Value Congruence

The enduring interest in value congruence in organizational behaviour is confirmed by the following search results in a popular data base. A search in Proquest with search word value congruence yielded 42,582 responses, and narrowed search in scholarly journals yielded 18,105 responses. The study reported in this book used response surface methodology and polynomial regression to investigate value congruence in a sample of 1358 employees from a multi-hospital system located in a large city in the Midwestern United States. The investigation produced substantial evidence for the main effects of values on organizational commitment, instrumentality and job satisfaction. However, support for the congruence effect was weak and sporadic. The findings raise questions about the importance given to the value congruence construct in past organizational behavior research. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are likely to be of interest to researchers and practitioners in organizational psychology, organizational behaviour, human resource management, strategic management and related disciplines.