Introduction
In 1989, when Chatman recoded the concept of personal-organizational fit, he put forward that the behavior of members and organizations could influence each other, and the value was the most basic one in all these factors which influence each other. So he believed the individual-organization fit referred to the consistent values beyond the individuals and the organizations. Later, more and more scholars studied the individual–organizational values fit and found that the compatibility between the individual and the organization could have an impact on the employees’ job performance and satisfaction.
As more and more new generation of employees enter into the workforce, their high turnover has begun to attract attention from researchers. “2012 China Salary White Paper” showed that there was a 30% turnover rate which shocked the business managers and academics. The management of the new generation of employees especially their value as they have become the most popular research topic among the theoretical and empirical sector. This research focuses on the relationship between personal-organizational values fit and job involvement of new generation of employees.
Theoretical background and hypotheses
When Andrews made research on the management performance, he found that when the individual and the organization values fit have a higher degree of compatibility and the management performance score would be significantly higher. It was found out that one would get a better result if one explained and expected the result of the employees’ behavior from the perspective of interaction of the personal-organizational values fit (
Tomoki, 2003;
Verquer, Beehr, &Wagner, 2003). It was thought that the work tasks, personal growth, business development, organizational climate were the four aspects that could encourage the new generation of employees and improve their working attitudes (
Ding & Gong, 2011). The fitness of personal-organizational values could make the new generation of employees with a more positive attitude about the organizational climate and development, and thus have a positive role to encourage the work of their fellow staff. We propose the following:
H1: The personal-organizational values fit has a positive effect on job involvement of the new generation of employees.
The members’ organizational commitment would be strengthened when the personal-organizational values fitness improved. The sense of a member and belonging would be affected by the personal-organizational values fit on the basis of the social identity theory (
Ashforth, 1989). The fitness of personal-organizational values could enhance the sense of organizational support and identity (
Su & Ge, 2009;
Tan, 2012). Generally, the employees of the new generation feel more effected by the personal-organizational values fit. They are more likely to feel the support from the organization, increasing the organization’s identity. We propose the following:
H2: The personal-organizational values fit has a positive effect on perceived organizational support of new generation of employees.
When Eisenberger, Rhoades and Cameron (1999) explored the outcome variables of organizational support they considered that organizational support can increase the employees’ sense of belonging and further strengthen their desire to stay with the organization. It was confirmed that the work resources, including organizational support, organizational justice and other factors would have a significant influence on employees’ job involvement based on the model of work requirements-resource model. Many studies show that organizational support may have a positive impact on job involvement (
Tan, 2007). Some scholars found that having organization support was the main demand of the new generation of employees paying more attention to the democracy and equality. We propose the following:
H3: The perceived organizational support has a positive effect on job involvement of new generation of employees.
Since the beginning of 21th century, scholars have begun to take perceived organizational support as a mediating or moderating variable. Many studies have shown that organizational support is an important mediating or moderating variable in many relationships (
Jiang, 2007). It was confirmed that employees would generally follow the principle of reciprocity if they felt the support from the organization and would increase their loyalty to their company (
Eisenberger, Rhoades, & Cameron, 1999). Some scholars found that personal-organizational values fit had a significant positive impact on organizational support through empirical studies. We propose the following:
H4: The perceived organizational support mediates the relationship between the personal-organizational values fit and job involvement.
Based on the statement above, the research model of this study is shown as Figure 1.
Research design
This research mainly selected the new generation of employees as the objects. The questionnaire was patterned after those of prior studies. The “personal-organization values fit scale” consists of five sections including staff and team orientation, performance orientation, professionalism orientation, innovation and development orientation and social responsibility orientation. The measures for perceived organizational support are taken from three sections including work support, common identity, and concern about the interests. The measurement of job involvement includes three sections, vigor, dedication and focus referred to the Utreeht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) questionnaire developed in 2002.
The questionnaire was further pretested with 50 individual samples. Items that were identified as being problematic were revised or eliminated. The research modified and perfected the questionnaire through the detection of the internal consistency quotient in the questionnaire’s subjects, single subject reliability analysis and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value. From February to June in 2014, the authors distributed 300 questionnaires via e-mail, specific website posting and on-site interview. At last, the authors received 215 questionnaires with a total recovery rate of 71.66% and 207 valid questionnaires with the final effective rate is 68.25%.
Results and discussion
Measurement properties
The properties of the measurement model results were assessed by examining individual loadings, Cronbach’s α scores, KMO. The loadings of the measurement items on their respective factors were all significant (P<0.001). The items were then factor analyzed to check for their convergent and discriminant validity. All items in a section would concentrate strongly on a single factor to demonstrate convergent validity and not so strongly on other factors to demonstrate discriminant validity. The results of the factor analysis provide evidence of both convergent and discriminant validity.
This research uses the “Cronbach’s α value” to analyze the reliability of this questionnaire. When Cronbach’s α value is above 0.9, it means the part of the questionnaire is perfectly reliable. The result shows that the Cronbach's α value of personal-organizational values fit section is 0.948, perceived organizational support 0.967 and job involvement 0.954, indicating that this section is reliable. As to the validity, the question items in this study are all from published literature and a lot of scholars have also used these section tables to measure related variables. The result shows that the KMO values of the three sections of personal-organizational values fit, job involvement, perceived organizational support are 0.912, 0.915 and 0.939 indicating that this scale has good validity. Bartlett spherical test shows the significance has a probability of 0.000 (P<0.001) indicating that next step of factor analysis can be continued.
Variables correlations and regression analysis
The correlation of the variables is to reveal the strength of the statistical relationships between variables, and provide a basis to further depict and reflect the change of variables. Table 1 contains the means, standard deviations, correlations used in the study. Table 2 contains the regression analysis result of these three variables.
The correlation analysis results show that the personal-organizational values fit of new generation of employees has a significant correlation with both perceived organizational support and job involvement. Perceived organizational support has a significant positive correlation with job involvement. According to the result of regression analysis, the regression model of personal-organizational values fit and job involvement has adjusted R2 of 0.179. Job involvement is significantly influenced by personal-organizational values fit (β = 0.503, P<0.01). The regression model of personal-organizational values fit and organization support has adjusted R2 of 0.291. Perceived organizational support is significantly influenced by individual-organizational values fit (β = 0.611, P<0.01). Perceived organizational support explains the 48.8% intensity of job involvement, and the results show that job involvement was significant influenced by organizational support (β = 0.729, P<0.01). The significant test Sig= 0.000, and all the data results show that H1, H2, H3 hypotheses are supported and validated. Table 3 shows the mediating role of perceived organizational test results.
The data results can be viewed as personal-organizational values fit and job involvement has a β coefficient of 0.503 before adding the mediating variable indicating that personal-organizational values fit has a significant positive impact on job involvement. When the study adds a mediating variable of perceived organization support, the β coefficient becomes 0.082. The relationship between personal-organizational values fit becomes insignificant, so the H4 hypothesis was supported and validated.
Conclusions and suggestions
The findings suggest that (1) higher degrees of personal-organizational values fit significantly contribute to increasing the effectiveness of perceived organizational support; (2) higher degrees of perceived organizational support significantly contribute to increasing the effectiveness of job involvement; (3) perceived organizational support has a fully mediating effect on the relationship between personal-organizational values fit and job involvement. This research has both theoretical and practical implications.
First, improve the personal-organizational values fit. Using the method of empirical research, it can be confirmed that personal-organizational values fit had a significant positive impact on the effectiveness of the recruitment of the employees. So the companies in the recruitment process should not only focus on job-fit ability, but also pay attention to values fit of the employees and the company, especially in the new generation of employees, to the recruitment procedures to prevent employees’ resignation because the company has not satisfied their expectations. Enterprises should always inspect and examine the values fit between the company and employees, and when they think that the company's existing system of values is significantly more in line with the development trend of enterprises, they should give full attention to communicate with the new generation of employees to dispel their doubts about the organizations’ values and enhance their sense of identity in the organization.
Secondly, there is the belief that in most cases, organizational justice has a positive influence on perceived organizational support. Perceived organizational justice is essential for the new generation of employees, so they can perceive the organizational support. The organizational justice is an employees’ perceived fairness of the organizational systems, policies and practices, including fair procedures giving a fair result. Therefore, the enterprises should improve the information’s availability and transparency and open communication channels between organizations and employees to improve employees' organizational cognitive justice.
Thirdly, studies have shown that by increasing the employees’ autonomy has had some positive impact on the perceived organizational support of employees, so the managers should be fully aware of their employees. The new generation of employees is a grope with a strong self-centered will, strong self-consciousness, and their focus on whether the majority of the work was fully authorized under the correct conditions, so the companies can try to authorize the new generation of employees to fully or partly determine their own decisions, which can also improve their perceived organizational support.
Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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