values congruence and organisational commitment: p—o fit in higher education institutions

Values Congruence and Organisational Commitment:P—O Fit in Higher Education Institutions

Ann Lawrence & Peter Lawrence

Published online: 9 June 2010# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract This study examines business students’ individual values and their perception oftheir university’s values and the relationship between these values and affective organisa-tional commitment. Findings indicate that both groups of business students rated theirpersonal values as consistent with the rankings of the major pan—cultural values withstrong ethical orientation and self—development and learning values. In both educationalinstitutions organisational vision values and individual conservatism values predictedaffective commitment. Findings also indicate statistically significant differences betweenthe students’ personal values and their perception of their university’s values, suggesting adegree of lack of P—O fit between the students’ values and their university’s values.

Keywords Personal values . Organisational values . Value congruence . Commitment

Background

Over the past two decades, the rapid pace of technological change, the drive for quality andinnovation, the internationalisation of business, and shifting social and demographic trendshas challenged organisations. It has been widely articulated that knowledge creation andcontinuous learning at the individual, team, and organisational levels are now seen as acritical sources of sustainable competitive advantage (Jankowicz 2000). In addition, therealso has been strong demand from the public, government, consumers, and investors forhigher levels of corporate social responsibility and ethical behaviour from organisations andtheir employees. In response organisations are recognising the benefits that can be gainedfrom attracting, developing and retaining employees whose values fit with those of theorganisation (P—O fit) (Cable and Judge 1997; Chatman 1991; Westerman and Vanka2005). Key values and attributes sought after include the need for innovation, ethicalbehaviour, responsibility, teamwork, adaptability, a positive attitude to life-long learningand self-development (De Geus 1998).

J Acad Ethics (2009) 7:297–314DOI 10.1007/s10805-010-9103-2

A. Lawrence : P. Lawrence (*)Deakin Business School, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC 3125, Australiae-mail: [email protected]

Organisations are addressing these issues through the implementation of strategicallyfocused human resource management policies and practices to support a value-basedculture founded on person-organisation (P-O) fit (Chatman 1991; McDonald and Gandz1991, 1992). These policies encourage and reward ethical behaviour, and reinforcecontinuous learning and sharing of knowledge, employee engagement and organisationalcommitment (Finegan 2000; Hunt et al. 1989; Cable and Judge 1997; Chatman 1991;Westerman and Vanka 2005). This trend in individual and organisational values alignmentand organisational commitment also relates to the higher education sector as these attributeshave influenced universities in their core mission and are recognised as key graduateattributes for business students including accounting, marketing, management and humanresource management.

Values

Individual Values

There is a wide acceptance of the relevance of values to human behaviour at the individual,group, organisational, and societal levels of analysis (Rokeach 1973; Schwartz 1992;Schwartz and Bardi 2001; Deal and Kennedy 1982; Posner and Schmidt 1994). At theindividual level, values and value systems (groups of values) are seen as desirable, trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles (Schwartz 1992).They are important influences on a person’s beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions; areemployed to influence the values, attitudes and actions of others; and act as standardsfor guiding and justifying action and decisions making behaviour (Rokeach 1973;Fritzsche 1995; Ferrell and Gresham 1985). Values are also connected with moral andethical systems and are seen as a useful way of examining interpretations of what isperceived as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ethical inclination and intention to act (Fritzsche 1995;Fritzsche and Oz 2007; Hemingway and Maclagan 2004; Posner and Schmidt 1994).Many researchers have operationalised the concept of ethical behaviour throughmeasurement of personal values that direct an individual’s attitudes and behaviour andinfluence the choices they make from among the available means and ends (Fritzsche1995; Posner and Schmidt 1994).

To date much of the focus of individual value research has been on the difference andvariation between the value priorities of groups. However, recent research addressing thesimilarities between values has found a notable degree of consensus in the relativeimportance of certain value types across individuals and societies (Schwartz and Bardi2001). Results for the average hierarchical order of values for the 13 nations studiedshow a similar pattern to earlier studies with schoolteachers and college students from 54nations. For example, ‘Benevolence’ values, which promote positive cooperative socialrelations within the group, were ranked as most important. ‘Self-direction’ values, whichsatisfy self-oriented needs and motivate individuals to work productively, and‘Universalism’ values, which promote positive social relations with others outside thegroup and reinforce a team learning orientation, social justice and equality and areconsistent with an ethical orientation, were ranked next in importance. These top threesets of values are consistently rated across cultures by individuals as being moreimportant than ‘power’, ‘tradition’, and ‘stimulation’ values that are rated as leastimportant; and ‘security’, ‘conformity’, ‘achievement’, and ‘hedonism’ values that are inbetween (Schwartz and Bardi 2001).

298 A. Lawrence, P. Lawrence

Organisational Values

Values are also a key element of an organisation’s culture and its ethics (Brown 1995;Dickson et al. 2001; Hofstede 1984; Schein 1992). At the organisational level there isgeneral agreement that organisational culture involves a set of cognitions that are shared bymembers; that these cognitions are acquired through social learning and socialisationprocesses; and that they include values, common understandings, and patterns ofbeliefs and expectations (Rousseau 1990). Organisational values are the standards towhich reference is made for judging acceptable behaviour of relevance to the company,both the behaviour acceptable for the organisation as it interacts with its externalenvironment, and the norms of behaviour for individuals within the organisation. Valuesare inherent in a firm’s mission and goals; its strategies and structure; allocation ofresources; codes of practice, policies and procedures; and its actions (Holland 1999;Schein 1992).

Making business decisions depends on more than just a person’s individual valuesystem, but is also shaped and reinforced by the values and behaviours of theorganisational culture and climate in which they are made (Hofstede 1984; Victor andCullen 1987). Ethical conduct results from the interaction between the employee’scharacteristics such as values and the organisational context such as its HR systems andpolicies (Trevino et al. 1998) and the values and behaviours of the organisation’s leaderswho have a key role in communicating, reflecting and reinforcing ethical values to theiremployees (Dickson et al. 2001).

In recognition that values are an integral part of both organisational learning systems andtheir moral and ethical systems, many organisations have attempted to promote anunderstanding of the goals and actions necessary to reinforce a clear set of core valueswhich underpin this stance. However, a distinction must be drawn between the values theorganisation ‘espouses’ as important via its published mission statements, and the ‘values inaction’ — i.e. those that are actually used to guide work activities, and as such, reflectorganisational practices (Argyris and Schön 1978). In some cases these maybe at odds.Therefore, it is appropriate to examine the individual’s perception of the organisation’svalues in action via the behaviours of the organisation and its constituents rather than justthe espoused values, as the values in action and behaviours are more likely to predict actualbehaviour and provide the cues that guide ethical behaviour in the organisation (Cullenet al. 2003; Finegan 2000; Judge and Cable 1997; Kristof 1996; Victor and Cullen 1987).

Person—Organisational (P—O) Value Fit

The notion of shared values or person-organisational values fit (P-O fit) has beeninvestigated widely over the past two decades (Cable and Judge 1997; Chatman 1991;Kristof 1996; Meglino et al. 1992; Westerman and Vanka 2005). Kristof (1996, p5) definedP-O fit as ‘the compatibility between people and organisations that occurs when: (a) at leastone entity provides what the other needs, or (b) they share similar fundamentalcharacteristics, or (c) both’. Proponents of shared values approaches argue that P-O fitbrings positive benefits to both parties (Chatman 1991; Cable and Judge 1997; Kristof1996; McDonald and Gandz 1992). Empirical evidence indicates that P-O fit plays animportant role in how potential employees choose an employer (Saks and Ashforth 1997)and how job applicants are selected (Kristof-Brown 2000; Saks and Ashforth 2002).Congruence between personal and organisational values also has a positive impact on workadjustment, and career success (Adkins et al. 1994; Bretz and Judge 1994); on levels of

Values Congruence and Organisational Commitment 299

organisational commitment and job satisfaction (O’Reilly et al. 1991; Finegan 2000; Lauverand Kristof-Brown 2001; Ostroff et al. 2005); and is negatively related to turnoverintentions (Ostroff et al. 2005). It also has been argued that congruence between valuesassists in the design and maintenance of effective organisational motivation systems(Munson 1984) and may represent a means whereby the integration of business strategy andhuman resource management can be articulated (McDonald and Gandz 1992; Quinn andMcGrath 1985). Moreover, a lack of value congruence may operate as a liability ifthere is conflict between the core values of the individual or the groups withinorganisations and those values that underpin organisational action (Chatman 1991;McDonald and Gandz 1992).

Thus if the most important human values of benevolence, universalism and self direction(Schwartz and Bardi 2001), are attributes consistent with the needs of organisations forsuccess, are not only espoused, but also practiced by individuals and the organisation, thisis likely to increase positive work behaviours and organisational commitment.

Students’ and Universities’ Values

Work value acquisition and the notion of person — organisational value fit is alsoparticularly salient to universities (Poole 2001) and university business students. Like manyof their counterparts around the world education institutions in Australia have been subjectto many of the same competitive forces as private sector organisations and haveadopted strategic management approaches (Poole 2001). University faculties, includingbusiness and commerce, have adopted visions and goals based on shared core values andseek to attract and retain staff and students who share these core values (Ferrari et al.2005). The inherent objectives of many universities are innovative research, life-longlearning, and professional development as well as being socially and ethically responsiveto their stakeholders and communities. These objectives are prima facie consistent withthe pan-cultural values of benevolence, universalism, self-direction and conformity(Schwartz and Bardi 2001).

Higher educational institutions have a critical role in preparing employees for thevarious business professions. Lessons from the business world help provide a focus onthe need for ethics and value-based curricula in the teaching and preparation of businessstudents for the various professions. The modern university community is diverse andin Australia, the total domestic and international students enrolled in the highereducation sector for 2006 were 984,146 undergraduate and postgraduate students. Ofthese, 733,352 were domestic and 250,794 international. Management and Commercewas the most popular field of education, with the largest proportion of enrolledstudents, at 26.7 per cent of all students (DEST 2007). A large proportion of thesestudents will ultimately form part of the pool of prospective graduates to be targeted byorganisations who are aiming to find employees whose values align with their vision,culture and values.

In their endeavour to produce graduates with the attributes that will assist success in theprofessions, universities influence their students’ values and attitudes through provision ofthe learning environment and core curriculum. As our future and (often at postgraduatelevel) current managers and professional employees, business and commerce students arepotentially part of our future leadership pool and many organisations are likely to seekbusiness graduates as managerial, technical and professional employees. They would favouremployees who are capable of working in high performance work systems (HPWS) — i.e.


capable of behaving ethically, taking responsibility, being innovative, working effectively inteams, adapting to flexibility and change, managing diversity, and who have a positiveattitude to life-long learning and self development. In other words exhibiting valuesconsistent with the pan-cultural values of benevolence, universalism, and self-direction.One could assume that these values would also be seen as more important to businessstudents than values which support a more traditional and conventional approach such as‘conformity’ values (Schwartz and Bardi 2001).

Measuring Values

In any attempt to measure the extent of the fit between individual and organisational values,it is essential to ensure that the value concept remains stable at the personal and theorganisational level. Of the taxonomies of values and survey questionnaire instrumentscurrently available to the researcher (for example Allport et al. 1960; England 1967;Rokeach 1973; Schwartz 1992; Schwartz and Bardi 2001) many are relevant to theexploration of individual values, but not applicable at the organisational level. However,recent studies have employed the taxonomy of ‘value dimensions’ adapted by McDonaldand Gandz (1991, 1992) from Milton Rokeach’s (1973) list of values for the purpose ofmeasuring and comparing individual and organisational values. This taxonomy has beenempirically derived; the items represented are considered values that are relevant in both theindividual and the organisational context; it uses interval scales; and it provides a factorialstructure of its dimensions.

The taxonomy of 24 ‘value dimensions’ proposed by McDonald and Gandz (1991) hasbeen has been operationalised by a number of researchers (Abbott et al 2005; Finegan2000; Lawrence 2006; McDonald and Gandz 1992). As part of a larger study exploring therelationship between values and organisational commitment Finegan’s (2000) findingsindicated conceptual support of the key aspects of the McDonald and Gandz model with a17-item, four factor solution. Abbott et al. (2005) extended Finegan’s approach by assessingthe factorial structure and the instrument for use in two not-for-profit organisations. Theyfound strong support for two of Finegan’s factors — ‘humanity’ and ‘vision’ values — butfound that the ‘convention’ and ‘bottom line’ factors were highly correlated. Abbott et al.2005 subsequently combined these into one factor labelled ‘conservatism’ values. Thestudies by Abbott et al. (2005) have also demonstrated these value dimensions, humanity,vision and conservatism values, are consistent with aspects of the taxonomy and hierarchyof human values as derived by Schwartz (1992) and Schwartz and Bardi (2001). The‘humanity’ values align with the Schwartz’ values of ‘benevolence’ and ‘universalism’, the‘vision’ values are consistent with Schwartz’s ‘self-direction’ values, and ‘conservatism’values align with Schwartz’ ‘conformity’ values (Abbott et al. 2005; Schwartz and Bardi2001). The nature and purpose of higher education and the conscious choice made by thestudents to become part of a university’s community, and based on the findings of Schwartzand Bardi (2001) and Abbott et al. (2005), could lead to the assumption that students wouldseek out those institutions whose values were similar and congruent with their own. What isyet to be determined is whether the values of Australian university students match those ofthe pan-cultural values hierarchy as proposed by Schwartz and Bardi (2001) and Abbottet al. (2005) and whether the individual and values of students in Australia and Australianuniversities are aligned. Do students rate their personal humanity and vision values asmore important than conservatism values? Do students perceive that their university rateshumanity and vision values as more important than conservatism values? To what extent


are students’ values congruent with those of their universities? The following hypothesesexplore these questions.

Hypothesis 1a: Business/commerce students from both universities will rate their personalHumanity and Vision values as more important than Conservatism values.

Hypothesis 1b: Business/commerce students will perceive their university’s Humanity andVision values as more important than Conservatism values

Hypothesis 1c: There is no difference between the students’ personal values and theirperception of the university’s values.

Organisational Commitment

Like human and organisational values, the concept of organisational commitment (OC) hasoccupied a prominent place in organisational behaviour research for many decades andcontinues to be of interest to researchers and organisations alike. Early research by Porteret al. (1974) suggested that OC generally could be characterised by three dimensions. Theseare (a) a strong belief in, and acceptance of, the organisation’s goals and values, (b) awillingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation, and (c) a strong desireto remain with the organisation and to work hard toward its goals (Porter et al 1974). Morerecent research has postulated that organisational commitment is a multi-dimensionalconstruct (Allen and Meyer 1990; Allen and Meyer 1996) consisting of affective,continuance and normative commitment and that these constructs develop from differentantecedents. Affective commitment refers to an employee’s emotional attachment to,identification with, and involvement in a particular organisation. Continuance commitmentrefers to commitment based on the costs that the employee associates with leaving theorganisation. Normative commitment refers to the employee’s feelings of obligation to staywith the organisation.

One stream of this research has explored the relationship between personal andorganisational values and organisational commitment. Findings indicate that perceivedorganisational values can predict organisational commitment and that different value typespredict different commitment components (Finegan 2000; Abbott et al. 2005). Fineganfound that affective commitment was higher when employees perceived the organisation’soperations were underpinned by humanity and vision values, and the greater the similaritybetween personal and organisational vision values the higher the affective commitment.Australian research lends strong support for this finding for the association betweenperceived organisational values and affective organisational commitment (Abbott et al.2005). Furthermore, these authors found that in some cases personal values also predictedaffective organisational commitment. There is also a link between ethical values andcommitment to the organisation. In their study, Valentine and Barnett (2003) found thatmost employees prefer an ethical environment and perceptions of company ethical valuesare associated with levels of organisational commitment. Trevino et al. (1998) argued thatemployees may feel more attached and committed to an organisation if they perceive thatthe organisation supports ethical conduct and discourages unethical conduct.

As in the employee — employer relationship, university students clearly get involvedwith their educational institutions, form an emotional bond and identify with them.Therefore, it is appropriate to examine whether students’ affective commitment to their


university can be predicted by their personal values and their perception of the university’svalues. The following hypotheses have been proposed.

Hypothesis 2a: Affective commitment will be positively related to students’ perceptions oforganisational Humanity and Vision and Conservatism values.

Hypothesis 2b: Affective commitment will be positively related to students’ individualHumanity and Vision and Conservatism values.

The Present Study

The purpose of the present study is to measure business students’ personal values and theirperception of their university’s values and compare these with the hierarchy of values asproposed by Schwartz and Bardi (2001). It will also compare these two groups and measurethe levels of congruence between their personal values and their universities’ values.Furthermore, it will investigate whether the relationship posited between personal andorganisational values and affective commitment is supported in a higher education context.The use of these instruments in the education sector with students rather than employeesprovides an extension of current knowledge relating to measuring personal and organisa-tional values, the measurement of P-O fit as value congruence, and the prediction ofaffective commitment from values.

Measures

Individual and Organisational Values

Based on the need to measure individual and organisational values and the research citedearlier by a survey questionnaire based on items from the McDonald and Gandz (1991,1992) list of values was employed to obtain commensurate measures of personal values andperceptions of the educational institution’s values. Two sets of identical values andexplanatory phrases were prepared (Abbott et al 2005; Finegan 2000; McDonald and Gandz1992). (For example ‘Adaptability - being flexible and changing in response to newcircumstances’). Students were first asked to rate the importance of each value tothemselves, and secondly, their perception of the importance of each value to theireducational institution. Values were rated on a seven point Likert scale with categoriesranging from ‘extremely unimportant’ (1) to ‘extremely important’ (7).

Affective Commitment

The purpose of this study was to measure students’ perceptions of their attachment toward theiruniversity i.e. the affective commitment component. Following other studies affectivecommitment was assessed using the abbreviated version of the ‘Organisational CommitmentQuestionnaire’ (OCQ) developed by Mowday et al. (1979). Seven items were deemedappropriate for the student-university context, and the questions were adapted for thispurpose. Only positively worded items were employed due to their stability in test-retestreliability (Lam 1998). The items were: ‘I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyondthat normally expected in order to help this university to be successful’; ‘I talk up thisuniversity to my friends as a great place to study’; ‘I find that my values and the university’s


values are very similar’; ‘I am proud to tell others that I am part of this university’; ‘Thisuniversity really inspires the very best in me in the way of performance of my studies’; ‘I amextremely glad that I chose this university to study at over others I was considering at the timeI joined’; and, ‘I really care about the fate of this university’. Respondents had to indicate thedegree to which they agreed with the statements regarding attitudes to their university on a7-point Likert scale ranging from (1) ‘strongly disagree to (7) ‘strongly agree’. Results of aPrincipal Components analysis performed on the scale to determine its dimensionalityindicated a single factor solution. The measure had a coefficient alpha of 0.86.

Respondents

Questionnaires, with a covering letter outlining the aims of the study were distributed to aconvenience sample of undergraduate and postgraduate students in a range of business andcommerce programs at two large universities in Victoria, Australia. At UniX, 1,100questionnaires were distributed with 244 useable responses (a return rate of 22%). At UniY680 questionnaires were distributed with 117 useable responses (a return rate of 22%).

Those who chose to participate were requested to return the completed surveyquestionnaire in the envelope provided either to the lecturer who had distributed it, ordirectly by mail to the investigators whose address was given on the envelope. Return ofthe completed questionnaire was taken as consent to be included in the study. No individualstudent could be identified.

The data from these responses were used to confirm the model factor clusters (Lawrence2006). However, only the responses from students from each university who were enrolledas full-time students were used in the comparative analysis for this paper. The full-timegroup from UniX consisted of 76 males (61%) and 48 females (39%) where 83.1% hadattained an undergraduate degree or higher degree; 39.5% were aged between 18 and24 years and 60.5% were aged 25 years or more; and 77.4% had completed one or twosemesters at their current university, and 20.2% three semesters or more. The group fromUniY consisted of 70 males (60%) and 47 females (40%) where 53.1% had attained anundergraduate degree or higher degree; 72.6% were aged between 18 and 24 years and27.4% were aged 25 years or more; 36.8% had completed one or two semesters at theircurrent university, and 61.5% had completed three semesters or more.

Methodology

A confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS 5 structural equation software (Arbuckle 2003)was employed in an earlier study to evaluate how well the specified models, as suggested byFinegan (2000) and Abbott et al. (2005), were an acceptable fit for the personal andorganisational values of business students and the two universities (Lawrence 2006). The fourfactor, 17-item solution suggested by Finegan 2000 was unsupported. Principal componentanalyses were subsequently used on the 24 items of the McDonald and Gandz (1991)taxonomy of values to explore the factor structures. Analyses and reduction of cross loadingsand redundant items supported a 13-item, three-factor solution matching the factor model ofAbbott et al. (2005) and indicated that the model was an acceptable fit for the personal andorganisational values of business students at the two universities (Lawrence 2006). A checkof the Levene statistic revealed univariate homogeneity for each of the factors (p>.05).

The first factor, labelled ‘humanity values’ consisted of four items: consideration,cooperation, courtesy, and forgiveness (alpha=.83 for personal values and .86 fororganisational values). The second factor, labelled ‘vision values’ contained four items:


adaptability, creativity, initiative, and development (alpha=.77 for personal values and .81for organisational values). The third factor, labelled ‘conservatism values’ contained fiveitems: cautiousness, economy, formality, obedience, and orderliness (alpha=.80 for thepersonal values and .71 for organisational values). The following indices were used forevaluating the fit of the model to the data: χ2 /df (acceptable value, <3); goodness of fitindex (GFI), and comparative fit index (CFI), (acceptable values at least .90); and root meansquared error of approximation (RMSEA) (acceptable values <.08) (Kline 1998). A test ofoverall fit of the baseline model was carried out across organisations, resulting in thefollowing fit indices: for personal values, χ2=269.808, df=124, χ2 /df=2.176, GFI=.90,CFI=.92, RMSEA=.057; and for organisational values, χ2=268.778, df=124, χ2 /df=2.168,GFI=.90, CFI=.93, RMSEA=.057 (Byrne 2001, 2003). Thus, the baseline model wasconsidered an acceptable fit to the data. The following indices were used for evaluating the fitof the model to the data: χ2 /df (acceptable value, <3); goodness of fit index (GFI), andcomparative fit index (CFI), (acceptable values at least .90); and root mean squared error ofapproximation (RMSEA) (acceptable values <.08) (Kline 1998; Byrne 2001, 2003). Thestandardised regression weights (factor loadings), Cronbach alphas, model of fit indices forpersonal and organisational values of all respondents are reported in Table 1.

Table 1 Standardised regression weights (factor loadings), Cronbach alphas, model of fit indices forpersonal and organisational values

Personal values Organisational values

Factor Value UniX UniY UniX UniY

Humanity Consideration .798 .828 .820 .837

Cooperation .789 .841 .832 .831

Courtesy .791 .753 .771 .818

Forgiveness .584 .652 .676 .717

(.82) (.85) (.86) (.85)

Vision Adaptability .641 .534 .676 .750

Creativity .724 .653 .783 .758

Development .800 .777 .719 .709

Initiative .652 .534 .669 .640

(.79) (.70) (.80) (.70)

Conservatism Cautiousness .680 .717 .617 .598

Economy .597 .686 .555 .263

Formality .718 .520 .599 .304

Obedience .803 .648 .645 .629

Orderliness .591 .610 .686 .723

(.81) (.78) (.76) (.78)

Model of fit indices

χ2 /df (df=62) 2.659 1.691 2.756 1.578

GFI .912 .885 .903 .881

CFI .919 .921 .924 .944

RMSEA .083 .077 .085 .071

GFI Goodness-of-fit; RMSEA Root mean square error of approximation; CFI Comparative fit index

n=244 for UniX, and n=117 for UniY. Cronbach’s alphas for each value factor are reported in brackets in bold


To allow comparison of each university and the extent of individual — organisationalvalue congruence, the reported variables were retained for both personal and organisationalfactors and separate analyses were conducted for each university. Scores were computed foreach personal and organisational value factor and the commitment scale by taking thearithmetic mean of the items contained in each of these factors to maintaincomparability across factors (Abbott et al. 2005). Higher mean scores indicate higherimportance. Descriptive statistics, inter-correlations between the factors and affectivecommitment, and Cronbach alpha reliabilities for the two groups of respondents arereported in Table 2.

Results

Personal Values Hierarchies

It was hypothesised that students from both universities place more importance on personalhumanity and vision values than on conservatism values i.e. have value hierarchies whoserank order is consistent with Schwartz and Bardi’s (2001) major pan-cultural valueshierarchy (H1a). There is support for this hypothesis, as the rank ordering of these three sets

Table 2 Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations among value clusters and affective commitment for students ofUni X and Uni Y

Factors Mean SD Meanrank

AC PH PV PC OH OV OC

Uni X N=124 Affective Commitment(AC)

4.71 1.12 1

Personal Humanity (PH) 5.76 .92 1 .399a 1

Personal Vision (PV) 5.66 .96 2 .291a .690a 1

Personal Conservatism(PC)c

5.14 .99 3 .419a .567a .571a 1

Organisational Humanity(OH)c

5.39 1.11 1 .565a .442a .458a .551a 1

Organisational Vision(OV)c

5.37 1.08 1 .490a .408a .544a .520a .814a 1

OrganisationalConservatism (OC)

5.16 1.05 3 .496a .344a .435a .564a .746a .799a 1

UniY N=117 Affective Commitment(AC)

4.57 1.06 1

Personal Humanity (PH) 5.79 .93 1 .225b 1

Personal Vision (PV) 5.70 .80 2 .229b .576a 1

Personal Conservatism(PC)c

4.86 1.01 3 .434a .551a .445a 1

Organisational Humanity(OH)c

4.94 1.27 3 .391a .394a .367a .342a 1

Organisational Vision(OV)c

5.03 1.15 1 .461a .387a .422a .436a .765a 1

OrganisationalConservatism (OC)

5.06 .95 1 .306a .462a .434a .285a .541a .514a 1

a Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)b Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)c indicates a significant difference between groups in an independent samples t-test


of values, based on mean scores, is consistent with the pan-cultural values hierarchy.Personal humanity, vision and conservatism values were ranked from highest to lowest inthat order. Results of independent samples t-tests for both groups reported in Table 3indicate that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups ofrespondents for their personal humanity values and vision values. However, there weresignificant statistical differences between the scores for their personal conservatism values.Students at UniX rated themselves as having higher levels of conservatism values thanUniY students (p=<.05).

University Values Hierarchies

It was hypothesised that students from both universities will perceive that their universityplaces more importance on organisational humanity and vision values than conservatismvalues (H1b). There was partial support for this hypothesis. The rank order for theses valuesfor UniX respondents was consistent with the pan-cultural hierarchy — i.e. organisationalhumanity and vision values were ranked higher than conservatism values (Table 2).However, this hypothesis was not supported for UniY where organisational conservatismand vision values were perceived as more important and ranked above humanity values.In addition, UniX was perceived as having higher levels of organisational humanityvalues (p=< .001) and vision values (p=< .01) than UniY. There were no detecteddifferences between the groups for perceived organisational conservatism values.

P-O Value Fit and Value Congruence

It was proposed that there would be person-organisation fit (P-O fit) between the students’values and the university’s values, i.e. that there would be no difference between thestudents’ values and their perception of the university’s values (H1c). This hypothesiswas unsupported for two of the three sets of values. Results of paired sample t-testspresented in Table 4 reveal statistically significant differences between the students’personal values and their perception of their university’s values. Both groups rated theirown humanity and vision values as higher than their university’s values (p=<.01)suggesting a degree of lack of P-O fit between these values. However, there was nodetected difference between personal conservatism and organisational conservatismvalues for either group.

Table 3 Independent samples t-tests for affective commitment, personal and organisational values — UniXversus UniY

UniX, n=124 UniY, n=117 t-test (2 tailed)

M SD M SD

Affective commitment 4.71 1.12 4.57 1.06 t (239)=.966, p=.33

Personal humanity 5.76 .92 5.79 .93 t (239)=-.241, p=.81

Personal vision 5.66 .96 5.70 .80 t (239)=-.419, p=.67

Personal conservatism 5.14 .99 4.86 1.01 t (239)=2.159, p=.03

Organisational humanity 5.39 1.17 4.94 1.27 t (239)=2.875, p=.00

Organisational vision 5.37 1.08 5.03 1.15 t (239)=2.377, p=.02

Organisational conservatism 5.16 1.05 5.04 .955 t (239)=.911, p=.36


Affective Commitment and Personal and Organisational Values

It was proposed that affective commitment would be positively related to the students’perceptions of organisational humanity and vision and conservatism values (H2a) and totheir individual humanity and vision and conservatism values (H2b). The pattern ofbivariate correlations indicates that all three sets of organisational values were positivelyrelated to affective commitment (Table 2). In addition, all personal values were relatedpositively to affective organisational commitment. These relationships ranged from small tomedium (Cohen 1988). Independent samples t-tests revealed no difference between thegroups for the levels of affective commitment (Table 3).

Hierarchical regression analyses investigating the relationship between the value clustersand affective commitment including indicators of P-O fit were performed separately foreach group. In accordance with the methodology suggested by Edwards (1994), andemployed by Abbott et al. (2005), the raw value scores were centred before entering theregression. The first step in the model included tenure, as a control variable, as length oftime in the organisation has been demonstrated to have a moderating effect onorganisational commitment and the organisational and personal values (Mathieu andZajack 1990; Wright and Bonett 2002). The second step included the organisational andpersonal values, indicators of person-organisation fit, i.e. the interaction between thepersonal and organisational values and quadratic terms to allow for non-linearity. Theresults of the regression analyses are presented in Table 5.

Support was found for Hypothesis (H2a) in UniX. When tenure was controlled for,all three values, organisational humanity, (p=<.001) vision (p=<.001), and conservatism(p=<.01), were significant predictors of affective commitment. However, in UniY, therewas only partial support for this hypothesis, where only organisational vision values(p=<.001) were significant predictors of organisational commitment.

It was also hypothesised that affective commitment would be positively related tostudents’ individual values (H2b). There was only partial support for this hypothesis in bothorganisations. Findings indicate a positive and significant relationship between personalconservatism values and affective commitment (p=<.05) in UniX, and between personalconservatism values and affective commitment in UniY (p=<.001). Furthermore, at UniY,‘Tenure’ — length of time with the university — was negatively associated with affectiveorganisational commitment when personal and organisational values were held constant.No interaction effects were found for either group. None of the quadratic terms weresignificant, indicating that the relationships observed were linear.

Table 4 P-O Fit: Paired sample t-tests- Individual versus organisational values for two universities — UniXversus UniY

Value congruence UniX (n=124) UniY (n=117)

M SD t-test M SD t-test

Humanity (PH) 5.76 0.92 t(123)=3.67, p=.000 5.79 0.08 t(116)=7.38, p=.000

Humanity (OH) 5.39 1.17 4.94 0.11

Vision (PV) 5.66 0.96 t(123)=3.23, p=.002 5.70 0.07 t(116)=6.72, p=.000

Vision (OV) 5.37 1.08 5.03 0.10

Conservatism (PC) 5.14 0.99 t(123)=-.319, p=.750 4.86 0.09 t(116)=-1.73, p=.087

Conservatism (OC) 5.16 1.05 5.04 0.08


Discussion

This study has provided some insight into the personal (individual) value hierarchies ofbusiness students and their perception of their university’s values, the levels of P-O fit, andthe relationship between these individual and organisational values and affectivecommitment. The strong emphasis on personal humanity and vision values indicate thatthese respondents from two different universities self-reported personal values hierarchiesconsistent with the top ranked pan-cultural values of benevolence and universalism, andself-direction (Schwartz and Bardi 2001).

Table 5 Hierarchical regression analyses. Predicting affective organisational commitment by businessstudents in two universities from personal and organisational value types

Values Humanity Vision Conservatism

UniX, N=124

Model 1

Tenure -.49 -.07 -.04

Organisation .48*** .48*** .38***

Person .19* .04 .20*

R² .35*** .25*** .28***

F 21.48*** 13.02*** 15.25***

Model 2

Tenure -.49 -.06 -.04

Organisation .49*** .53*** .34**

Person .179 -.02 .27*

Organisation² .08 .01 -.00

Person² -.06 .09 -.19

Person X Organisation .05 -.22 .13

Δ R² .01 .01 .02

FΔ .35 .72 .91

UniY. N=117

Model 1

Tenure -.20* -.20* -.21*

Organisation .31** .42*** .18*

Person .08 .01 .35***

R² .20*** .25*** .27***

F 9.15*** 12.41*** 13.57***

Model 2

Tenure -.20* -.19* -.20*

Organisation .03 .45*** .18

Person .23 .02 .39***

Organisation² .01 .04 -.02

Person² -.07 .34 .11

Person X Organisation -.02 -.35 .04

Δ R² .01 .01 .01

FΔ .21 .56 .55

* p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001


Both groups of respondents placed highest importance on humanity values. These valuesare consistent with benevolence, values that promote tolerance and positive social relationswith others outside the group, and universalism values, consistent with social justice andequality and indicative of a strong ethical orientation (Schwartz 1992; Schwartz and Bardi2001). Following these values in importance are individual vision values, congruent withSchwartz and Bardi’s ‘self direction’ values. These satisfy self-oriented needs and motivateindividuals to work productively, thus placing more importance on self-directivebehaviours. The mean scores on personal conservatism values that endorse obedience tosocial expectations and are consistent with conformity values (Schwartz 1992; Schwartzand Bardi 2001) are lower than humanity and vision values. The scores indicate thatconservatism values are still rated as relatively important for both groups. These findingsmay be explained in part by the nature of the respondents and their voluntary participationin university education programs. The vision and humanity values are congruent with thedevelopment of group and team skills, innovative, self-directive behaviour, and ethicalbehaviour that are key learning objectives of their educational programs and also thedemands of the corporate sector, as well as being basic psychological needs and a source ofsatisfaction (Abbott et al. 2005). The conservatism values that focus on meeting socialexpectations and assist in avoiding conflicts are also crucial in both private and businesslife.

It was also proposed that each educational institution would support the major pan-cultural values as their espoused values included innovation, life long learning,responsiveness, relevance and equity. The differences in rankings and the ratings forvalues between the two groups indicate differences in the culture of each organisation. Theperceived values and culture in action in UniX was consistent with the pan-cultural valueshierarchy. By contrast, the perceived values and culture in UniY was slightly moreconservative and less people orientated. Organisational conservatism values were mostimportant at UniY and least important at UniX.

When differences between the students’ personal values and the perceived universityvalues were explored, it was revealed that both groups of respondents rated their ownhumanity and vision values as higher than their university’s values. This is an importantfinding in relation to (P-O) fit. There appears to be a small lack of P-O fit between the keyvalues that underpin both an ethical orientation and innovation and learning, but noincongruence existed between personal and organisational conservatism values in eithergroup.

This study also provided support for the Abbott et al. (2005) findings that indicatedperceived organisational vision values predict affective commitment. This was evident inboth universities. In addition, findings indicated organisational humanity and conservatismvalues predicted affective commitment in Uni X. There is also support for Abbott et al’sfinding that perceived organisational values alone did not predict affective commitment andthat affective commitment could be predicted from personal conservatism values. Thiseffect is stronger in UniY than in UniX. However, the nature of this effect maybe contextualand influenced by the characteristics of the group of respondents (Wright and Bonett 2002;Abbott et al. 2005). There was a significant negative relationship between tenure andaffective commitment for UniY across all value clusters, suggesting that students who hadspent more years at this university reported lower levels of affective commitment than thosestudents who had been enrolled with the university for shorter periods. This was not thecase for UniX where no effect was evident.

The incongruence apparent between these individual and organisational values maycreate some challenges for both the person and the organisation and may have a negative


impact. While these respondents report high importance on individual values that underpinethical orientation and learning and development, key objectives for both the educationalinstitution and possible future employers, these students may find it more difficult to beflexible, creative and innovative and engage in effective teamwork, or behave equitablytowards others if these are not perceived to be the ‘values in action’ or rewarded in theiruniversities. Perception of core values misalignment may negatively influence studentlearning outcomes as well as impact upon the levels of motivation, satisfaction,organisational commitment, and effectiveness. These respondents may also experiencehigher levels of unnecessary conflict and stress in an educational institutional culture wherethere is a clash of core values (Chatman 1991; McDonald and Gandz 1992). Incongruencebetween individual and the university’s rating ‘vision’ and ‘humanity’ values particularlymay lead to loss of talented students to the university’s competitors or a failure to attractstudents in the future. In addition, it may also impact upon the institutions through loss ofreturn on investment on student recruitment and development costs, regrettable turnoverand loss of intellectual capital of its employees.

The fact that ‘conservatism’ values are perceived to be more important to the institutionsthan to the student body maybe related to the different roles and goals of individuals andorganisations. A key role of organisations, including educational institutions, is to meet theneeds and expectations of their multiple stakeholders and the expectations of goodcorporate governance and control. For the organisations juggling these needs and thedifferent values underpinning them this is a difficult balancing act. Neverthelessorganisations must pay due regard to the congruence between their core values and thoseof their constituents.

To gain the benefits outlined earlier from P-O fit and organisational commitment it isessential that organisations pay attention to congruence between core values by ensuringthat there is a closer fit between the values that their constituents see as most powerful andimportant for private and professional life: in particular, life–lifelong learning, develop-ment, innovation and ethical values. To avoid the cynicism and conflict that may arise whenthere is a lack of fit between values, organisations (including educational institutions) mustaddress and manage the perceived tensions that may exist in their organisational culture,particularly where espoused organisational values which have attracted students (andemployees) do not match the reality of ‘values in action’. Considerable effort is necessaryto ensure that the organisational structures, systems, processes and culture, and the corevalues that underpin them, whether implicit or explicit, are integrated and congruent. Theflow on from this value congruence is more likely to provide a sustainable competitiveadvantage from more effective organisational performance through higher levels ofcommitment, motivation, satisfaction, engagement and student (and employee) retention.

This study offers some progress in the examination of the link between organisationalcommitment and values and P–O fit and supports the earlier findings by other researchers.However, it is not without its limitations. The use of a small convenience sample ofbusiness and commerce students from only two universities as a comparison is a limitingfactor. As with any study where respondents are asked to rate themselves, there is thepossibility of social desirability bias and may reflect aspirational values and have hadan impact of the higher levels of self–reported scores. Moreover, additionalinstruments from the research could be used to get a deeper understanding of thelevels of personal and perceived organisational ethical orientation values. Therefore,the findings in this study should not be generalised without validation on a muchlarger and more broadly based sample from the educational sector. Future studiesshould address these issues.


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