How Strong Cultures Influence Employee Well-being: An Organizational Nostalgia Approach

Abstract

Although scholars and practitioners have long praised the role of building a strong culture in firm success, it is unclear how a strong culture matters to individual employees. We introduce a novel construct to study cultural strength at the individual level (i.e., perceived cultural strength), which is related to but independent from cultural strength at the group level. We propose that individual employees’ perceived cultural strength gives rise to organizational nostalgia, subsequently increasing well-being at work (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational commitment). We additionally propose that telecommuting frequency (i.e., the extent to which employees work remotely) moderates the association between organizational nostalgia and employee well-being. Findings from two studies supported our theoretical proposals. The findings advance the literatures on organizational culture, organizational nostalgia, and telecommuting.