An antecedent of satısfaction from supervisor: congruence in organizational context

Abstract

The importance of human is becoming more apparent in today’s competitive environment. Considering the effects of technology on work and organizations, significant factor for human-­‐oriented issues is to have employees congruent with group. Focusing on fit as a tool for keeping this desired employee profile has become research topic for a while in human resource management. In the light of developing technology, increasing of technology-­‐based organizations cause project-­‐based work and working groups that are commonly occurred in these organizations increase in number. Besides person-­‐organization fit, the result of employee’s fit/misfit with the group gain importance for organizations. One of the effects caused by fit/misfit is employees’ perception about their supervisors. The effects of value congruence of personal values with organizational values and group values, demographic similarity with group members and employee perception about job execution, attitude similarity with group members/supervisor on supervisor satisfaction are investigated in this research. 293 employees are selected at technology based organizations. Congruence is considered as similarity between components and measured via absolute difference. According to findings, person-­‐organization value congruence, person-­‐group value congruence, perceptual similarity with group in terms of age, and perceptual job attitude similarity with supervisor influence supervisor satisfaction, positively. Contrary to expectations, being different with group members in terms of job tenure explains the variance in supervisor satisfaction, positively. The findings highlight complementary fit concerning job tenure for the group apart from supplemantary fit. Year: 2014 Volume:1 Issue: 3 1. INTRODUCTION Intellectual capital gain importance in today’s environment. Awareness of demographic, dispositional and socio-­‐cultural differentiations that employees face is a critical phenomenon for managers so as to utilize differentiations and minimize their adverse effects (George and Chattopadhyay, 2002; Erdoğan et. al, 2004). Depending on technological development, the nature of jobs in technology-­‐based organizations highlights group working. Therefore, the antecedents of fit between group and intellectual capital that is a critical input for groups are paid attention, beside to fit with organization. The project-­‐type works commonly executed in technology based organizations highlight the role of project leader in the structure that leader organize. The employees’ perception about leader can depend on values congruence with organization and group, demographic similarity fit with working group members, and similarity of job execution attitude with group members/leader. Person-­‐environment fit is defined as congruence and correspondence degree between individual and environmental variables (Muchinsky and Monahan, 1987; Sekiguchi, 2004). Depending on concepts defined for environmental factors, several fit categorizations are developed (Kristof, 1996;Yang et al., 2008), and then person-­‐environment fit is investigated in the light of environment dimension considered. Fit is examined with the concept of supplementary fit/complementary fit in the literature. Supplementary fit involves employees sharing similar attributes among their group members, whereas complementary fit is concerned with providing the skills and abilities that are not widely shared by other group members (Muchinsky and Monahan, 1987; Werbel and DeMarie, 2005) Supplementary fit occurs when individual has the same features as other employees in work environment (Muchinsky and Monahan, 1987, Werbel and DeMarie, 2005). Complementary fit occurs when individual’s features constitute the environment or complement a component that is missing in work environment (Muchinsky and Monahan, 1987 Werbel and DeMarie, 2005). Therefore, complementary fit depends on determining human resource inadequacy in a working group and diagnosing necessary human resource features to develop (Edwards & Cooper, 1990; Werbel & Johnson, 2001). 2. LITERATURE SURVEY 2.1. Values Congruence Formally, values can be defined as serious and deeply held normative principles which guide a person’s beliefs, attitude and behavior (Lawson, 1989). Rokeach (1973) defined the value concept as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-­‐state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-­‐state of existence”. Values are beliefs, have motivational constructs, transcend specific actions and situations, guide selection or evaluation of actions, policies; people and events and are ordered in their importance (Swhwartz 1994, 2005a, 2006; Allport 1961; Feather, 1995; Inglehart, 1997; Kohn, 1969; Kluckhohn, 1951; Morris, 1956 and Rokeach, 1973). Types of values include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ideological (religious, political) values, social values, and aesthetic values. Values can be looked upon as being hierarchical in nature, leading to the idea of a value system. A set of rank ordered values is called a value system. Values are heavily intertwined and therefore looking at a person's values separately and independently of one another cannot meaningfully explain attitudes and behaviors. Value systems tend to form early in life and are very stable. Major longitudinal studies of values have in general showed their remarkable stability (Rokeach and Ball-­‐Rokeach, 1989; Krishan, 2008); however, people’s motivation and consciousness are contingent and hence people re-­‐order their values and this makes it dynamic and this enables an individual to align his/her values to the organizational values. Change in value system requires rearrangement of the relative importance given to various values (Krishnan, 2008).The stable yet dynamic nature of values makes them foundation of behavior and identity (Dose, 1999; Meglino & Ravlin, 1998). They have substant