Values and Organizational Commitment

Abstract

This study's goal is to explore the processes by which values determine organizational commitment by comparing the relative importance of social values held by members and the degree of their realization by their ideologically centered communities, with the importance of members' needs satisfaction within the community. Two sets of data with similar samples of Kibbutz members in Israel serve as the base for the study and for cross validation of the findings: one of about 3300 members from 25 Kibbutzim during the years 1992–1995, and the second of about 2400 members from 14 Kibbutzim during the years 1997–2002. Close to 60% of the variance in organizational commitment was explained by the variables employed in the data sets in both studies and more than half of that variance was accounted for by the two processes through which the personal values operated, namely, the extent of fit of the values held by individuals to the proclaimed idealized social goals of Kibbutz ideology and the extent of congruence between personal social values and their realization by the members. The rest of the variance was explained by the degree of satisfaction of major needs and by demographic variables such as gender and age. I conclude that for certain types of social organizations (ideologically centered)—even when they are all-domain engulfing such as the Kibbutz communities—values members hold, and the degree of fit or congruence of these values with actual and ideal goals of their organizations, are the most potent determinants of behavior, of behavior tendencies in general, and of organizational commitment in particular.

Keywords:

• Kibbutzim
• organizational-commitment
• social-values
• needs
• Person-Environment Fit

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a paper presented by the author at a conference: “Social Norms and Cognitive Processes,” Poitiers, France, June 18–20, 2003.