Person – organization fit, team commitment
and intention to turnover
By
Maria Stancheva
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
Master program HRM August 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... 3
I. INTRODUCTION ... 4
II. HYPOTHESES FORMULATION ... 7
1. P-O fit and intention to Turnover ... 7
2. Affective team commitment and intention to turnover ... 8
3. Affective team commitment as a Moderator ... 10
III. METHODS ... 13 1. Sample ... 13 2. Measures ... 13 3. Control variables ... 14 4. Data analysis ... 14 IV. RESULTS ... 15 V. DISCUSSION ... 17 1. Findings ... 17 2. Theoretical Implications ... 19
3. Strong and Weak Points ... 21
4. Practical Implications ... 21
ABSTRACT
The paper presents a model of the relation between person-organization fit (P-O fit) and the level of intention to turnover moderated, by affective team commitment. Previous research defines person-organization fit as congruence of values and characteristics between the employees and the organization (Chatman, 1989). There is enough support in the literature that high P-O fit can lead to lower levels of turnover intention (H1). Based on studies, another proposition in the following research is that affective team commitment can be related directly and negatively to turnover intention (H2). Last but not least, affective team commitment is suggested to moderate the relationship between P-O fit and the outcome variable as the higher the team commitment, the stronger the relationship (H3). The results were analyzed through linear regression analysis. The analysis showed that there is a significant negative relationship between P-O fit and intention to leave the organization. Furthermore, the negative direct relationship between the moderator and the outcome variable was confirmed. However, the moderating effect of affective team commitment was not significant to lead to further conclusions. A broad discussion is presented on the probable reasons for the results achieved.
Key words: Person – organization fit, Affective team commitment, Intention to turnover.
I.
INTRODUCTIONPeople prefer to work for organizations where their personal values are aligned to organizational characteristics and attributes (Cable and Judge, 1994; Chatman, 1989, 1991; Judge and Bretz, 1992). In literature, that preference or need is defined as person - organization fit (P-O fit). It is ‘‘the compatibility between people and organizations that occurs when at least one entity provides what the other needs or when they share similar fundamental characteristics’’ (Kristof 1996, p.4 -5). An important aspect of P-O fit is values. Particular attention is paid to value congruence that comprises the fit of individual’s value orientation and organizational culture. Value similarity (congruence) is important as values are considered fundamental to self-identity and central by playing a role in guiding attitudes, judgments and behaviors (Chatman, 1989). Person - organization fit is a meaningful way of evaluating person - situation interaction because individual and organizational values can be directly compared and are an essential mechanism that affects individual attitudes and behavior (Chatman, 1991). Various researchers have studied the relationship between value congruence and attitudinal and behavioral outcomes (Da Silva, Hutcheson and Wahl, 2010). Turnover intention is one of the most researched outcome variables in the P-O fit studies because of its behavioral consequences (such as actual turnover) in theory and practice. Understanding the factors that can lead to voluntary turnover is crucial for building effective retention policy or effective organization. (Bentein, Vandenberg, Vandenberghe and Stinglhamber, 2005). Results show that person-organization value fit decreases long and short-term turnover intention (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007; O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell, 1991; Amos and Weathington, 2008).
outcomes. Results from studies suggest that the fit is most influential if the dimensions measured are important to the individual (Edwards, 1991; McFarlin and Rice, 1992). Self Determination Theory framework states the importance of three basic psychological needs that a person is trying to satisfy for optimal performance, one of which is the need for relatedness (Greguras and Diefendorff, 2009). In the organizational context, being related or committed to your team is important dimension in evaluating worker’s attachment (Bishop, Scott and Burroughs, 2000). Team commitment is an individual’s identification and sense of cohesiveness with other members of a group. Social exchange theory suggests that employees feel committed to their team mainly when they are satisfied with their coworkers and when they experience support from that entity (Bishop, Scott and Burroughs, 2000). Lack of team commitment is considered important as it can lead to a variety of negative outcomes. One outcome that very often turns out to be too costly for the company (McConnell, 2006) and that research has proved team commitment’s positive effect on it - is turnover intention (Allen and Meyer, 1996). When the commitment is affective it can be understood as the identification with, involvement in, and emotional attachment to the team (Allen and Meyer, 1996). Employees with high affective commitment remain with their team because they want to do so. It has been proven that both P-O fit and affective team commitment can lead to lower levels of turnover intention.
relationship on the other two variables and act as a moderator for the P-O fit – turnover intention relationship. The explanation behind is that employees are more likely to stay in the organization even though they can experience low affective commitment with the team (Vandenberghe, Bentein and Stinglhamber, 2004). In other words, P-O fit will be more important for the employee to maintain its membership in the company. When P-O fit is low, affective team commitment will buffer that main relationship (P-O fit – turnover intention) because of the need for relatedness (Self Determination Theory) and support (Social exchange theory) people are striving to satisfy. To sum up, affective team commitment is expected to moderate the relationship between P-O fit and turnover intention as the higher the commitment the stronger the relationship.
The goal of the following research paper is to observe the moderating effect of affective team commitment in the relationship between P-O fit and turnover intention, together with the direct relationship of team commitment and the outcome variable. What studies lack to present is how various moderators can affect the mentioned beforehand relationship. When affective team commitment is high, P-O fit-turnover intention relationship is expected to be negative and strong due to the positive effect of the moderator over the relationship. Results are presented by testing the hypotheses in various organizations in both the Netherlands and Bulgaria.
Figure 1. The model
II. HYPOSTHESES FORMULATION
1. P-O fit and intention to turnover
Most often, person-organization fit is defined as value congruency between employees and organizations. Value congruence happens when the values of the employees match those of the organization and their colleagues (Amos and Weathington, 2008). This is important and interesting as values are "fundamental and relatively enduring" (Chatman, 1991, p. 459) and are the components of organizational culture that guide employee behavior (Pettigrew, 1979). There are variety of ways for conceptualizing the value congruent P-O fit as the most used one is perceived fit (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson, 2005). Perceived P-O fit is a direct assessment of the individual perceptions of the congruence of employee-organizational values when one thinks they fit into their organization (Piasentin and Chapman, 2006). Those elements are needed for a correct assessment of the person-organization fit concept.
Turnover is a factor important in an organization considering the costs that it imposes on the company in terms of loss of resources, recruitment, hiring and training. There are various elements that can affect the intention of people to stay or leave the organization. The estimation between characteristics of the employees and the organization influences their intention to stay in the company. For instance, a variety of researchers confirmed that there is a positive effect found between high P-O fit and intention to stay in the organization (O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell, 1991; Amos and Weathington, 2008; Lauver and Kristof-Brown, 2001; Cable and Judge, 1996). Following this, one important factor that makes employees consider their stay is the similarity they think they share between personal and organizational values. To add together, P-O fit is a significant predictor of intention for leaving the organization. Following that information, the first hypothesis states:
H1: High level of Person-Organization fit will lead to low levels of intention to turnover.
2. Affective team commitment and intention to turnover
Workplace commitment varies along different directions (from and to the employee) and dimensions (Bishop, Scott and Burroughs, 2000). Individual commitment is guided by attributes that directly affect the person (such as employee’s identification with the beliefs of others) and is defined as the psychological and emotional attachment of individuals to their jobs, careers, work groups, teams or peers (Fornes, Rocco and Wollard, 2008; Vandenberghe, Bentein and Stinglhamber, 2004). Quite often the researched commitment is the affective commitment defined as the perceived emotional attachment of the employee to a certain entity. In the current study the entity that will be placed attention to is the team or the working group. Team commitment increases social involvement of the individuals and strengthens the ties that they form with the organization (Fornes, Rocco and Wollard, 2008).
theoretical framework called Self Determination Theory (SDT) states the importance of satisfying three basic psychological needs for reaching well being and optimal performance: the need for autonomy (i.e. need to implement control over one’s action), the need for relatedness (i.e. need to feel connected to others) and the need for competence (i.e., need to have an impact on one’s outcomes) (Greguras and Diefendorff, 2009). The need for relatedness could explain why employees need to feel committed or related to their coworkers and team. It is a need to feel included, to feel connected and as the organization is composed of different social networks and interactions between people, that need is directed toward commitment to the team. When the employee is committed to the team, high organizational and individual performance occurs and individual employee satisfaction increases. When employees are not committed to the work group distress within the organization can be expected to lead to organizational performance problems and low-performing workers (Fornes, Rocco and Wollard, 2008).
Herscovitch, 2001). Various researchers have shown that affective team commitment has a direct effect on the relationship with intention to turnover (Bentein, Vandenberg, Vandenberghe, and Stinglhamber, 2005). Consequently, employees with high levels of affective commitment to the teams they are in are expected to reduce their turnover intentions and to stay with the organization because they know this is beneficial to their teams.
As a whole, integration to the social network (trough support and obligation) for satisfying the need for relatedness increases people’s direct and positive attachment to their coworkers (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007). As a result the following hypothesis was formulated:
H2: There will be negative relationship between affective team commitment and intention to turnover.
3. Affective team commitment as a Moderator
implied to have indirect effect on the person’s behavior and to be mediated by more proximal elements (Bentein, Stinglhamber and Vandenberghe, 2002). When it comes to predict turnover intention one of the proximal entities could be the organization, when having influence over everyday tasks of the team or its values are congruent with those of the employees. In that case team commitment would be considered distal and will have eventual effect over the whole relationship between P-O fit and turnover intention. Employees are expected to assess their fit with the organization and afterwards to evaluate the level of their affective commitment with the team. It is anticipated that employees would perceive the congruence with the organization as more important for their intention to leave the organization than their commitment to the team, which they can eventually change. Furthermore, affective team commitment has found to have an indirect effect on the relationship with intention to turnover when used together with other commitment dimensions such as organizational commitment (Fornes, Rocco and Wollard, 2008). Research has shown that intention to turnover is related to organizational commitment and influenced by team commitment (Vandenberghe, Bentein and Stinglhamber, 2004).
In other words, it is anticipated that more often, people will be likely to stay when they perceive that they are emotionally attached to their team even though the organization does not fully share their values.
Based on those expectations the following hypothesis was formulated:
III. METHODS
1. Sample
Data has been collected from 168 employees. Participants were in the range from 20 to 73 years of age. The number of women in the study was 104 (61%) compared to men that was 63 (37%). Participants were part of teams from different organizations both in the Netherlands and Bulgaria. The total number of Dutch people was 129 to 36 Bulgarians. The response rate was 168 out of 183 team members, or 91, 8 %. Salaries in Bulgaria were presented by the minimum (200euro) while salaries in the Netherlands were in the maximum levels (5400 euro). Affective commitment was found to significantly vary between countries. Better socioeconomic conditions and low levels of unemployment were shown to be followed by higher levels of affective commitment (Gelade, Dobson and Gilbert, 2006).
All the questionnaires used were distributed to the teams and their leaders in each company. The first page of the questionnaire included general explanation of its purpose and the confidentiality of the individual answers. The questionnaire was composed of 3 scales for P-O fit, turnover intention and affective team commitment. All the questions were aimed to measure variables at individual level. At the end participants were asked general questions related to their education level, gender, age etc. Due to the various people that were filling in the questionnaires, high diversity level was noticed in relation to the industry and the sector organizations were operating into.
2. Measures
scored). Team members rated each item on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). The reliability of the measure was found to be .80.
Intent to quit. The three item scale was used to measure employees’ intent to quit (Lauver and Kristof-Brown 2001). Items were the following: “I would prefer another job to the one I have now”, “If I have my way, I won’t be working for this company a year from now” and “I have seriously thought about leaving this company.” Items were rated on the 5-point Likert scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5)). Reliability was measured to be .84
Affective team commitment scale. A short modified form of Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982) was used to measure team commitment. Eleven questions were comprising the scale such as “I talk up (brag about) this team to my friends as a great team to work on”, “I would accept almost any job in order to keep working with this team”, “I really feel that I belong to the team/workgroup”, “I am proud to be a member of this workgroup”, ”My workgroup has a great deal of personal meaning for me” etc. (Bishop and Scott, 2000; Bentein, Stinglhamber, and Vandenberghe, 2002). The questions were rated on a 5- point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). The reliability was measured to be .93.
3. Control variables
Individual factors such as age and tenure have been found to affect the intention to leave the organization (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007). Both variables were negatively correlated to turnover intention as the older and more experienced the worker was, the more they exhibited preference for a status quo.
4. Data analysis
affective team commitment variables were included. The last step of the analysis was related to the interaction between the latter two concepts.
IV. RESULTS
Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations and the correlations at an individual level among all the variables in the study. P-O fit has been found to correlate negatively and significantly with intention to quit the organization (r = -.49, p = 0.01). Furthermore, the correlation between the moderator and the outcome variable showed that affective team commitment is negatively and moderately related to intention to turnover (r = -.39, p = .01). Last, but not least, the relationship between P-O fit and team commitment has been found to lead to significant positive correlation (r = .28, p = .01).
Table 1. Correlations between the research and the control variables
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 1. Age 37.63 11.95 2. Tenure 8.41 9.26 .61** 3. P-O fit 3.97 .81 .13 - .00 4. Intention to turnover 2.23 1.17 - .28** -.15* -.49** 5. Team commitment 3.42 .78 .19* .08 .28** -.39** Correlation is significant at ** p < 0.01 level; *p < 0.05 level. N = 168
To test the model and the hypotheses formulated from it, a hierarchical multiple regression analyses was used and presented in Table 2. Hypothesis 1 stated that high P-O fit will lead to low levels of turnover intention (b = -.49, p = .01). The hypothesis has been confirmed.
The last hypothesis described the interaction between the P-O fit and affective team commitment and its effect over the outcome variable. It was implied that P-O fit – turnover intention relationship will be stronger when results for affective team commitment are higher (b = -.06, n.s.). The hypothesis has not been confirmed.
Table 2. Regression analyses summary
** p < 0.01 level; *p < 0.05 level. N = 168 Model B Step 1 (Constant) Age Tenure R2 2.22 - .34* -.03 .08** Step 2 (Constant) Age Tenure Team Commitment P-O fit R2 2.22 -.19* -.04 -.26* -.49** .33** Step 3 (Constant) Age Tenure Team Commitment P-O fit
V. DISCUSSION
The purpose of this paper was to study the moderator effect that affective team commitment can have on the relationship between P-O fit and the extent to which individuals’ intent to leave the organization. To this end, three hypotheses have been formulated which have been tested empirically using hierarchical multiple regression analysis on a dataset gathered from teams working in various organizational settings both in the Netherlands and Bulgaria. The findings as well as a discussion of their implications are summarized in what follows.
1. Findings
Following the empirical study conducted, conclusive evidence was found to support two of the three mentioned hypotheses. Thus, it has been shown that when the level of P-O fit in a group setting is higher, the members of the team are more likely to consider their staying in the organization (Hypothesis 1). This result is a confirmation of the conclusions made in previous studies (O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell, 1991; Amos and Weathington, 2008; Lauver and Kristof-Brown, 2001; Cable and Judge, 1996). The outcome is not so surprising but it is strong point of the research due to its confirmative power. Based on the ASA framework during attraction and selection processes people with low P-O fit will be screened and eventually if employed, they will leave the company, confirming the power of P-O fit as a relevant predictor of turnover intention. Those results are not only important during entry in and organization, but also during change programs when P-O fit is considered valuable for keeping the work force in the organization (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson, 2005). It can be summarized that value congruence between employees and company is important for both sides to work and stay together.
chance that the employee will consider leaving the organization (Bentein, Vandenberg, Vandenberghe, and Stinglhamber, 2005). The result from the second hypothesis can be explained with the distribution principle stated by Lawler (1992) that affective team commitment is perceived as proximal for the emotional attachment of the individuals when having a direct effect over their behavior. In literature it is implied that proximal subgroups such as teams are usually perceived as more salient than distal due to their direct face to face interaction. Consequently, when teams are more salient positive emotions produced by various choices will lead to strong affective attachment to the subgroup (Lawler, 1992). Considering this, the result from the second hypothesis can be explained by the proposition that teams were considered closer to the employees and stronger in their influence over the individual distribution of control (Lawler, 1992) which reflected in affective attachment to them that has a direct effect over the intention to turnover.
2. Theoretical Implications
The findings of the paper make several theoretical contributions which are very interesting. Although the results of the first two hypotheses are confirming the relations described in literature, a striking finding of the paper is that H3, which implied that affective team commitment acts as a buffer for the main relationship, has not been supported by the data. As mentioned before, the affective team commitment has not been used in studies in combination with the other variables of the model. The unsatisfactory results of the last hypothesis may come from the fact that even when P-O fit is weak and employees are dissatisfied with the organization, they will probably choose to stay in it not because of their positive commitment towards their team, but mainly because they do not perceive possibilities for job mobility. It is said that highly skilled or highly marketable employees will be more sensitive to weak relationship between P-O fit and turnover intention because they always perceive job mobility (Wheeler, Gallagher, Brouer and Sablynski, 2007).
Furthermore, in relation to the proximal – distal rule it is suggested that structural connection between the team and the organization could affect the strength of the distribution rule. In more decentralized structures subgroups will be stronger therefore the proximal rule for positive emotions and the distal rule for negative emotions will be more often encountered. Further research can be done for measuring the structure of the company (centralized or decentralized) together with the proximal – distal rule between the organization and the team. It is expected that highly centralized systems will have distal rules for positive emotions which will lead to emotional attachment to the larger entity or the organization. Last but not least, following these propositions, it could be indicated that majority of the organizations involved in the study could have had decentralized structure. That can explain the results of the second and third hypotheses such as the centralization is most often found between proximal and salient subgroups that share more positive emotions and make stronger the affective attachment in the group. In other words, as the organizations were probably decentralized structurally, the effects of the affective team commitment on the turnover intention was only direct due to the salience of the team and the positive emotions that foster choice and freedom (Lawler, 1992).
3. Strong and Weak Points
The main goal of the paper was to give a comprehensive view of the research process over the relations between the variables and their outcome effect. At the end, there are always strengths and weaknesses that are worth being discussed.
Strong point in the research is the various teams, organizations and cultures that participated, as they increase the generalizability of the results across various situations and organizations. That adds to the findings more applicability in practice.
On the other hand, it can be assumed that, even though the hypotheses were based on existing literature, a full list of studies on the subject could not been examined. Not only the amount of literature used can be considered non exhaustive, but mainly the preference for argumentation can alter the theoretical part. Thus, it is possible that a further analysis may convey significant modifications to the tested hypotheses. For instance there could be difference in results when instead of researching generally perceived P-O fit, supplementary, complementary, need - supplies or demands – abilities P-O fit is examined.
Furthermore, another possible problem in the design of the current research could be the high level of social desirability in answering the questions for the perceived P-O fit or the perceived level of team commitment. That could have led to ambiguous effects due to the desirability for better positive presentation of oneself and their team than the rest of the participants. Social desirability can be quite strong especially when answering self reported questions.
4. Practical Implications
1996). Based on the finding of the paper, ones achieved, high levels of P-O fit can be important factor for influencing less turnover intentions of the work force in the company.
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