The Affective Implications of Perceived Congruence with Culture Dimensions during Organizational Transformation

Abstract

The influence of individuals’ congruence with an organization’s culture on their affective orientations toward the organization has been the focus of a growing body of research. The present study contributes to this research by examining this relationship (I) in the context of an organization undergoing significant cultural transformation, and (2) across four theoretically identified dimensions of culture. We found that, across all four culture dimensions, the discrepancy between individuals’ assessments of the current culture and their ideal culture explained significant variance in two organization-focused affective outcomes, organizational commitment and optimism about the organization’s future. In contrast, the congruence effects across the four culture dimensions were not uniformly significant for job satisfaction, job involvement, and job turnover intention. The implications of these findings for future individual-culture congruence theory and research are considered.