Latham (2012). Values: Trans-situational goals

Values refers to a broad tendency to prefer certain state of affairs over others. Values reflect an employee’s needs and personality. Values are enduring and general in nature, rather than specific. Traits are core qualities or basic tendencies of an individual that are largely inherited. Values are an individual difference variable and can be seen as trans-situational goals. Goals are similar in meaning to values except that they are more specific. Goals are the mechanism by which values lead to action.

Outcomes with the potential to activate a person’s central values instigate the acquisition of information and motivate choice decisions in accordance with pursuing the values in question. Activation and information collection mediate the relationship between values and the choices one makes.

Context affects the extent to which an employee’s needs are met and values are fulfilled. It can have a direct effect or interact with personality variables to affect a person’s behaviour in the workplace.

The attributes of values for individualism versus collectivism are fourfold:

1. The self is largely interdependent in collectivistic cultures and independent in individualistic cultures.
2. The goals of the group have priority over individual goals in collectivistic cultures and the goals of the individual have priority over collective goals in individualistic cultures.
3. Cultural norms, obligations and duties guide behaviour in collectivistic societies whereas personal needs, individual rights and contracts guide behaviour in individualistic societies.
4. Communal relationships are valued in collectivistic cultures whereas this is of lesser importance in individualistic societies.

People from collectivistic cultures tend to be prevention-oriented and people from individualistic cultures tend to be promotion-oriented. The norms for appropriate behaviour are more cooperative for collectivists and more competitive for individualists.

Societal culture affects job satisfaction and can moderate perceptions of organizational justice. The model of cultural self-representation states that people strive to fulfil values for self-enhancement, efficacy and self-consistency. In order to design and implement motivation and reward systems the cultural characteristics of a country (i.e. individualism vs. collectivism and high vs. low power distance) need to be identified (1), the values oneself has need to be understood (2) and the meaning of various managerial practices (e.g. top-down communication) needs to be understood (3). Pxrojecting values on people from other cultures that differ on these dimensions can create dysfunctional consequences in terms of employee motivation (1), interpersonal communication (2) and overall performance (3).

In collectivistic (vs. individualistic) cultures:

1. There are higher levels of in-group involvement
   This is due to the fact that people in collectivistic cultures have higher levels of unconditional benevolence and positive identity.
2. Productivity and performance levels are more homogeneous
3. Motivational strategies by superiors have more effect on subordinates (especially in high power-distance cultures).
4. Negative reactions from supervisors generate more negative reactions among workers (especially in high power-distance cultures).

National culture influences people’s self-concept (1), norms about work ethic (2) and environmental factors (e.g. education) (3). Inadequate adjustment to the new culture is a primary cause of low job performance.

Cultural intelligence is determined by a person’s self-efficacy and social discourse in cross-cultural settings. Self-efficacy mediates the effect of goal assignment on performance for people low in value for power distance.

Cultures that embrace universalism rely on rules for assessing what is right and wrong or appropriate and inappropriate. Cultures that embrace particularism take the context into account for assessing right and wrong.

Self-determination theory states that people from all cultures share the values autonomy (1), competence (2) and relatedness (3). When these values are supported by context, subjective well-being is enhanced. This theory defines autonomy as behaviour that is experienced as willingly enacted and when one fully endorses the actions in which one is engaged and the values expressed by them. People are most autonomous when they are able to act in accordance with their values.

A person’s behaviour is optimally predicted by measuring a person’s traits, values and motives. However, it is also possible that context is the primary determinant of an employee’s behaviour.

According to Cordery, there are three dimensions of job autonomy; method control (1), timing control (2) and allowing supervisory discretion in setting performance goals (3). There are four dimensions that affect job autonomy; the extent to which the supervisor provides clear, attainable goals (1), exerts control over work activities (2), ensures that the resources are available (3) and gives timely feedback on the progress towards goal attainment (4).

Job characteristics influence job satisfaction and performance through job autonomy. It is important that people have job autonomy over the job characteristics that they deem important. There is a positive relationship between work content (i.e. skill variety and work motivation) and erosion of work content and emotional exhaustion.

Mechanistically oriented job designs (i.e. focused on simplification and specialization) are associated with efficiency-related outcomes. Motivationally oriented job designs are associated with satisfaction-related outcomes. There is a negative relation between job efficiency and job satisfaction.

In order to minimize the trade-off between job satisfaction and job efficiency, task clusters that form a natural work process need to be defined (1), then the task clusters need to be quantified in terms of their motivational and mechanistic properties (2) and the clusters need to be combined to form a job core (3).

An employee’s job environment (i.e. the importance of designing jobs that allow autonomy) is important. A job consists of complexity (1), the social environment (2) and physical demands (3).

The motivation of the workforce (1), the workforce’s task-specific knowledge (2), the complexity and interdependency of the different tasks (3), the task variability (4) and the extent to which rules and procedures are formalized (5) are important for designing jobs with autonomy.

Motivation is the result of the reciprocal interactions between people and their work environments and the fit between these interactions and the broader societal context. The needs-supplies person-environment fit refers to a fit where the employee’s values are met by the work environment and job demands-abilities. A complementary fit is a type of needs-supplies fit to the extent that a person’s psychological need is fulfilled and an individual’s skills meet environmental needs. A supplementary fit is a type of needs-supplies fit exists when an employee and an organization attach similar importance to the same values.

The benefit of higher value congruence is the enhancement of trust through fostering perceptions of integrity and communication through the reduced likelihood of misunderstanding as a result of shared values.

Person-environment misfit affects strain when supplies exceed a person’s values due to the fact that a job is more complex than the individual prefers or when supplies fall short of an individual’s values because the job is simpler than the individual prefers.

Psychological acceptance is a moderator of the relationship between job autonomy and an employee’s mental health and productivity. The media synchronicity theory states that a team’s task consists of the exchange (1) and deliberation of the meaning of the communication and convergence regarding the development of the shared meaning of the information (2). The choice of media is governed by the nature of the task and the developmental stage of the team.

The attraction, selection, attrition (ASA) model states that people gravitate towards organizations and jobs that are congruent with their values. People select themselves when they perceive a misfit with the organization as they will drop out of the selection process and people will leave an organization when they experience misfit. The model predicts that an organization will perform worse when the person-environment fit is high as a certain degree of incongruency can lead to increased performance. However, this model does not take people into account who attempt to change themselves according to the environment or change the environment after perceiving a misfit.

Person-organization fit exists to the extent that there is congruence between the values of the organization and the values of the employee. If there is no congruence, then the person’s values will change if the person is open to change or the person will leave. If a person has high self-efficacy and there is a discrepancy, then the organization’s values are likely to change. One limitation of person-environment fit research is that interactions between the person and characteristics of the job or organization are usually treated as stable rather than dynamic states. This limitation may exist because the environment is seen as independent from the employee even though the employee affects the environment.

There are several conclusions regarding person-environment fit:

1. Person-environment fit is a multidimensional concept.
2. Person-organization fit is a weak predictor of overall job performance.
3. Person-organization fit is a moderate predictor of organizational citizenship behaviour.
4. Person-organization fit is a moderate (negative) predictor of intention to quit.
5. The primary benefit of person-organization fit is the positive relationship with an employee’s organizational commitment and job satisfaction.
6. The person-job fit is a moderate predictor of overall performance.
7. The needs-supplies fit is a stronger predictor than demands-abilities fit.
8. Person-job fit has a strong relationship with an individual’s job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
9. Person-group fit is a weak predictor of an employee’s overall performance and organizational citizenship behaviour.
10. Person-supervisor fit is a strong predictor for job satisfaction but not for organization commitment.

Job satisfaction is based on the perception of one or more job characteristics (1), the employee’s value standards (2) and the resulting judgement of discrepancy between an employee’s perception and values (3).