managers and their organizations
affected a number of individual level outcomes (e.g.,
personal success, intention to remain with the organization, understanding of the organizations’ values, etc.).
Taking school children as subjects by individually asking them to report their own values as well as the values
of their schools, Feather (1979) too found that value
congruence between school children and their schools
was positively related to the children’s happiness and
satisfaction.
Organizational culture values have been found
related to retention and turnover of employees by some
other researchers as well. For instance, Kerr and Slocum
(1987) and Kopelam, Brief and Guzzo (1990) argued that
the variation in employee retention across organizations
could be related to organizational culture values. They
further suggested that various human resource strategies including selection and placement policies, promotion and development procedures, and reward systems
hinged upon organizational culture values.
It may be inferred from the above research that
person-culture fit (value congruency) has predictive
validity but as Sheridan (1992) noted, there has been less
progress in comparing cultural effects on employee
behaviour across organizations. Future researchers,
therefore, need to further test the usefulness of the personculture fit notion with reference to its relationship with
48
employee behaviour in cross but homogenous organizational contexts to arrive at some meaningful conclusions.
Another important finding is that organizations with
high scores on socialization are also high on value
congruency (Table 7). A number of researchers have
shown that through socialization processes, managers
can attempt to foster better employee understanding of
organizational values, norms, and objectives (Kanter,
1988; Van Maanen and Schien, 1979). Prakash (1995)
reported that an optimum level of fit between individual
and organizational values was possible through
socialization whereby the values of the members of an
organization were sought to be integrated with the values
of the organization. Reichers (1987) observed that most
organizations encouraged their members to think and
behave in consonance with its goals and espoused values.
Chatman (1991) showed that in the first year of an
employee’s recruitment, socialization experiences contributed significantly to changes in the person-organization fit. According to him, the person-organization fit
is created, maintained, and changed during membership. Authors such as Mortimer and Lorence (1979) and
Kohn and Schooler (1978) showed that occupational
socialization affected individual characteristics. Organizational socialization is, therefore, believed to similarly
influence individual values.
Some specific activities have also been found responsible for promoting person-organization fit in the
past research. Louis (1990) proposed that interaction
with members facilitated sense-making, situation identification, and acculturation among recruits. This interaction was argued by some (Louis, Posner and Powell,
1983) to occur during firm-sponsored social activities
and mentor programmes where recruits seized the
opportunity of establishing rapport and relation with
senior members. In this context, Terborg (1981) suggested that greater integration and interaction allowed
new recruits to emulate their firms’ incumbents as refPERSON - CULTURE FIT
erence points for their actions. Moreover, he asserted
that, through mentor programmes, new recruits gather
the required information about the organizations’ espoused values and historical contexts.
Perceptions held by organizations’ members regarding how strong a firm is on socialization also influence
person-organization fit. Research indicates that when
members perceive their organization as having intensive
socialization practices, they are more committed to
organizational values (Caldwell, Chatman and O’Reilly,
1990).
The above research evidence clearly supports the
findings of this study. However, the results of this study
need to be taken with caution because the study is
correlational. In addition, we did not control for
socialization to assess if value congruency was a result
of socialization or some other contingency variables. It
is, therefore, recommended that future research tests for
causalty.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY
To retain customers and stay competitive in the globalized business world, organizations in the service
sector, especially banks, need to make customer perception of service quality a priority. According to researchers like Schneider, White and Paul (1998), the customer
who holds positive perception regarding the organiza-
tions’ service quality is likely to remain a customer of
that organization. It is to the benefit of these organizations that the current customer provides a potential base
for cross-selling. Also, it is less expensive for them to
keep a current customer than to gain a new one (Rust
and Zahorik, 1993). Therefore, a high performing culture
requiring high employee involvement (Lawler, Mohrman and Ledford, 1995) is needed by today’s organizations to fulfil the ever changing customer priorities and
expectations. In fact, some argue that an organization’s
competitive advantage depends on the degree to which
it effectively manages human resources by ensuring that
both the organization’s and the individual’s expectations and values are similar (Pfeffer, 1995; Rousseau,
1995). Moreover, research indicates that socialization
helps to ensure that both the organization’s and the
individual’s needs are met (Major, 2000) and also that
socialization practices are key to both transmitting and
perpetuating organizational culture (Louis, 1990; Trice
and Beyer, 1993). Further, some researchers argue that
the strength of culture is the strength of commitment
(Virtanen, 2000). Thus, in the light of the present study
and earlier research evidences, banks, especially in the
public sector, need to pay due attention to socialization
practices which are expected to result in strong cultures
and hence strong employee commitment.
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Nazir A Nazir is Associate Professor in the Department of
Commerce, University of Kashmir, Srinagar. A Ph. D. from the
Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, he has
contributed articles in reputed journals including the Indian
Journal of Industrial Relations, Indian Journal of Training and
Development, etc. He was the Associate Editor of the journal
titled, The Business Review during 2000–2002. He is also
associated with professional bodies such as HR India and IIPA,
Delhi.
e-mail: na_nazir2000@yahoo.co.uk
Effective innovations start small. They are not grandiose.
They try to do one specific thing. It may be to enable
a moving vehicle to draw electric power while it runs
along elementary as putting the same number of matches
into a matchbox (it used to be fifty), which made possible
the automatic filling of matchboxes and gave the Swedish
originators the idea of a world monopoly on matches for
almost half a century. Grandiose ideas, plans that aim
at revolutionizing an industry, are unlikely to work.
Peter Drucker
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51