Culture, recruitment and selection at Pentascope;
A selection method based on values
NOORTJE MULDER Student number 1335804
University of Groningen
Msc HRM, Faculty of Management and Organization Madame Curiestraat 187
9728 HN Groningen
Phone: +031 050 5278677 / 0624258579 e-mail: noortje.mulder@zonnet.nl
First Master thesis supervisor: Drs. J. van Polen
Culture, recruitment and selection at Pentascope;
A selection method based on values
ABSTRACT
Organizational culture has gained importance over the last few years, especially in the recruitment and selection process. New selection processes are more directed towards hiring individuals who fit the organizational values, also called Person-Organization fit. Pentascope, a Dutch consultancy firm, also wants to hire applicants who fit their organizational culture. To hire these applicants they wondered if there could be designed a selection method based on values for their selection process and if it would be profitable to use such a method. Results from different research lend empirical evidence to the claim that efforts to understand and improve the congruence between the values of an organization and its employees is well worth the effort. However, congruence between the individual values and those of the organization can cause a homogeneous culture. To still keep your workforce diverse, a focus on inclusion is needed.
INTRODUCTION
Since the 1980’s interest in organizational culture has grown (Hagedoorn & Bloemers, 1997). The proposition that organizations have cultural properties, that they breed meanings, values and beliefs, that they nurture legends, myths and stories, and are festooned with rites, rituals and ceremonies has been gaining popularity rapidly and is studied more and more by scholars (Allaire & Firsirotu, 1984; Kamann, 1996). Nowadays even the success of organizations is linked to the culture of the organization (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Hagedoorn & Bloemers, 1997; Peters & Waterman, 1982).
Every organization has its own culture and most organizations want to keep their unique culture. Among other ways, this can be realized by using the recruitment and selection process. However, currently there is not much literature on culture in selection processes, because most processes are still mainly focused on skills, attitude and personality of candidates and not on culture. Furthermore, the supporting selection technology is still relatively undeveloped and unproven (Bowen et al., 1991; Soeters, 1990).
In this paper the culture of Pentascope, a Dutch consultancy firm, will be investigated. The organization wants to focus on keeping their unique culture, by hiring employees who fit the organizational culture. This fit, also called ‘person-organization fit’, implies congruence between patterns of organizational values and individual values (Chatman, 1991).
The following research will investigate if Pentascope should use a selection tool to select new employees based on organizational values. And if they are going to use such a selection tool, what the best tool is for Pentascope.
Pentascope
Pentascope is a consultancy firm specialized in implementing change, founded in 1990 by five people. The organization is divided into 8 business lines, including Implementation Services, Academy and Business solution and control. Since 1997 Pentascope is a network organization with approximately three hundred employees, 85% of them are consultant. They are divided over 5 offices throughout the Netherlands. According to the directors, employees and customers of Pentascope, the organization has a unique culture. A characteristic that shows this unique culture according to them is the human orientation of the organization. Employees are considered the most important asset in the organization. Good relations with and between these employees are very important, as is development. They want to create, what they call a ‘Great Place to Work’, which refers to a place where people trust and respect each other and feel camaraderie. People must feel good when they come to work. They also want their client-organizations to become Great Places to Work. Currently they are implementing ‘Schitterende Organisaties’.
To keep this unique culture, one of the CEO’s of Pentascope was wondering if there are techniques or methods in the recruitment and selection process to separate the applicants who do fit the culture of Pentascope from does who do not. Currently the selection of employees is mainly based on intuition and experience from the recruiter. Experience shows that this is not always the best way of selecting; it can result in hiring people who do not fit the culture and leave the organization rather soon. The CEO also thinks that with a method or instrument there will become more unity in the selection process.
Before developing methods or techniques for the selection process, the literature studied will be discussed, starting with organizational culture.
Organizational Culture
along in the organization (Cameron & Quinn, 2006; Neuijen, 1992). Another important aspect of culture is, that it is ‘distinguishing’ (Hagedoorn & Bloemers, 1997). One kind of organization culture does not exist; every organization is unique (van Muijen, Koopman & de Witte, 1996). When talking about the ‘Pentascope-culture’, they refer to the individual beliefs, values, and assumptions shared by the employees of Pentascope, which distinguish them, for example, from the employees of McKinsey (Markus, 2000).It is often said that organizational culture is to an organization what personality is to an individual, which is a guideline that predicts its behaviour and the way others perceive it (Beulens, Kreitner and Kinicki, 2002). It is like underlying glue that binds the organization together (Deal & Kennedy, 1982).
In the literature several distinctions are made and explanations are given on the subject of culture. According to Schein (1992) organizational culture can be analyzed at different levels. These levels are shown in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1
The four different levels of organizational culture
(Source: Schein, 1985)
1. Artifacts: The highest level of cultural manifestation. Artifacts are the visible symbols
They are easier to change than the less visible aspects of organizational culture (Beulens et al. 2002).
2. Norms: Just below the surface of cultural awareness are norms guiding how members
should behave in particular situations. These norms represent the unwritten rules of behaviour. They are often explicit and clearly laid down, like a smoking ban (Hagedoorn & Bloemers, 1997).
3. Values: What ought to be in organizations. Values tell members what is important in
the organization and what deserves attention, like quality, trust and freedom. These values are supported by the norms and artefacts. Values tend to be persistent over time and are more resistant to change (Beulens et al., 2002).
4. Basic assumptions: At the deepest level of cultural awareness are the taken-for-granted
assumptions about how organizational problems should be solved. They tell members how to perceive, feel, and think about things. Basic assumptions are ‘non-confrontable’ and ‘non-debatable’ assumptions about relating to the environment and about human nature, human activity, and human relationships. These assumptions are the concrete ideas in which values and norms are expressed (Hagedoorn & Bloemers, 1997).
Many other scholars (Hagedoorn & Bloemers, 1997) agree that these four different levels are the elements representing the culture of an organization. Because of these different elements it is not easy to map the culture of an organization, especially when some of these elements are not directly visible to the investigator. Van Muijen et al. (1996) use the analogy of an iceberg to differentiate between the visible aspects of culture, observed behavioural regularities (the tip of the iceberg), and the central cognitive components of culture; values and beliefs (the under laying bulk of the iceberg).
research will therefore be on organization values, as one of the most important factors of culture.
Values
Values tell members what is important in the organization and what deserves attention, like quality, trust, and freedom. Organizational values are acquired and experienced by members as the only correct way of thinking, feeling and acting (Neuijen, 1992; Soeters, 1990).These shared values define the fundamental character for the organization, the attitude that distinguishes it from all others (Deal & Kennedy, 1982).
According to van Reenen and Waisfisz (1995) culture can only be changed when the values held by employees are changed, but changing these values is very difficult. This is caused by the fact that the transfer of values especially takes place during the raising of a child; from the birth of a child till the age of nine or ten (Bax, 2003; Soeters, 1990). The heart of culture, the core values, is at that age for the most part embedded in the child. They constitute our personal ‘bottom line’, are deep seated, influence almost every aspect of our lives, are fundamental, relatively enduring (Chatman, 1991; Posner et al. 1985) and therefore hard to change.
Several scholars (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Horton, 1984; Posner, et al., 1985) clearly articulated that organizational values and shared values do make a significant difference in the lives of employees, as well as in their organization’s performance. Some of them state that the most successful organizations are those that have been fundamentally committed to a set of solid values. These values affect the way customers are perceived and treated; the way employees and their contributions are viewed and rewarded, etcetera (Boxx et al., 1991). Therefore values ought to be a matter of great concern to managers (Deal & Kennedy, 1982).
Values provide the starting point, with the joint processes of selection and socialization, acting as complementary means to insure Person-Organization fit (Chatman, 1991). Thus congruency between an individual’s values and those of an organization may be at the crux of Person-Culture fit (O’Reilly et al, 1991).
Person-Organization Fit
Research on Person-Organization fit posits that when good fit exists, positive outcomes are usually (but not always) predicted for individuals and organizations, while poor fit is usually (but not always) assumed to yield less effectiveness for both (Schneider, Kristof, Goldstein, Smith, 1997; Boxx et al, 1991). Posner et al. (1985) discovered that shared values are related to feelings of personal success and to organizational commitment. Managers who felt that their values were particularly compatible with those of the organization were significantly more confident that they would remain with their current employer for the next five years. Other researchers (Chatman, 1991; Deal & Kennedy, 1982; O'Reilly et al., 1991; Schneider, 1987) also argued that the fit between personal and organizational values is very important to employee retention. In his attraction-selection-attrition model, Schneider (1987) succinctly described this proposition by suggesting that particular kinds of individuals are attracted to particular organizations and that those who do not fit an organization soon leave. Those who fit tend to have significantly higher levels of job satisfaction, commitment, cohesion and higher intentions to continue working in their firms than those who do not fit (Boxx et al., 1991; Chatman, 1991; O’Reilly et al, 1991; Posner et al, 1985). According to Posner et al. (1985) shared values are also related to self confidence in understanding personal and organizational values. These shared values contribute to greater awareness and better understanding of the organizational values. Other findings were that employees with a high score on compatibility can balance their work and personal affairs more effective; it also reduces levels of role ambiguity and conflicts and appears to increase the attachment of employees to the goals and objectives of their corporation. The energy which is needed for coping with, and possibly fighting about, incompatible values is enormous and takes its toll on both personal effectiveness and organizational productivity. An additional benefit of focusing on person-organization fit in terms of psychological variables is that these variables do not discriminate on the basis of demographic characteristics, like gender (Bowen, Ledford & Nathan, 1991).
Recruitment and Selection
the recruitment and selection process is one of the most important mechanisms to maintain an organization culture. Peters and Waterman (1982) even state that paying a lot of attention to the selection process will contribute to the success of organizational culture.
Conventional selection practices are geared towards hiring employees whose knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA’s) provide the greatest fit with clearly defined requirements of specific jobs. Traditional selection techniques rarely consider characteristics of the organization in which the jobs reside and also ignore characteristics or values of the person that are irrelevant to immediate job requirements (Bowen et al, 1991; Chatman, 1991). In common management parlance, the organization hires new “hands” or new “heads” – that is, parts of people. Additionally, the traditional selection model is more concerned with finding new employees than retaining them. However, selection processes may also serve the subtle function of selecting applicants whose values are compatible with organizational values and screening out those individuals whose values are incompatible. Rather than focusing on job-related criteria, selection appears to be based on socially based criteria as ‘personal chemistry,’ values, personality traits and, possibly, on how closely recruit’ preferences match organizational values (Chatman, 1991; Hagedoorn & Bloemers, 1997; Nazir, 2005; Schein, 1992). Instead of strengthening current culture, the selection process can also achieve cultural renewal (Soeters, 1990). Brought in as ‘competitive resources,’ it seems likely that newcomers may bring with them new skills, fresh ideas, and new values that can be shared with organizational insiders.
A new selection model is emerging geared towards hiring a “whole” person who will fit well into the specific organization’s culture. It reflects a fundamental reorientation of the selection process towards hiring “people”, not just KSA’s, for “organizations”, not just jobs (Bowen et al, 1991). Long term focus on fit has also become more important in this new model. The organization’s overall philosophy and values are likely to be more stable and consequently, whereas job analysis data may quickly become outdated as rapidly changing products and technologies reshape employees’ jobs (Bowen et al., 1991). The new approach, regarding hiring for person-organization fit, requires more resources than the traditional selection model (Bowen et al., 1991). The fit, however, would result in higher levels of job satisfaction, commitment, cohesion and higher intentions to continue working for the organization. Also, changes in hiring practices for person-organization fit are likely to be less frequent but much greater in scope than changes in traditional hiring.
and then develop measures to select these individuals (Bowen et al., 1991). There has already been research on culture-organization fit (C-O fit) and organization culture. However, there is not much literature on culture in selection processes, because most recruitment and selection processes are still mainly focused on skills, attitude and personality of candidates. Furthermore, the supporting selection technology is still relatively undeveloped and unproven (Bowen et al., 1991; Soeters, 1990). A conclusion which can be drawn from current literature is that this new selection method based on person-organization fit may lead to a homogeneous culture.
Homogeneous Culture, Diversity and Inclusion
the benefits of diversity enhancing organizational learning and growth (van Muijen et al., 1996; van Reenen & Waisfisz, 1995; Roberson, 2006). According to Deal and Kennedy (1982) using these differences causes healthy tension and is necessary to get things done. So, when implementing a new selection method based on values to create personal and organizational fit, the organization has to keep in mind that inclusion is very important.
Through the literature review more information is gained on organizational culture and values, person-organization fit, recruitment en selection, homogeneous cultures, diversity and inclusion. However, finding out what a useful selection method based on values is for Pentascope, first requires a culture scan of the organization. This leads us to the next part of this paper, the methods.
METHOD
According to Kamann (1996) a culture scan is very useful in formulating criteria for recruiting and selecting new employees. The new selection method must align with the current values of Pentascope to accomplish a fit between the new employees and the current organizational culture.
Measuring a complex subject like organizational culture can result in incomplete and incorrect information caused by a one-sided measurement method, also called ‘mono-method-variance’. That is why Thöne (1990) and Hofstede (1998) recommend using a combination of diverse methods. In this research a mixture of different methods was used namely observation and two questionnaires; one quantitative and one qualitative. The observation mostly took place in Groningen, one of the five offices of Pentascope, for a period of six months.
In the following part the methods will be discussed in more detail.
Observation
To describe an organizational culture from the inside, one has to feel and experience it, also known as “scanning by walking around” (Kamann, 1996: 190). The observations made in this research were focussed on relations between people, norms, values, rituals, symbols, heroes and the way things are done in the organization.
Quantitative Questionnaire
From the different culture scans for measuring values of an organization, the OCP of O’Reilly et al. (1991) is used for this research. The OCP was developed to investigate person-culture fit. It contains 54 value statements assessing attitudes towards, for instance, quality, respect for individuals, flexibility and risk-taking, which emerged from a review of academic and practitioner-oriented writings on organizational values and culture. Results from the research of O’Reilly et al. (1991) suggest that the OCP shows reasonable reliability and convergent-discriminant validity. And according to Bowen et al. (1991) the OCP is well suited for use in making hiring decisions.
As mentioned before in the literature the values of an organization are very important. This is also the case for Pentascope, especially since they have recently changed their rewarding system and job analyses. In this new system values have become more important. However, most of these (core) values of Pentascope were not well represented in the OCP. That is why 25 items were added to the OCP, representing the most important values reported by Pentascope, gathered through interviews and observation. These 25 items were mixed through the other 54 items, resulting in a questionnaire with 79 items, representing the second part of the questionnaire.
The OCP is based on the Q-Sort profile comparison process (O’Reilly et al, 1991) in which the respondents are presented with a large number of items. Instead of using the Q-sort profile, the Likert scale was used in this research. Each item was measured by a 5-point Likert-type response format (totally disagree to totally agree).
The questionnaire was also sent to former employees of Pentascope. The first part of the questionnaire differed from the one sent to current employees. The former employees were asked how long they had worked at Pentascope, what kind of job they have now, and why they left Pentascope. In the second part of the questionnaire they were asked the same questions about Pentascope as the current employees. Only they had to answer them about the time they worked for Pentascope. So, for example, a statement like “this organization is flexible” was transformed into “Pentascope was flexible”. These former employees have experienced other cultures after working for Pentascope and probably have a more reliable and objective look at the culture of Pentascope (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; van Reenen & Waisfisz, 1995).
All the information collected from the survey was analyzed in SPSS. A culture profile was made, with the use of a correlation analysis and a factor analysis. Before analyzing the items they were grouped into dimensions considered to be most logical. As a guideline the factors of the OCP used by O’Reilly et al. (1991) were used. The culture profile gave an indication which items represented the different dimensions of culture.
Qualitative Questionnaire
there are any differences. And if there are differences, it is important to know if these differences must be eliminated in the future. For example, the directors want the organization to be more result oriented. This has some influence on the new selection method that will be created, because then the focus of this method can be more directed to selecting employees who are more result oriented.
Interviews with employees of the recruitment and selection process
Three employees of the recruitment and selection process were interviewed, all three female. The questions asked during the interviews were almost all open and aimed at getting information about the recruitment and selection process, fit, diversity and culture. The interview plan can be found in Appendix B.
Value Based Selection Tool
The selection tool is based on the results gathered from the literature review, questionnaires and observation. The tool has to fit the current recruitment and selection process, must measure values from applicants and compare these with the values of the organization. The kind of selection tool developed for Pentascope will be discussed in the next chapter, where the results are presented.
RESULTS
Quantitative Questionnaire
Inspection of the correlation matrix for all items revealed that more than 50% of the correlations were significant at the .05-level, which provides an adequate basis for proceeding to an examination of the factors. Eight items had no significant correlation with the other items; these items were left out of the factor analysis, which resulted in an analysis of 71 items. The results of the factor analysis can be found in Table 1. This resulted in six factors, which differed from the eight factors O’Reilly (et al., 1991) used in their research. All factors had ‘eigen values’ greater than 1. To ensure that each item represented the construct underlying each factor, a factor weight of 0.40 was used as the cut-off score.
TABLE 1
Results of factor analysis for organization culture
Organizational value items
Factor 1 Innovative Factor 2 Open Factor 3 Result oriented Factor 4 Decisiveness and Precise Factor 5 Individual Factor 6 Unpredic- table Being innovative .49 .16 .10 .18 .17 .48
Original ideas in work
situation .76 .04 .01 .15 .04 .05
Original ideas in new
situations .73 .20 .02 .06 .12 .20 Versatile .56 .06 .21 .06 .44 -.15 Net worker .44 .16 .20 -.10 .31 .06 Developing friendships at work .41 .13 .14 .05 .38 -.37 Being reflective .64 .05 -.13 .28 .33 .04 Risk taking .49 .09 .01 -.02 .10 .04 A willingness to experiment .58 .41 .03 .00 .23 .07 Move boundaries .66 .11 .12 .11 .31 -.04
Developing new ideas for the
organization .46 .45 .16 .13 .05 -.11
Taking initiative .53 .06 .24 -.01 .44 .07
Making subjects debatable .34 .65 -.14 -.02 .20 .00
Open communication .23 .54 .21 .08 .40 .24
Being easy going .16 .61 -.23 .08 .33 -.01
Fairness .18 .52 .13 .41 .31 .16
Having a clear guiding
philosophy .07 .56 .13 .22 .33 .15
Confronting conflict directly -.08 .57 .09 .39 .06 .07
Being yourself at work .12 .57 .17 -.05 .42 .34
Everyone is equal .03 .43 -.18 .18 .32 .06
Low level of conflict -.31 .41 .19 .30 .24 .04
Fitting in .13 .52 .09 .25 .03 -.18
Adaptability .14 .43 .16 .09 .08 -.33
Understand others feelings .44 .49 -.02 .06 .16 -.26
Being team oriented .21 .40 .12 .38 -.02 -.03
Achievement orientation -.03 .05 .73 .32 .07 .21
Being result oriented -.00 .20 .54 .52 .16 .30
Action orientation -.05 .18 .59 .25 .11 -.19
Working long hours .19 .02 .57 -.02 .14 .05
Being demanding .23 .13 .60 .20 -.03 -.15
Having high expectation for
performance .04 -.13 .72 .13 .20 -.03
Paying attention to detail .04 .11 .03 .66 -.01 -.07
Being precise -.04 .03 -.04 .67 -.10 -.17
Being analytical .23 .12 .06 .55 .20 .13
Being highly organized .06 .34 .09 .68 -.21 .02
An emphasis on quality .33 -.13 -.04 .57 .14 .09
Decisiveness .07 .41 .11 .64 .09 -.02
Being calm -.18 .09 -.01 .48 .19 -.42
Performing the job as good as
possible .05 -.09 .16 .41 .44 .03
TABLE 1 (continued)
Organizational value items
Factor 1 Innovative Factor 2 Open Factor 3 Result oriented Factor 4 Decisiveness and Precise Factor 5 Individual Factor 6 Unpredic- table Improving performance .31 -.04 .33 .56 .21 -.03
High pay for good
performance .08 .18 .13 .55 -.01 .04
Being rule oriented -.11 .00 .18 .40 -.15 .02
Autonomy .04 -.08 .22 -.25 .54 -.02
Personal freedom .11 .21 -.13 -.10 .78 .00
Being very independent .13 .21 .37 -.14 .48 .03
Not being constrained by
many rules -.07 .11 .11 .03 .51 .11 Flexibility .15 .32 -.13 .05 .56 .17 Taking individual responsibility .24 .20 .20 .44 .48 .27 Being distinctive-different from others .41 .15 -.00 .00 .61 -.06 Involvement .48 .10 .08 .17 .69 -.04
Working in collaboration with
others .42 .29 .13 .19 .53 -.03
Contribute to a better world .24 .12 .30 .14 .54 .00
Being supportive .36 .30 .25 .18 .43 -.25
Being socially responsible .28 .44 .15 .09 .46 .04
Being aggressive .10 -.28 -.20 .20 -.44 -.20
Being people oriented .16 .39 -.05 -.05 .54 .07
Respect for the individual
right .12 .17 -.06 .21 .57 .03
Work - life balance .17 .01 -.10 .11 .60 -.11
Enthusiasm for the job .27 .16 .05 .32 .53 .23
Individual growth .26 .06 .26 .20 .61 .18
Opportunities for professional
growth .36 .15 .27 .30 .43 -.03
Care about the company .42 .15 .20 -.08 .61 .19
Having a good reputation .31 .17 .25 .02 .52 -.05
Tolerance .13 .24 .18 -.08 .65 -.00
Sharing information freely .21 .40 .05 .15 .51 -.09
Being quick to take advantage
of opportunities .24 .30 .15 .16 .06 .40
Predictability -.02 .02 .07 -.00 -.17 -.69
Anticipate on deep emotions .39 .38 .03 .38 .17 .10
Resourcefulness .37 .39 .21 -.02 .30 -.07
One culture through the entire
organization .17 .39 .08 .28 .26 .17
Eigen Values 5.58 3.32 2.26 3.14 19.42 2.17
ª Boldface statistics represent loadings greater than 0.40
TABLE 2
Reliability coefficients of the 6 factors and sub factors of organizational culture
TABLE 3
Mean scores on factors of organizational culture
Employees Pentascope (N= 124) Former employees Pentascope (N=9) Real ‘Pentascopers’ (N=9)
Mean Std. Dev. Mean Std. Dev. Mean Std. Dev.
Factor 1 Innovative 3.94 .49 3.55 .59 3.98 .62
Factor 2 Openness 3.80 .65 3.51 .23 3.95 .40
Empathy 3.80 .62 3.50 .40 3.72 .84
Openness 3.80 .58 3.51 .23 3.88 .39
Factor 3 Result oriented 3.60 .63 3.40 .39 3.48 .63
Factor 4 Decisiveness and
Preciseness 3.25 .46 2.98 .44 3.21 .45 Precise 3.07 .50 2.78 .81 2.89 .40 Decisiveness 3.37 .54 3.13 .53 3.44 .57 Factor 5 Individual 4.29 .48 4.02 .29 4.34 .27 Autonomy 4.25 .51 3.81 .38 4.37 .34 Relations 4.35 .53 4.19 .43 4.38 .33 Human orientation 4.27 .51 4.03 .29 4.29 .30 Reliability coefficient Factor 1 Innovative 0.88 Factor 2 Openness 0.86 Empathy 0.85 Openness 0.62
Factor 3 Result oriented 0.79
Factor 4 Decisiveness and
FIGURE 2
Mean scores on factors of organizational culture
1
1,5
2
2,5
3
3,5
4
4,5
5
Factor 1 Innovative Factor 2 Openness Factor 3 Result oriented Factor 4 Decisiveness and Preciseness Factor 5 IndividualEmployees Pentascope Former Employees Pentascope Real 'Pentascopers'
information out of the factors and to improve the content, some factors were split up into sub factors. When taking for example factor 5, ‘individual’, we can see in Table 1 that it consists of several items. Some of these items represent a sub factor, like autonomy. So these items were grouped into sub factors. For these sub factors reliability is also measured.
After determining the factors, the mean score of these factors could be measured. The results are represented in Table 3 and Figure 2. There where no significant differences analysed between the different groups on the different factors.
The highest mean is that of the ‘Individual’, with also high means on the 3 sub factors.
Autonomy: At Pentascope there is a high level of autonomy; employees are very independent,
Relations: At Pentascope relations between people are very important, employees work
together a lot, support each other and are involved.
Human orientation: Pentascope has a focus on human orientation, individual growth is
important, they are enthusiastic about their job and care about the organization.
Secondly the score on ‘Innovation’ is also quite high. This represents the organization’s risk preferences. Pentascope is willing to take risks and create opportunities. Further more they want to move current boundaries and the organization encourages innovation and creativity.
‘Openness’ represents the openness of the employees and the organization. It is not just about open communication and honesty between people, but also about feeling free to be yourself and easily fitting in as a newcomer. Pentascope scores also very good on this factor.
The mean score of factor 3 ‘Result oriented’ is somewhat lower than the other ones. This means that Pentascope has a focus on results, but surely not as much as it has a focus on innovation and human orientation. Employees acknowledge there is a result orientation, but not that it is very present in the organization.
The fourth factor ‘Decisiveness and Precise’ is the lowest one. The mean indicates that there is a very low focus on decisiveness and preciseness in the organization. They do not pay much attention to details and are not very analytic or precise. Furthermore, they are not very decisive or goal orientated. However, they do want to perform well.
Remarkable is that employees who are labeled ‘real’ Pentascoper’s also score high on ‘innovation’ and ‘individual’, score higher on ‘openness’, but score lower on ‘result orientation’ and ‘decisiveness and preciseness’. It is also remarkable that employees, who left the organization, score lower on all factors. However, from Table 3 can be concluded that the individual has always been very important for Pentascope, as are innovation and openness. This is also confirmed by Table 4 and through the interviews and observation discussed in the next part.
TABLE 4
Top 5 ‘Words representing Pentascope’s culture’
Words representing Pentascope’s culture best Words absolutely not representing Pentascope’s
culture
1 Open Hierarchy
2 Human orientation Structured
3 Informal Power
4 Freedom Formal
Qualitative Questionnaire
Results interviews with directors of Pentascope. According to E. Breuker organizations are about human beings. He thinks the individual is very important to the organization and will stay important in the future. Attention must be paid to employees, they must have the opportunity to develop themselves and have to perform a job which supports their passion and talents. Being ‘you’ at work is also an aspect he thinks is very important. This means that diversity is encouraged among employees, not just demographic diversity like gender, age or ethnicity, but also diversity in knowledge, personality, etcetera.
E. Mandersloot wants a better reflection of society. However, he thinks it is very important that the values of the organization are congruent with the values of the individual, which results in homogeneity throughout the workforce on the level of norms and values. He believes that employees, who do not fit, will leave the organization eventually. Both directors agree that innovation and openness are also very characteristic for Pentascope. According to E. Breuker the culture of Pentascope may change more in the direction of social responsibility and internationalisation. E. Mandersloot mentioned the three core values stated by Pentascope, ‘creativity’, ‘result orientation’ and ‘sensitivity’ as the most important aspects of Pentascope’s culture. He sees the future culture of Pentascope as a culture of entrepreneurship and discipline, meaning taking chances, being precise, independent, driven, passionate, going for it, but with as little rules and procedures as possible. Also networking has to become more important. According to him this means more diversity in types of people. Other important characteristics of Pentascope, according to him, must be empathy, decisiveness and being ‘you’. Bringing people together who share the same values is more successful according to him than paying attention to the many differences.
Results of interviews with employees of recruitment and selection. Applications are screened globally in Groningen on education, relevant skills and work experience, related to the position the application has filed for. After that, the application is send to the nearest location, according to the applicants address. Global screening is skipped when it concerns a vacancy. Further selection is done at the 5 different locations. The selection processes in these different locations differ from each other.
employee of Pentascope. Who this person is varies per interview and he/she is chosen for his/her knowledge in a specific branch, subject or personality. This person has to obtain information from the applicant not showed in the first interview and is often a more experienced consultant. Special attention goes out to questions on commercial drive, human orientation, dependability and availability and the core values of Pentascope. This is usually done during the conversation or in a case, dilemma, or while sharing experiences.
In Amersfoort the interviews are different. The team managers and the consultant who handles all the applications on that location handle the applications. First all applications are screened on skill, experience and abilities. Those who continue are invited to one big meeting for all applicants. During this meeting a presentation of Pentascope is given, a network game, exercises and/or cases are done. After the candidates have left they decide who is hired and who is not. The content and the kind of person are taken into account when making the decision.
During all the interviews the most important thing according to them is the fit between the applicant and Pentascope, does it feel good, is there a ‘klik’. Implying that they are in favour of a homogeneous culture, but they also want to keep it diverse, like personality, because through diversity people learn from each other. They also acknowledge that people who do not fit leave the organization.
Some of the interviewers would like to have more structured selection processes, with all locations having the same routine, or one location where the first interviews take place. This concern especially grows now the number of applications is increasing.
CONCLUSION
In this paper the culture of Pentascope, a Dutch consultancy firm, was investigated. The organization wanted to keep their unique culture, by hiring employees who fit the organizations culture. The CEO of Pentascope was wondering if the organization should use a selection tool based on values to select new employees. And, if they were going to use such a tool, what the best tool was for their organization. In the next part the questions will be answered and the paper will end with a discussion.
employees, as well as in their organization’s performance. Therefore values ought to be a matter of great concern to managers (Deal & Kennedy, 1982). Results from several researches (Chatman, 1991; O'Reilly et al., 1991; Posner et al., 1985; Schneider, 1987) lend empirical evidence to the claim that efforts to understand and improve the congruence between the values of an organization and its employees is well worth the effort. Results also imply that newcomers who fit tend to have significantly higher levels of job satisfaction, commitment, cohesion and higher intentions to continue working in their firms than those who did not. An additional benefit of focusing on person-organization fit in terms of psychological variables is that these variables do not discriminate on the basis of demographic characteristics, like gender (Bowen, Ledford & Nathan, 1991). However, congruence between the individual values and those of the organization can cause a homogeneous culture. Pentascope wants such a homogeneous culture, but they also want diverse employees, not only demographically, but also in knowledge, personality, ideas and other individual qualities. One way of achieving this diversity is through inclusion.
According to Pascale (1985) creating a right fit between individual values and organizational values is the first step in the selection process. Organizations should have a well designed process for determining the fit between individual and organization. The literature also indicated that a new selection model is emerging geared towards hiring a “whole” person who will fit well into the specific organization’s culture. It reflects a fundamental reorientation of the selection process toward hiring “people”, not just KSA’s, for “organizations”, not just jobs (Bowen et al, 1991). The focus on fit is becoming more important in this new model, because the organization’s overall philosophy and values are likely to be more stable and consequent, whereas job analysis data may quickly become outdated. Also, changing this new selection model is likely to be less frequent but much greater in scope than the changes made in traditional hiring. However, according to Bowen et al. (1991) the new approach regarding hiring for person-organization fit requires more resources than the traditional selection model. Another advantage according to Chatman (1991) is that selection and socialization processes are typically viewed as complementary processes, such that the more effort organizations direct to selecting new members, the less socialization the new recruits will need, and vice versa.
an image of the values and personality of the person they compare it to the values of Pentascope. This, however, represents the meaning of the interviewer regarding the organizational values. The results of the quantitative questionnaire used in this research give a better profile of Pentascope’s culture.
Considering the trends and comparing the pros and cons, Pentascope should implement a new selection method based on values and fit, to keep their unique culture and select applicants who fit their culture.
Recommendations
According to the literature implementing a selection method based on values will result in many advantages for the organization and it employees. In the following part several selection methods based on values will be discussed.
Quantitative questionnaire The questionnaire used in this research, to make a culture scan of the organization, can also be used to make a scan of the values of applicants. The applicants fill in the same questionnaire, only the questions are aimed at their own values and not those of Pentascope. Comparing the scores of the applicant with those of Pentascope would be the easiest way to measure person-organization fit. Unfortunately this is not a useable selection method for Pentascope, because they never use questionnaires during the selection process. This is why I do not recommend this method to Pentascope.
List of organizational values Another method for selection could be a list indicating the most important cultural values of the organization. The list can be used in a case, during an interview or in a kind of game. One of the advantages of a list is that everyone can use it as a guide line enabling more uniformity and grip throughout the selection process. When compiling the list the current and future culture of the organization and the influence of top management have to be taken into account (van Reenen and Waisfisz, 1995; Schein, 1992). Especially since the strategy of the organization has to be in accordance with the organizational culture.
Secondly, applicants must be creative and like innovation. Taking risks or advantages out of opportunities and networking is very important. According to E. Mandersloot the focus on innovation may become more important in the future than it was in the past. Openness is also characteristic of Pentascope, like an open communication, or everyone seeing your salary on the intranet. Not everyone likes this much openness, so it is an important selection point. Trust and honesty are also very important.
According to E. Mandersloot newcomers may be more result orientated than the current employees of Pentascope, especially while this value is one of the three key values of the organization. He also wants newcomers to be more precise, disciplined, passionate and decisive. Together with the two values mentioned by E. Breuker, social responsibility and internationalism, selecting newcomers on these values must be done very careful. Because these values are not present in the current culture of the organization the newcomers must be similar enough to incumbents to ensure that they empathize with the present, but different enough to provide the impetus for change (Schneider, 1987).
Interview List. Using the list, mentioned above, during an interview can help the interviewer checking the values of the individual and compare them with the values of the organization. Checking these values can be done through specific questions about applicants feeling for some values or during a case where the applicant reveals his/her own values.
Before the interview it may be helpful to decide which values the organization needs most. For example if there are two candidates who both are very human orientated, the first one can handle openness more than the other and the second one is more result oriented. Then the interviewer has to choose or take both.
Finally, in the selection methods mentioned above interaction between the applicant and the organization is still important (Bowen et al., 1991; Chatman, 1991). Through this interaction the organization does not only discover the values of the applicant, but also provides the applicant with sufficient realistic information about the organization. That is why it is very good that at least one interview is held on the location where the applicant is going to work.
Both options, the interview list and the game, are useable for Pentascope. However, the organization has to test which selection method they prefer or works best for them. It is also important that the new selection method will be integrated in, and supported by, the firm’s other human resource management practices (Bowen et al, 1991).
DISCUSSION
Limitations and Future Research
The selection methods mentioned above have to be tested in future research, to find out if they are reliable, valid and useable and if it is as profitable as stated throughout this research. One way of doing this, is through the monitoring of turnover. With a focus on how long the employee worked for the organization and why he/she left. The current paper was focused on finding a selection method based on values for Pentascope. However, it is possible that other organizations prefer other methods over the ones recommended to Pentascope. It is also hard to decide when there is a fit or how high this fit must be to hire a person. Currently there is not much literature on culture in selection processes, because most recruitment and selection processes are still mainly focused on skills, attitude and personality of candidates and not on culture. Furthermore, the supporting selection technology is still relatively undeveloped and unproven (Bowen et al., 1991; Soeters, 1990). Therefore, future research is needed to develop more and/or other selection methods based on values and fit.
The organization must not only rely on the new selection method; the new method must support and enrich the person-job fit. Using multiple screening methods, raters, and criteria has long been recommended by researchers as the best approach to hiring (Bowen et al., 1991). The hiring process must be integrated with, and be supported by, the firm’s other human resource management practices (Bowen et al, 1991), like inclusion. Until now little research has empirically investigated the specific attributes and practices for diversity and inclusion in organizations (Roberson, 2006). This could be a good subject for future research. Pentascope may consider further and more detailed research into their recruitment and selection process. Because of the increasing number of applications and the growth of the organization, the current recruitment and selection process can cause problems for Pentascope in the future.
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