Cultural Values and Organizational Commitment Among Financial Consultants in South Florida

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2002

Abstract

The explosion of globalization and dramatic changes in the cultural and demographic make-up of the American workforce brought about by global migration is transforming the way we manage our corporations. Hofstede (1997) states that within each culture, people operate with mental software that are learned from their specific cultures. He identified four distinct work-related dimensions that differentiate one culture from another (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, and individualism/collectivism). These dimensions are cultural characteristics, which can be studied and used to predict behaviors of an aggregate population, which can help organizations manage their culturally diverse workforce. We focused our study on the correlation between work-related culture and organizational commitment. Meyer and Allen (1997) state that there are three components to organizational commitment: Affective commitment - the employee's personal attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization; continuance commitment - the awareness of the opportunity cost of leaving one's job, and remaining with the organization because one "needs" to do so; and normative commitment - the feeling of obligation to remain with the employer because it is the "right thing" to do. We hypothesized that culture's four dimensions and organizational commitment's three-component model are related when applied to a culturally diverse workforce. Most specifically, we expected that I) power distance would have a significant correlation with affective commitment as well as normative commitment; 2) uncertainty avoidance would have a positive correlation to continuance commitment; 3) collectivism would have a positive correlation to affective, continuance, and normative commitment; and 4) masculinity would have a positive correlation to continuance commitment and femininity would have a positive correlation to affective commitment The results indicate that 1) power distance is positively related to affective commitment and normative commitment; 2) there is no correlation between uncertainty avoidance and continuance commitment; 3) collectivism has a positive correlation to affective commitment as well as continuance commitment, but no correlation exist between collectivism and normative commitment; and 4) neither masculinity nor femininity have a correlation with continuance commitment or affective commitment. Additional analyses show that some relationships were moderated by ethnicity in the two major ethnic groups in the sample, Whites and Hispanics (91%). Significance varied, sometimes showing correlation with significance levels where no correlation existed in the aggregate sample. (Asians and Blacks were not considered in the test due to the small number of respondents in the group.) We encourage further testing of the hypotheses with specific moderation between the four major ethnic groups of the American workforce: Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians. This would improve management among Human Resource practitioners and encourage further research in our academic quest to understand the diverse American workforce.

Publisher

Nova Southeastern University

City/State

Davie, FL

Department

College of Business and Management

Comments

This is the dissertation of Dr. Leilani O. Baumanis, completed at the Wayne Huizenga Graduate School of Business and Entrepreneurship at Nova Southeastern University, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the doctoral degree in International Business Administration.

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