The interplay between organizational commitment and personal values

The study of employee's commitment is capturing the attention of managers and researchers. Besides being one of the most effective alternatives for achieving the organizational goals, the importance of organizational commitment (OC) lies in its ability to influence the efficiency and the wellbeing of members of an organization. The article examines the relationships between personal values and components of OC. Participants were selected from twelve Argentinean organizations. Subjects completed a questionnaire of personal data, and two scales to measure individualism-collectivism (vertical and horizontal), and organizational commitment, respectively. All subjects were classified into eight subgroups, after dichotomizing by median each dimensions of values (HI: horizontal individualism; VI: vertical individualism; HC: horizontal collectivism, and HV: vertical collectivism). The four most representative subgroups (N= 162) were selected, that is, who exhibited high scores in one of the four dimensions and lows in the remaining three. In such subgroups were calculated analysis of variance, post-hoc comparison tests, and correlation analysis. The more significant findings can be summarized in the following items: a) collectivists (HC or VC) show a higher level of affective commitment, while individualists relate to their companies through normative or continuance commitment; b) women and senior employees exhibit greater levels of affective and normative commitment; c) managers, employees with higher academic degree, and employees of large companies, feel attached to their organizations through normative commitment; d) continuance commitment seems to work differently than affective and normative commitment because it has no associations with any of the socio-demographic variables studied. Strengths and limitations of the study are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research.