EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT, JOB INVOLVEMENT,

AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON THE EMPLOYEE

VOLUNTARY TURNOVER PROCESS

by

DONNA E. FLETCHER, B.A., M.A.

A DISSERTATION

IN

PSYCHOLOGY

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved

Accepted

December, 1998

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Dr. Robert Bell, my

dissertation co-chair, for his guidance and support in this accomplishment and for

his guidance during my graduate study. I would like to express my sincerest

gratitude also to Dr. Susan Kirby, my dissertation co-chair, for her guidance and

support in this endeavor. I would like to thank the other members of my

committee, Dr. Pat DeLucia and Dr. Mario Beruvides, who have shared their

wisdom, knowledge and encouragement through excellent teaching and

research. I wish to express special gratitude to Dr. Dennis Cogan for his

guidance and support In my graduate study and to Dr. Ruth Bookstaber for her

wisdom, patience and vision. I would like to thank Dr. Ronald Bremer for his

help, patience and guidance In the analysis of this project.

I would also like to express gratitude to James A. Ridpath and express

appreciation for his knowledge and expertise in flying me safely to the different

geographical locations of the organization for data collection.

I would also like to thank my friends who have been a source of

reassurance and encouragement. I would like to acknowledge the following

people: Cindi Cardwell, Angela Phillips and Sylvia Curtis.

I want to express my love and gratitude to my family for their support and

encouragement. I especially thank my parents, Jessie E. Fletcher and Jack W.

Fletcher for their love and support. In particular, I want to thank Dr. Thomas

Goodin for his support and understanding throughout this endeavor. Finally, I

dedicate this work to my children, Laura, Eric and Sarah, who are a constant

source of inspiration, wisdom and encouragement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS li

ABSTRACT vi

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION 1

Organizational Commitment 2

Job Involvement 4

Psychological Contract 5

Organizational Culture 7

Voluntary Employee Turnover 9

Research Questions and Hypotheses 10

Job Involvement, Organizational Commitment and Tumover 10

Subcultures: Participation, Organizational Commitment, Job Involvement and Voluntary Employee Tumover 11

II. METHOD

Design 13

Sample 13

Measures 15

Demographics 15

Organizational Commitment Scale 15

Job Involvement 16

Organizational Culture 16

Employees Psychological Contract 18

Tumover 18

Procedures 21

III. RESULTS 23

Descriptive Statistics 23

Statistical Analyses 23

Reliabilities 23

Organizational Commitment, Job Involvement

and Turnover 26

Organizational Culture and Tumover 28

Demographics 33

Employee Psychological Contract and

Tumover 38

Altemative Analyses 44

Group Differences in Tumover 55

IV. DISCUSSION 61

Relationship Between Organizational Commitment Job Involvement, and Employee Psychological Contract, How Predictive They are of Employee Voluntary Turnover 61 Relationship Between Organizational Culture and Employee Voluntary Tumover 62

The Effect of Gender, Age, Ethnicity and Salary on Employee Voluntary Tumover 64

IV

The Effect of Employee Psychological Contract on Employee Voluntary Tumover 65

Two Homogeneous Locations and Their Relationship

to All Other Geographical Locations of the Organization 68

Group Differences in Voluntary Tumover 71

Limitations 72

Future Research 74

V. CONCLUSION 75

Overview of Research Findings 75

Implications 77

LIST OF REFERENCES 79

APPENDIX 84

A. EXTENDED REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 84

B. ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT SCALE 96 (Mowday, Steers & Porter, 1979)

C. JOB INVOLVEMENT SCALE 99 (Kanungo, 1982)

D. ORGANIZATIONAL NORMS OPIONNAIRE 101 (Alexander, 1978)

E. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE SCALE 110 (Desphpande, Farley & Webster, 1993)

F. EMPLOYEE PERCEIVED CONTRACT 114 (Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994)

G. EMPLOYEE PERCEIVED CONTRACT FULFILLED 116 (Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994)

H. EMPLOYEE PERCEIVED OBLIGATION 118 (Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994)

ABSTRACT

In the field of tumover research, relationships between the employee and

the employer have been investigated to detennine possible correlations between

psychological antecedents such as organizational commitment and job

Involvement and subsequent organizational behaviors such as the voluntary

tumover process (Porter, Crampon & Smith, 1976; Mowday, Steers & Porter,

1979; O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986). Mowday, Porter and Steers (1982) state that

organizational commitment is negatively related to the employee voluntary

tumover process and is the best predictor of the voluntary tumover process.

Mathieu and Zajac (1990) report in their meta-analysis of organizational

commitment antecedents that the relationship between organizational

commitment and job involvement was the largest observed. Another variable to

be considered relative to organizational behaviors is a contextual one, the culture

of the organization. Organizational culture may have a contextual effect on the

relationship between organizational commitment and a behavior such as

employee voluntary tumover (Randall, 1990).

The present study is designed to examine the relationships between

employee organizational commitment, job involvement, the psychological

contract, organizational culture and the process of employee voluntary tumover.

Variables that will predict the probability of, and rate of, voluntary employee

tumover process are determined.

Participants in this study are managerial and service employees of a large

southwestern organization. The employees completed questionnaires and

opinionnaires on the job site during paid working hours at the various

VI

geographical locations of the organization. Tumover was assessed each month

for a period of six months after the initial administration of the above-mentioned

questionnaires and opinionnaires. Survival analysis, specifically the Cox

proportional hazard model, was used to assess the relationship of both the

occurrence and the timing of the tumover process to the multiple predictors

measured at one point in time.

Analyses of associations between survival time and qualitative and

quantitative variables yield a predictive model for employee voluntary tumover

containing the variable measure, Employee Perceived Obligation to the

employer. There exists a significant negative association between the variable

and the hazard of voluntary tumover. Demographic variables tested in a

predictive model that proved to be significant are gender, age, ethnicity and

salary. There Is a significant negative relationship between the variables age

and salary and the hazard of employee voluntary tumover. A positive

association between the two variables gender and ethnicity and the hazard of

tumover exists.

VII

LIST OF TABLES

1. Summary of Descriptive Statistics 24

2. Summary of Demographic Frequencies 25

3. Summary of Maximum Likelihood Estimates for Culture 30

4. Summary of Event Values by Ethnicity 40

5. Summary of Event Values by Salary 42

6. Summary of Event Values by Gender 46

7. Life Table Survival Estimates 47

8. Summary of Event Values by Ethnicity 48

9. Life Table Survival Estimates 49

10. Summary of Analysis of Variance for Interval Groups by Demographic Variables 55

11. Summary of Frequency and Percentage of Demographic Variables 56

12. Summary of Descriptive Statistics for Groups by Demographic Variables 57

13. Summary of Analysis of Variance for Interval Groups by Demographic Variables 58

14. Summary of Descriptive Statistics for Age and Employee Perceived Obligation by Level of Salary 59

15. Summary of Frequency and Percentage for Gender and Ethnicity by Level of Salary 60

VIII

LIST OF FIGURES

1. Survival by Ethnicity 41

2. Survival by Gender 52

3. Sun/ival by Salary 54

IX

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The relationship formed by the employees to the employer for which they

work is often refen-ed to as organizational attachment (Mowday, Porter & Steers,

1982). Involved In the process of the formation of this relationship is an

exchange between the individual employee and the employer, which occurs in

the beginning period of membership in the organization. This exchange

relationship involves each party giving up and receiving something of value and

may include both non-economic and economic factors.

Schein (1980) reports that there are two conditions which exert influence

on an employee's willingness to commit to an organization. The first condition is

the "goodness of fit" or match of the employee's expectations to the

organization's expectations and if there is agreement, then the very nature of

what is being exchanged is the second condition. Mutual expectations relative to

exchange relationships contribute to the "psychological contract." This contract

is an unwritten agreement between the organization and the individual which

specifies expectations of giving and receiving from each other (Rousseau &

Parks, 1993: Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994; Robinson, 1995; Morrison &

Robinson, 1997; Sapienza, Korsgaard & Schweiger, 1997).

Mowday Porter and Steers (1982) have stated that a salient factor

Involved In this "contract" Is the nature of the employee's organizational

connection. Employee work attitudes and behaviors may be measured and

examined to obtain a better understanding of the employee organizational

attachment process and its effects on the employee voluntary tumover process.

Organizational commitment and job involvement are two work-related attitudes

that have been researched extensively relative to the tumover process (Mowday,

Steers & Porter, 1979; Steele & Ovalle, 1984; Blau, 1985, 1987; Blau & Boal,

1987; Huselld & Day, 1991; Lee & Mitchell, 1991; Lee, Ashford, Walsh &

Mowday, 1992).

Organizational Commitment

Many definitions exist in the literature for organizational commitment. For

the purposes of this study, the definition of organizational commitment is derived

from Mowday, Porter and Steers (1982). Organizational commitment is defined

in terms of the relative intensity of an employee's Involvement in, and

identification with, a specific organization. Mathieu and Zajac (1990) state that

this definition reflects multiple dimensions since it includes the concept of

identification and incorporates the desire to remain with the organization and

work toward organizational goals.

Three factors of attitudes and behaviors lend salience to the

characterization of organizational commitment. They are (1) acceptance of and a

belief in the values and goals of the organization; (2) desire to maintain

organizational membership; and (3) a willingness to contribute to the

organization. This definition of organizational commitment denotes an active

relationship exchange between the employee and the organization and involves

attitudes and behaviors as manifestations of the actual concept of organizational

commitment. Observed behaviors of the committed employee will be congruent

with the definition constituents (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982).

O'Reilly and Chatman (1986) define organizational commitment as a

psychological attachment to the organization predicted by three independent

constructs, those of compliance, Identification and intemalization. Compliance is

defined as Involvement for the extrinsic rewards. Identification Is involvement

with the organization because of the desire for affiliation and is an important

mechanism In the developing process of psychological attachment (Bowlby,

1982). Intemalization Is involvement based on the Individual's acceptance of the

organization's values. The first definitional component of the Mowday, Porter

and Steers (1982) organizational commitment model, acceptance and belief in

the values and goals of an organization, is based on psychological attachment

(O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986).

Mowday Porter and Steers (1982) state that organizational commitment is

a global construct revealing the affective responses of the employee to the whole

of the organization. The development of commitment to the organization begins

at time of employment, continues over a period of time and involves an interplay

of attitudes and behaviors. Porter, Crampon and Steers (1976) report that the

level of commitment reported by employees on the first day of employment

predicted tumover up to several months on the job.

Alternatively, Hunt and Morgan (1994) advocate the multiple commitment

view of organizational commitment. They report organizational commitment to

be defined as multiple commitments to various groups comprising the

organization, such as commitment to the work group, the supervisor and to top

management. Their research supports a reconceptualization of the global

organizational commitment model as a "key mediating construct" with

compliance, intemalization and Identification as the bases of commitment.

Constituency-specific commitments are factors that lead to, and result in, the

concept of global organizational commitment.

Of the consequences and outcomes of organizational commitment,

reduced voluntary tumover may be the most predictable of the behavioral

outcomes (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Lee &

Mitchell, 1991; Lee, Ashford, Walsh & Mowday, 1992). A meta-analysis

conducted by Mathieu and Zajac (1990) reveals high correlations between

organizational commitment and behavioral intentions. Mathieu and Zajac

conclude that organizational commitment may represent a "summary index" of

the employee's work-related experiences and that organizational commitment

may influence the behavioral Intentions In a direct way.

Job Involvement

The organizational commitment meta-analysis conducted by Mathieu and

Zajac (1990) also reveals that among the foci of commitment, the job

involvement and organizational commitment relationship is the largest observed.

The two variables are considered to Influence some work-related behaviors

Independently. Job involvement is defined as a belief descriptive of an

employee's relationship with the present job. This Is not to be confused with the

term work Involvement which may be defined as a nomriative belief about the

value of work In an employee's life. Work involvement is a function of historical

cultural conditioning and socialization whereas, job involvement is a function of

the satisfaction of eminent personal needs (Kanungo, 1982). Kanungo (1982)

suggests a reformulation of the job Involvement construct to be viewed as a form

of psychological identification enhanced by a cognitive or belief state. The

employee's identification process depends on the employee's saliency of both

intrinsic and extrinsic needs and the employee's perceptions about the job's

potentialities to satisfy the employee's needs, a psychological contract relative to

job involvement.

According to Blau and Boal (1987), job involvement Is a better predictor of

voluntary tumover than absenteeism. Blau and Boal (1987) suggest that

organizational commitment and job Involvement sen/e as complements relative

to prediction of the voluntary tumover process. They also report a significant

Interactive relationship between the two variables (Blau & Boal, 1989),

Employees who display high levels of organizational commitment and of job

Involvement may be the least likely to engage in the voluntary tumover process

because they are Involved in and committed to both the job and the organization,

O'Reilly and Chatman (1986) report that job involvement is a consequent

outcome of psychological commitment to an organization. Job involvement Is

included In a category of dependent variables that is relevant to organizational

commitment. There are certain types of positive Involvement which contribute to

the definition of job Involvement. They are conformity, flexibility, motivation and

an acceptance of organizational policies demonstrated through obedience in

employee relationships.

Psvcholoqical Contract

Inherent to the foundation of employee relationships is the beliefs of the

employee relative to the obligations that are reciprocal between them and the

organization. These expectations relative to the reciprocal obligations between

employee and organization are referred to as the psychological contract. This

contract is an employee's cognitive evaluation of the transactional and relational

mutual obligations between employee and organization which is formed during

the employee's beginning period of membership in the organization. This

beginning period of employment is the most critical interval for employee tumover

and reportedly Is the time during which most of the tumover occurs (Mowday,

Porter & Steers, 1982).

Morrison and Robinson (1997) state that the employee holds conceptions

about the organization, and not any one specific agent of the organization,

meaning that the employee perceives the organization with an identity that

assumes anthropomorphism. The entity of the organization that has direct

contact with the employee is management. The role of management Is crucial to

the Implementation of the employee psychological contract, for It is the managers

who may become aware of an employee's perceived contract and respond to that

employee accordingly.

When events and circumstances occur that are considered to be violations

of the employee's psychological contract, the employee may be distressed and

exhibit appropriate attltudinal or behavioral responses (Morrison & Robinson,

1997). Robinson (1995) reports that when employees believe that their

psychological contract has been violated, there is a decrease in the level of the

employee's trust in the employer in addition to a decrease in the level of

satisfaction with and commitment to the organization. These employee feelings

alter the employee's attitude toward the relationship with the organization and the

organization Itself and In many instances lead to behavioral responses such as

voluntary tumover.

Organizational Culture

Wiener (1988) proposes that shared values play a prominent role in the

development of all forms of commitment and in the development of corporate

culture. Schein (1981) defines organizational culture as the organization's basic

underlying assumptions, the fundamental values, beliefs and perceptions.

Schein (1985) makes a distinction between beliefs and assumptions. He defines

beliefs as cognitions and basic assumptions as including beliefs and perceptions,

values and feelings. Ott (1989) reports fifty-eight published sources with

definitions of organizational culture. Organizational culture has been defined in

terms of artifacts (Bates, 1984), pattems of behavior (Deal & Kennedy, 1982),

beliefs and values (Allaire & Firsirotu, 1985) and basic assumptions (Schein,

1981, 1984, 1985).

Ott (1989) makes the point that although there are many existing

definitions of organizational culture which vary relative to the selection of words,

the basic functions do not vary. He offers a functional definition of organizational

culture, which contains four basic functions viewed as the core of the definition.

The first function of organizational culture is that it provides perceptions, or

cognitive interpretations as a guideline for thoughts and actions of organizational

members. The second function is providing shared pattems of beliefs in the

moral codes and values of the organization so that members will know what they

are expected to feel and to value. The third function is defining and maintaining

certain important boundaries that will Identify members and nonmembers of the

organization. The last function is providing an "organizational control system"

that functions to prohibit and prescribe certain behaviors.

Ott (1989) reports the existence of subcultures within the dominant culture

of an organization. The subcultures may vary from the dominant culture and may

exist in any of the organizational groups. The groups may consist of employees

working on a project or employees linked by ethnic or religious background.

These subcultures may overlap and coincide and even conflict. Slehl and Martin

(1984) have Identified three different types of subcultures, those of orthogonal,

enhancing and countercultural.

The orthogonal subculture is identified by its congruency with the

dominant culture, in Its basic assumptions; yet, the orthogonal subculture

upholds some unique individual basic assumptions. In the enhancing subculture,

basic assumptions, values and beliefs are the same as those in the dominant

culture and are upheld with more fervor. The third type of subculture is the

counterculture. Members In this type of subculture uphold beliefs, values and

basic assumptions that are in direct conflict with those of the dominant culture.

These subcultures may serve to refine, enhance or even challenge the dominant

culture. They may be a source of divisive behavior or of functional behavior.

Shared values and beliefs function to form various groups of employees into

different subcultures at differing levels of commitment.

For the purposes of this study, the existing culture In the corporate office

of the organization, where the chief executive officer and other executive officers

reside, were assessed as the dominant culture. The other geographical locations

of the organization were assessed as subcultures of the dominant culture.

Organizational culture is a contextual factor that will exert some influence

on how organizational climates develop relative to work groups and to work-

related behaviors such as tumover (Randall, 1990). Randall (1990) suggests

8

that the nature of the relationship of organizational commitment and work-related

behaviors such as tumover is greatly influenced by the cultural context in which

these relationships develop. Randall (1990) advocates empirically exploring the

effects of the organizational context on these relationships. For example, some

organizational behavoirs may be predefined as acceptable to an extent that a

correlation may not exist between organizational commitment and the behavior

(Randall, 1990).

Voluntarv Emplovee Tumover

Voluntary turnover Is defined as the "employee's volitional departure from

the organization" and is theorized as a unidimensional concept (Lee & Mitchell,

1994b). Employees are resources of the organization and a high voluntary

tumover rate may be costly to the organization in terms of replacement costs

(Lee & Mitchell, 1994b). Expanding the understanding of the process of

organizational commitment as related to voluntary employee tumover may have

benefits for organizations, employees and society in general (Mowday et al.,

1982). Employees' commitment level may enhance their eligibility for extrinsic

and Intrinsic rewards. Organizations may benefit by experiencing reduced

withdrawal behaviors, specifically tumover. Society may benefit in terms of

reduced job movement rates and increased national productivity or quality of

work (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990).

The employee tumover process itself may create negative consequences

for the organization and the employees who remain (Mobley, 1982).

Organizations are faced with a loss of performers, productivity losses and

replacement costs. The employees who remain may experience a loss of valued

co-workers and an interruption in social pattems and may consequently

experience decreased satisfaction (Mobley, 1982).

Lee and Mitchell (1994a) refer to the "pull and push" theories of voluntary

employee tumover. The pull theory consists of factors that are extemal for the

employee. Extemal factors may consist of the labor force supply and demand

and job market altematlves. The push theory Is related to employees' intemal

constructs that my affect the voluntary tumover process. These constructs

consist primarily of perceptions and attitudes related to the job.

Mathieu and Zajac (1990) propose that the most popular voluntary

turnover theory has been the Mobley, Griffeth, Hand and Meglino (1979) model.

This model Is an expanded model of the Mobley (1977) intermediate-linkages

model and incorporates both Intemal and extemal constructs that may affect the

voluntary tumover process. The key constructs are job attitudes and job

satisfaction. A sequence of events Implementing the employee's decision

process Involved In staying or leaving is proposed by Steers and Mowday (1981).

First, an employee's affective response to the job, specified as organizational

commitment, job Involvement and job satisfaction are influenced by job

expectations and individual values. The second step is to factor in nonwork

Influences and finally the Intention to leave or stay may lead to the behavior.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

Job Involvement. Organizational Commitment and Tumover

Organizational commitment and job involvement are two work-related

constructs that reportedly are negatively associated with the hazard of employee

voluntary tumover (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). The two variables are considered to

10

influence some work-related behaviors independently. What is the relationship of

the two constructs, organizational commitment and job invovlement, to the

hazard of employee voluntary tumover in an organization?

Hypothesis 1: Employee organizational commitment and job

involvement will interact and be negatively related to employee voluntary

turnover. It is expected that there will be a significant negative association

between employee organizational commitment and job involvement, and the

hazard of employee voluntary tumover.

Subcultures: Participation. Organizational Commitment. Job Involvement and Voluntarv Emplovee Tumover

Organizational culture provides perceptions, or cognitive Interpretations as

a guideline for thoughts and actions of organizational members. Another function

of organizational culture Is providing shared pattems of beliefs in the moral codes

and values of the organization so that members will know what they are expected

to feel and to value. Within the dominant culture of an organization, subcultures

may exist which overlap, coincide or conflict with the dominant culture and

therefore be considered orthogonal, enhancing or countercultural (Slehl & Martin,

1984; Ott, 1989). There are several questions for consideration about the

relationship between organizational culture and employee voluntary tumover. Do

the existing cultures at the various geographical locations of the organization

differ from the dominant culture and do the cultures differ relative to their

individual rates of actual employee voluntary tumover and reported levels of

employee organizational commitment and job involvement? If the subcultures

differ from the dominant culture, will the subcultures be categorized as

enhancing or orthogonal or will they report as countercultures?

11

Hypothesis 2: Employees of the existing subcultures at various

geographical locations defined as enhancing or orthogonal subcultures

will demonstrate reduced rate of employee voluntary turnover, and

employees will self-report high levels of the two constructs of

organizational commitment and job involvement, similar to the dominant

culture rate of employee voluntary turnover and levels of employee

organizational commitment and job involvement. Organizational culture is a

contextual factor that will exert some influence on how organizational climates

develop relative to a work-related behavior such as voluntary tumover (Randall,

1990).

Hypothesis 3: The employees of existing subcultures at various

geographical locations identified as countercultural subcultures will

demonstrate an increased rate of employee voluntary turnover, and will

self-report lower levels of the two constructs of organizational commitment

and job involvement as compared to the dominant culture rate of employee

voluntary turnover and levels of employee organizational commitment and

job involvement. Employees in countercultures uphold beliefs, values and

basic assumptions that are in direct conflict with those of the dominant culture

and behaviors of the employees in these cultures may exert a divisive influence

on the organizational climate (Slehl & Martin, 1984).

12

CHAPTER II

METHOD

Design

This study is a post facto, between-subjects, multi-group experimental

design. Subjects were randomly selected from a specific population, assessed

on the independent variables and then measured on the dependent variable of

employee voluntary tumover to determine a predictive model of tumover. The

participant employees were administered questionnaires and opinionnaires

during hours of paid employment.

Sample

Managerial, sales, and service employees from a large southwestern retail

organization served as the sample population. One of the reasons this particular

organization was chosen is the existence of its multiple, autonomous,

geographically separate sites. The sample was composed of 574 employees

from the 13 combined geographical locations of the organization which can be

described In temris of age, ethnicity, gender, marital status, salary, level of

education, position title, and department.

Participants range in age from 16 to 72 years (M=35.312 years,

Sd=13.851). The two largest ethnic groups represented in the population were

the Caucasian group, with 391 employees (68.1%) and the Hispanic group with

111 employees (19.3%). The number of female employees in the sample is 314

(54.7%) and the number of male employees is 260 (45.3%). There are five

13

groups of the variable marital status and the highest frequency is in the group

"married," with 245 employees (42.9%). The group with the second highest

frequency is the group "single," with 193 (33.8%). Ninety-one participants

(15.9%) are included in the group "divorced."

The two largest groups of the variable salary were group 1, salary range

$10,000 or less, with 301 participants (52.9%) and group 2, salary range

$10,000-$20,000 with 175 employees (30.8%).

Level of education is divided into nine groups, "did not complete high

school," "high school graduate," "some college," "college graduate," "technical

degree," "some graduate school," "Master's degree," "Ph.D.," and "other." The

two groups of the nine groups of level of education reporting the highest number

of employees, are group 2, "completed high school," with a frequency of 188

(32.9%) and group 3, "some college," with 126 (22.0%). Group 1, "did not

complete high school," demonstrated a frequency of 125 (21.8%). There are two

groups of position title, the group containing managers and the group of

nonmanagers. Frequency for the manager group is 115 (20%) and for the group

of nonmanagers, 458 (79.8%).

The variable department is divided into 15 groups representing the

different departments within the organization. The highest frequency of

employees in any one department occurs In the department "restaurant,"

composed of managers, cooks and waitresses, with a total of 149 (26.0%). The

department group of second highest frequency Is "complex," which is composed

of management and housekeeping employees, with a total of 93 (16.2%). And

the third group with 74 (12.9%) is the department group, "truck terminal," which is

composed of managers, cashiers and fuel attendants.

14

Measures

Demographics

Demographic information that has been shown to be related to tumover

has been collected and Includes such Items as gender, ethnicity, age, salary,

marital status, level of education completed, and work history (Mowday, Porter &

Steers, 1982).

Organizational Commitment Scale

Organizational commitment was assessed with the15-item Organizational

Commitment Questionnaire devised by Mowday, Steers and Porter (1979).

Representative items are Included In Appendix B. Responses to each item are

measured on a 5-polnt Likert scale ranging from (1) disagree to (5) agree.

Akhtar and Tan (1994) report that this measure yields a three-factor

solution. Identifying three types of commitment that have been referred to as

continuance commitment, normative-affective commitment, and volitlve

commitment. Factor I reflects the concept of withdrawal, whether the employee

stays with or leaves the organization, and Is referred to as continuance

commitment. Items of Factor II indicate the employee's acceptance of the

organization's values and identification with the organization and so is referred to

as normative-affective commitment. Factor III is called volitlve commitment,

indicating the employee's willingness to make a contribution to the success of the

organization.

15

Job Involvement

Job involvement was asessed with a 10-item scale devised by Kanungo

(1982). Responses to each Item are measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging

from (1) disagree to (5) agree. Representative items of this measure are

included In Appendix C.

Organizational Culture

Organizational culture was deciphered by a quantitative method.

An opinionnaire and an organizational culture scale were administered to all

employees In order to assess the values and norms of the organization. The

dominant culture and existing subcultures in different geographical were

assessed by the Organizational Culture Scale (Deshpande, Farley & Webster,

1993) and identified as one of the four types of Market, Hierarchical, Adhocracy

or Clan. Norms and values of the cultures were assessed by the Organizational

Norms Opionnaire (Alexander, 1978). Survival analysis was used to compare

the dominant culture and the subcultures with respect to the hazard of employee

voluntary tumover and the employees' self-reported levels of the constructs of

organizational commitment, job involvement and employee perceived obligation.

The Kaplan Meier method of survival analysis was used to compare the survival

curves of the different locations of the organization to detennine a significant

difference In the hazard of employee voluntary tumover. The Cox proportional

hazards model was used to test the effects of each of the organizational culture

covarlates on the hazard of employee voluntary tumover.

Mark Alexander's Organizational Norms Opinionnaire (Alexander, 1978) is

a 42-item scale that requires the employee to assess what the reaction of most

16

employees in the organization would be if another person said a particular thing

or behaved in a particular manner. Representative Items from this scale are

included in Appendix D. Responses to each item are measured on a 5-point

Likert scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree with, or discourage It, to (5)

strongly agree with, or encourage it. The instrument's 42 items can be grouped

into ten scales of, organizational/personal pride, performance/excellence,

teamwork/communication, leadership/supen/lsion, profitability/cost effectiveness,

colleague/associate relations, customer/client relations, Innovativeness/creativity.

training/development and candor/openness. The scores for each of the ten

categories are totaled and a mathematical formula applied to obtain a final

percentage score for each category.

Another scale used to measure organizational culture Is the

Organizational Culture Scale (Deshpande, Fariey & Webster, 1993), This

measure is a 16-item scale with responses to each item measured on a 5-point

Likert scale ranging from (1) disagree to (5) agree. Representative items of this

scale are included in Appendix E. There are four classifications of organizational

culture that can be determined by this measure. They are as follows: (1) market

culture, characterized by an emphasis on competition and superiority in the

market; (2) hierarchical culture, characterized by its bureaucracy and smooth

operation; (3) adhocracy culture, emphasizing innovation, risk-taking and

entrepreneurship; and (4) clan culture, with emphasis on loyalty, tradition and

intemal maintenance (Deshpande, Fariey & Webster, 1993).

17

Emplovee Psvchological Contract

Three opionnaires relative to the psychological contract were administered

to all employees. The three opionnaires are the Employee Perceived Contract

with the organization, the Employee Perceived Contract Fulfilled by the employer

and the Employee Perceived Obligation to the employer. The measures were

structured according to infomnation reported by Robinson, Kraatz and Rousseau

(1994).

The Employee Perceived Contract Is a 7-ltem measure designed to

assess the employee's perception of the contract that exists between the

employee and the organization. Representative items of this measure are

included in Appendix F. The Employee Perceived Contract Fulfilled is also a 7-

Item measure designed to assess the employee's perception of contract

fulfillment by the employer. Representative Items are included in Appendix G.

The third measure, Employee Perceived Obligation, is an 8-item one designed to

assess the employee's perceived obligation to the organization, or employer.

Representative Items of this measure are Included in Appendix H.

Tumover

Tumover events relevant to this study are the employee voluntary tumover

events. Tumover was assessed each month for a period of approximately four

months after the Initial administration of the above-mentioned questionnaires and

opinionnaires. All tumover data was obtained directly from the human resource

management department of the organization.

Survival analysis was used to assess the relationship of both the

occurrence and the timing of the tumover process to multiple predictors

18

measured at one point in time. Survival analysis Is suitable for studies in which

the dependent variable Is binary, in this case voluntary tumover. Survival

analysis measures whether the employee will stay or leave and for those who

leave, the time of exit, referred to as the failed event. Time is thus treated as a

continuous variable, making greater use of the available infonnatlon. From this

information, an estimate for each point in time during the study period can be

obtained of the probability that an employee in the sample will leave (Allison,

1995).

Survival analysis also was used to estimate a causal or predictive model

in which the risk of employee voluntary tumover depends on the covariates. The

dependent variable for this study is "length of stay," computed In months from the

time of initial employment until the failed event. The Cox proportional hazard

model, a partial likelihood model. Is the method used for estimation of the

regression model with censored data (Allison, 1995). The Cox regression

method is a combination of the model and estimation method of maximum partial

likelihood. The method yields Wald chi-square statistics for testing the null

hypothesis that all coefficients are zero. The model also yields a summary of the

number of events and censored values.The survivor function was estimated and

plotted in the presence of censoring.

A censored observation is defined as one whose value is not known,

specifically because the subject had not been in the study long enough for the

outcome of Interest to occur (Dawson-Saunders & Trapp, 1994). Censored

observations for this study are the employees who remain with the organization.

The employees who leave the organization by other means not being

Investigated, such as being fired, were deleted from the data, so that two groups

19

of employees remained, those that left voluntarily and those who remained

employed with the organization. Tumover is not observed for these subjects who

remain in the organization, so they are considered to be censored.

The censoring process has been analyzed by the product-limit estimator

of the survivor function. With the product-limit estimator for the probability of

staying beyond time f for an employee, quantiles for tenure and expected tenure

can be estimated (Allison, 1995). Important information is supplied by the

censored observations, since survival analysis treats voluntary turnover time as a

continuous variable. Survival analysis treats censored data very efficiently and

any of the equations, the log rank statistic or proportional hazard model can

accommodate the censoring process of the data (Morita, Lee, & Mowday, 1989).

To extend the analysis of the data, employees were divided Into four

groups based on the survival function to compare employees on the variable,

"length of employment," at 0-3 month interval, 3-6 months, 6-9 months and > 9

months. Descriptive statistics are computed for the significant demographic

variables, gender, age, ethnicity and salary, and the measure of Employee

Perceived Obligation. An analysis of variance is used to determine if the groups

differ significantly.

Similar to regression analysis, sun/ival analysis is used for the prediction

of a certain dependent variable, in this case employee voluntary tumover,

through the use of a set of Independent variables, or covariates, in this case,

employee organizational commitment, job involvement, organizational culture

and the psychological contract. The use of these predictor variables yields more

sensitive and accurate descriptions of the employee voluntary tumover process.

The specific method of sun/ival analysis used is the Cox proportional hazards

20

model, to determine the predictor variables of employee voluntary tumover. This

model allows for the variables to be constant for each individual, or time-varying,

and is capable of yielding a description of the relative hazard (voluntary tumover)

rates of the various subgroups (Morita, Lee, & Mowday, 1989). The life table

method and the Kaplan-Meier method are also utilized to detennine the

conditional probability of failure, the hazard estimate function by interval of

employment, and the point estimates of the time variable, "length of

employment."

Procedures

The employee participants completed the questionnaires and

opinionnaires on the job site during paid working hours at each of the 13

geographical locations of the organization In the southwest area of the United

States. The opportunity to participate was made available during the work shift

change so that employees were able to participate after their shift ended and still

remain on the clock, while participating. Depending upon the number of

employees available at the end of a particular work shift, the number of

participants in a group varied. Each participant was given a booklet composed of

the questionnaires and opionnaires. The researcher explained the nature of the

study and the benefit of the study to the organization and reviewed the

instructions to ensure employee understanding. Participants were infomned that

the researcher would maintain confidentiality with respect to their individual

response information, which would be used only for the purposes of research.

The employees were allowed to be seated in the back dining room of the

restaurant area, separate from customers, and to remain on the clock while they

21

completed the demographic information and the various questionnaires and

opinionnaires. The measures included the 15-ltem Organizational Commitment

Scale, the 10-ltem Job Involvement Scale, the 42-item Organizational Nonns

Opionnaire, the 16-ltem Organizational Culture Scale, the 7-item Employee

Perceived Contract, the 7-ltem Employee Perceived Contract Fulfilled and the 8-

Item Employee Perceived Obligation. This procedure could be completed in

approximately 35 minutes.

22

CHAPTER III

RESULTS

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics of the variables in this study and the results are

displayed in Table 1. The frequency scores and percentage of sample are

computed for some of the demographic variables such as gender, salary and

position title, and are displayed In Table 2.

Statistical Analyses

Reliabilities

Scale reliabilities are measured with Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The

Cronbach's alpha coefficient value for the Organizational Commitment Scale is

0.53, with values on the individual Items ranging from 0.420785 to 0.554913.

Mowday, Porter and Steers (1982) report values of .82 to .90, depending on their

type of sample population ranging from auto company managers to scientists

and engineers. Comparison of the two studies indicate somewhat lower values

for the Cronbach's alpha in this study with sample population of retail sen/ice

employees. The lower value for the Cronbach's alpha reported in this study may

be an artifact of the sample. Comprehension, literacy and education levels of the

employees in this sample may account for the difference reported in the reliability

score.

For the Job Involvement Questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha value is 0.69,

demonstrating test reliability. The values of the individual Items of the

23

questionnaire range from 0.577493 to 0,768164, Kanungo (1982) reports

Cronbach's coefficient alpha value to range from .70 to .81 in an experimental

sample population chosen for designing the questionnaire.

Table 1, Summary of Descriptive Statistics

Variables Mean RangeStandard Deviation

Organizational

Commitment 55.826 55.00 11.581

Job Involvement 31.743 48.00 9.155

Employee Perceived

Obligation 31.396 35.00 5.940

Organizational

Culture

Clan 3.465

Adhoc 3.468

Hierar 3.773

Market 3.612

Profitability/

Cost Effectiveness -30.527 162.50 32.015

Employee

Perceived Contract 20.526 28.00 6,976

Employee

Contract Fulfilled 23.675 37.00 7.811

4.00

4.00

4.00

4.00

.840

.742

.712

.608

24

Reliability analysis of the Organizational Culture Scale reveals a

Cronbach's alpha coefficient value of 0.90, with individual item scores ranging

from 0.88539 to 0.913063, indicating supportive results for test reliability,

Deshpande, Fariey and Webster (1993) report a range of Cronbach's alpha

values on the four factors of the 16-ltem questionnaire ranging from .42 to .82 in

their sample population from 50 different firms.

Table 2. Summary of Demographic Frequencies

Variable Frequency Percent

Gender

Male

Female

Position Title

Managers

Nonmangers

Salary

$10,000 or Less

$10,000-20,000

$20,000-35,000

$35,000-50,000

$50,000 or more

314

260

115

459

301

175

59

19

15

54,7

45.3

20.0

80.0

52.9

30.8

10.4

3.3

2.6

An additional scale measuring organizational culture is the Organizational

Norms Opinionnaire (Alexander, 1978). The instrument's 42 Items can be

grouped into ten scales of, organizational/personal pride,

25

perfomriance/excellence, teamwori communication, leadership/supervision,

profitability/cost effectiveness, colleague/associate relations, customer/client

relations, Innovativeness/creativity. training/development and candor/openness.

There are three scales measuring the employee psychological contract,

the Employee Perceived Contract Scale, the Employee Perceived Contract

Fultilled Scale, and the Employee Perceived Obligation Scale. For the 7-item

Employee Perceived Contract Scale, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient is 0.84,

with individual item scores ranging from ,814338 to .842535, For the 7-item

Employee Perceived Contract Fulfilled Scale, the coefficient alpha is 0,82, with

individual Item scores ranging from 0.775768 to 0.828310. The Cronbach's

alpha for the third scale. Employee Perceived Obligation is 0.71, with individual

Item scores ranging from 0.651294 to 0.712505.

Organizational Commitment. Job Involvement and Tumover

Analyses of associations between survival time and qualitative and

quantitative variables are performed with the Cox proportional hazards model to

estimate a predictive model in which the risk of voluntary tumover depends on

covariates. Also, estimates of survivor functions are produced using the Kaplan-

Meier method and the life-table, or actuarial method (Allison, 1995).

For model building, the Cox proportional hazards model is used,

specifically the methods of stepwise regression and the score method, to test the

incremental effect of each variable while controlling for all others. The

independent variables for the first analysis were Organizational Commitment, Job

Involvement, Employee Perceived Contract, Employee Perceived Contract

Fulfilled, Employee Perceived Obligation and Organizational Culture.

26

Initial analysis of variables yielded significant chi-square scores for

Organizational Commitment (8.9894, p<.0027). Job Involvement (4.4608,

p<.0347) and Employee Perceived Obligation (25.7185, p<.0001). When the

variable with the lowest p-level and the highest chi-square score. Employee

Perceived Obligation, is entered Into the model first, no other variable met the

p<.05 level for entry Into the model. The Wald chi-square (21.64872, p<.0001)

for the measure. Employee Perceived Obligation, the parameter estimate

(-0.080325) and risk ratio (0.923) Indicate a significant strong negative

association between the variable and the hazard of voluntary tumover. For those

employees who self-report high levels of perceived obligation to the employer,

the hazard of voluntary tumover decreases by 7.7%.

When quantifying the effect of a covariate on sun/ival time, the signs of the

coefficient indicate the direction of the relationship. The coefficient numerical

magnitudes can be transformed for Interpretation. Use the formula 100[(eBeta)-

1]=% change in the odds that an event will occur for a one-unit increase in the

covariate (Allison, 1995). For a quantitative variable such as age, an estimated

per cent change In the hazard for each one-unit increase in the covariate may be

calculated by the fonnula 100(risk ratio-1)=percent change.

When the two variables. Organizational Commitment and Job

Involvement, are entered into the Cox proportional hazard model together,

the Wald chi-square for Organizational Commitment (4.77450, p<0.0289), the

parameter estimate (-0.025672) and the risk ratio (0.0975) for the variable

indicate a significant negative association between the variable and the hazard of

employee voluntary tumover. The Wald chi-square for Job Involvement

(0.37809, p<0.5386), the parameter estimate (-0.009254) and the risk ratio

27

(0.991) indicate a negative association between the variable and the hazard of

employee voluntary tumover that Is not significant when the two variables are in

the model together.

When Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment are each entered

into a model alone, the Wald chi-square (10.35660, p<0.0013) for Organizational

Commitment is larger than the Wald chi-square (5.58885, p<0.0181) for Job

Involvement. Each of the variables demonstrates a significant effect on the

hazard of voluntary tumover only when each of the variables is the only variable

entered Into the regression analysis. Organizational Commitment decreases the

hazard of voluntary tumover by 2.8% and Job Involvement, by 2.6%. These

results support hypothesis 1 that employee organizational commitment and job

involvement are negatively related to employee voluntary tumover.

Organizational Culture and Tumover

For the Organizational Culture Scale (Deshpande, Fariey & Webster,

1993), there are four different types of culture that are factored from the

measure. The four types of culture represented are Mari<et, Hierarchical,

Adhocracy and Clan, with the highest possible mean score on any one variable

being 5.0. Testing for the effects of the covariates. Market, Hierarchical,

Adhocracy and Clan on the hazard of voluntary tumover and stratifying on the 13

different locations, the Wald model chi-square (6.936, p<.01393) indicates a

significant effect for each of the covariates on the hazard of voluntary tumover

when stratifying on location with 13 groups.

28

The parameter estimates and risk ratios for each covariate are displayed

in Table 3. For each covariate, the estimates and risk ratios indicate a strong

negative association between the covariates and the hazard of voluntary

tumover. Comparison of the different locations and the mean scores for each

covariate reveal that for all locations except two, the highest mean score Is for

Hierarchical (3.89423) and the second highest Is for the culture type Clan

(3.80357).

The hierarchical culture emphasizes the importance of rules, regulations

and order. Business transactions are controlled by sun/eillance, direction and

evaluation. The achievement and consistency of cleariy stated goals are

determinants of business effectiveness. The clan culture promotes participation,

teamwork and coheslveness, with more importance being placed on personal

satisfaction and organizational coheslveness rather than market share and

financial objectives. Participation ensures the commitment of the members of the

organization.

For the dominant culture of the organization, one of two locations reporting

a different type of culture, the highest mean score of the four culture types is

Adhocracy (3.96429) and the second highest. Clan (3.80357) and for the Wilcox

location, the highest mean of the four is Hierarchical (3.89286) and the second

highest, Adhocracy (3.59694). Within the adhocracy culture, the primary

emphasis Is on values of creativity, adaptability and entrepreneurship. The

strategic emphasis is on new directions for growth and new markets in an

atmosphere of flexibility and tolerance.

These findings do not support hypothesis 2, that the subcultures, at the

various geographical locations, of the dominant culture will be defined as

29

Clan

Adhoc

Hierar

Mari<et

-0.044791

-0.076263

-0.224922

-0.076286

enhancing or orthogonal subcultures. The findings do lend support to hypothesis

3, that the existing subcultures are identified as countercultures to the dominant

culture, which is represented by the employees residing in the corporate office.

Table 3. Summary of Maximum Likelihood Estimates for Culture

Culture Parameter Estimate Risk Ratio

0.956

0.927

0.799

0.027

The tumover rates of all the countercultures are higher than the tumover

rate of the dominant culture; no tumover occurred in the dominant culture during

the study. The Wilcoxon chi-square (24.7011, p<0.0163) from the Kaplan-Meier

method of survival analysis indicates that the survival curves of all locations differ

significantly with respect to the hazard of employee voluntary tumover. These

findings also support hypothesis 3 that the countercultural subcultures will

demonstrate an increased rate of employee voluntary tumover.

Additional survial analysis is performed to compare the dominant culture

and the countercultures with respect to the effects of covariates on the hazard of

voluntary tumover. The Kaplan-Meier and life table methods of sun/ival analysis

are used to test for significant difference in the survival curves of the two groups

of culture and to test for the effects of the variables, Hierarchical, Organizational

Commitment, Job Involvement and Employee Perceived Obligation.

30

First, the variable Hierarchical, from the Organizational Culture Scale, Is

tested in the two groups of culture and the Wilcoxon chi-square (4.9592,

p<.0260) indicates a significant difference in the survival curves for the two

groups, dominant culture and countercultures. The mean score on the variable.

Hierarchical, for the dominant culture (3.53571) Is lower than the mean score for

the countercultures (3.7802). The dominant culture employees demonstrate the

highest mean score for the culture type, Adhocracy. The employees of the

countercultures report their culture type as Hierarchical as compared to the

dominant culture employees, defining their culture as Adhocracy. These results

support hypothesis 3 that the various geographical locations are countercultures

to the dominant culture.

The two variables of Organizational Commitment and Job Involvement

were tested in the two groups of culture, dominant culture and countercultures,

with respect to the hazard of employee voluntary tumover. For the variable,

Organizational Commitment, the Wilcoxon chi-square statistic (8,0899, p<0,0045)

is slightly larger than the Wilcoxon chi-square (5,4593, p<0.0195) for Job

Involvement. The survival curves for both groups of culture differ significantly

with respect to the effects of the two variables. The mean score for the measure

Organizational Commitment in the dominant culture location (62.2667) is higher

than the mean score in the countercultures (55.6355), as predicted in hypothesis

3. The mean score for the measure Job Involvement in the dominant culture

location (32.800) is higher than the mean score (31.588) in the countercultures,

also supporting hypothesis 3.

The two groups of culture, dominant and counterculture, were further

tested for the effects of the variable, Employee Perceived Obligation, on the

31

hazard of employee voluntary tumover. The largest Wilcoxon chi-square statistic

(15.6935, p<0.0001) with the lowest p-level for the variable, Employee Perceived

Obligation, demonstrates a significant difference in the survival curves of the two

groups of culture when testing for the variable. The mean score for the measure

in the dominant culture (34.733) is also greater than the mean score reported in

the countercultures (31.3183), as predicted in hypothesis 3,

These results support hypothesis 3 that the subcultures of the dominant

culture are countercultures and that the employees there self-report lower scores

on the measures of Organizational Commitment, Job Involvement and Employee

Perceived Obligation,

The Organizational Norms Scale also was used to measure the values

and nonns of the existing cultures. All ten of the factored variables from the

measure were entered into a Cox proportional hazards model using stepwise

regression to create a predictive model of the hazard of employee voluntary

tumover with respect to the norms and values of the existing cultures. Of the ten

variables, there is only one that demonstrates a significant effect with respect to

the hazard of voluntary tumover. The Wald chi-square (9.924511, p<0.0016) for

the variable, Profitability/Cost Effectiveness, the parameter estimate (0.010554)

and the risk ratio (1.011) indicate a significant positive association between the

variable and the hazard of voluntary tumover. For each one-unit increase in the

covariate, the hazard of voluntary tumover increases by 1,1%, The reverse

wording used here is due to the fact that for this scale, the negative scores

indicate a positive employee attitude relating to the variable, meaning that

employees agree that other employees regard the variable as Important to the

organization. For example, the mean score of this factor (-30,527%) is within a

32

range from -100% to +100% with -100% meaning that the employee positively

agrees that all other employees regard profitability and cost effectiveness in the

organization as very important. These results indicate that for those employees

who agree that other employees regard this variable as important, the hazard of

employee voluntary tumover decreases by 1.1%.

Demographics

A model of the hazard of employee voluntary tumover containing

demographic variables was generated by the Cox proportional hazards model.

The variables entered into the model were gender, age, shift, ethnicity, location

of employment, level of education, marital status, salary and children.

There are four demographic variables that demonstrate a significant

association to the hazard of employee voluntary tumover, gender, age ethnicity

and salary. Gender is represented as male or female and age is the actual age

as self-reported by the employee. The variable ethnicity is divided into eight

groups, Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, African

American/Hispanic, Caucasian/Hispanic, Native American and a group for any

other ethnicity. There are five levels of the variable salary, categorizing by

income calculated in annual salary. The first level of salary is $10,000 or less,

the second, $10,000-$20,000, the third, $20,000-$35,000, the fourth, $35,000-

$50,000 and the fifth level Is $50,000 or more.

The final model contains four demographic variables that report significant

Wald chi-square scores, indicating a significant association with the hazard of

employee voluntary tumover. The variables are gender (5.6698, p<.0173), age

(30.6594, p<.0001), ethnicity (20.9421, p<.0001) and salary (14.8839, p<.0001).

33

For the quantitative variable, age, the parameter estimate (-0,029846)

and the risk ratio (0.971) indicate a strong negative relationship between the

variable and the hazard of voluntary tumover. For each one-year increase in

age, the hazard for voluntary tumover decreases by 2.9%, 100(.971-1)=2,9%

(Allison, 1995).

For the quantitative variable, salary, the parameter estimate (-0.763494)

and the risk ratio (.466) indicate a strong negative association between the

variable and the hazard of voluntary tumover. Results of the formula indicate

that for every one-unit increase in the variable salary, there is a 53,4% decrease

in the hazard of voluntary tumover. Salary Is divided into five groups with the

lowest paid group representing the $10,000 and less, the second, $10,000-

$20,000, the third, $20,000-$35,000, the fourth, $35,000-50,000 and the fifth

group, $50,000 or more.

In the survival analysis, testing for the effects of the variable, gender, the

parameter estimate (0.521141) and the risk ratio (1.684) indicate a strong

positive association between the variable and the hazard of voluntary tumover.

These estimates Indicate that males are .5938 times more likely to engage in

employee voluntary tumover than females.

The variable, gender, is further tested by using the Kaplan-Meier and life-

table methods of survival analysis for interpretation of tumover by intervals of

length of employment. When testing for the homogeneity of survival curves over

the strata of gender, male and female, specifically comparing time intervals of

employment, 0 to 24 months by three, there were no significant differences in the

survival curves of females as compared to the sun/ival curve for males.

34

Results from the Kaplan-Meier, comparing tumover by gender on the

Intervals of length of employment, there are some similarities in the tumover for

males and females as indicated in the life-table survival estimates. For males

and females, the highest number of voluntary tumover failed events is in the time

inten/al 3-to-6 months employed. The life table method of analysis yields two

statistics for quantifying the risk of failure, a failed event being voluntary tumover

of the employee. The statistics are the conditional probability of failure and the

hazard function. Conditional probability of failure (0.0498) for males at the 3-6

month interval quantifies the risk of failure during the interval, given that they

made it to the start of the Inten/al. The hazard function (0.017021) for males at

the 3-6 month Interval quantifies the Instantaneous risk that a voluntary tumover

event will occur.

For females, the number of employees failed in any given interval is the

highest in the 3-6 month interval, that number being 11. The conditional

probability of failure for females at the 3-6 month Inten/al (.0370) is somewhat

lower than that of males. The hazard function (0.01257) for females at the 3-6

month interval is highest at this interval as compared to all other intervals and

also lower than that of males.

The Kaplan-Meier sun/ival estimates show that by 7 months employed, 25

males had failed. At 7 months, the survival estimate (0,8992) indicates that the

estimated probability that a male will survive or remain employed 7 months or

longer Is 89.92%. This sun/ival estimate function steadily decreases until at 51

months employed the survivor function (0,7341) indicates a decreased probability

of sun/ival. The point estimate for males at the 25% quantile is 51 months. This

35

estimate indicates the smallest event time such that the probability of voluntary

tumover eariler than this time is >.25. Most interesting is the 50th percentile,

which is the median failure time. At the 50% quantile for males, the point

estimate Is 260 months.

In comparison to males, the group females' survival estimate (0.9272) for

7-months employed indicates that the estimated probability (92.72%) that

females will survive 7 months or longer is somewhat higher than that for males.

The point estimate for females at the 25% quantile is void meaning that the

function never reaches a failure probability of > .235, which occurs at 47 months

for females as compared to 51 months for males. The conditional probability of

failure and the hazard function estimates are higher for males than for females,

meaning that the hazard of voluntary tumover is greater for males than for

females.

Results of survival analysis testing for the effects of the variable ethnicity,

specifically the parameter estimate (0.147584) and risk ratio (1.159), indicate a

positive association between the variable and the hazard of voluntary tumover.

The variable ethnicity is dichotomized into groups of Caucasian and all other

ethnicities combined and Is compared by time Inten/als of employment. The

variable is dichotomized, instead of using the 8 groups of ethnicity, to avoid a

reduction in power since the number of failure events is relatively low compared

to the number of censored events In the study. When a substantial number of

cases are censored, the effect on the estimates of the mean can be great

(Allison, 1995). The number of Caucasian (379) is quite large and when all other

ethnicities are added into one group (171), the two groups are more nearly

balanced In number.

36

The Wilcoxon chi-square statistic (20.0631, p<.0001) indicates a

significant difference in the two sun/ival curves when stratifying on the

dichotomized variable, ethnicity. For the group "all other ethnicities," the sun/ival

function at 7 months employed (0.8304) is somewhat lower than the survival

function (0.9525) for the group, "Caucasian." The point estimate for the group,

"all other ethnicities," at the 25% quantile is 15 months as compared to the point

estimate for the group, "Caucasian," which is void at the 25% quantile because

the function never reaches a probability of >.2020 which occurs at 88 months.

The life-table survival estimate tables reveal the number of voluntary

tumover failure events In each Interval stratified on the two groups. For the

group, "all other ethnicities," the highest number of failed events in a designated

interval (15) occurred In the 3-6 month employed inten/al as compared to the

number of failed events (8) in the group, "Caucasian," for the 3-6 month interval.

For the group, "Caucasian," the highest number of failed events (11) occurred in

both the 6-9 and 9-12 month inten/als.

The conditional probability of failure for the group, "all other ethnicities,"

(.0920) at the 3-6 month interval Is higher than for the group, "Caucasian,"

(.0213) during the same inten/al of employment. For the group, "Caucasian," the

conditional probability of failure at the 6-9 month inten/al (.0317) and at the 9-12

month interval (.0364), the two inten/als reporting the highest number of failed

events (11 each), is signiticantly lower than the probability of failure rate for the

group, "all other ethnicities," (.0920) during the 3-6 month interval.

Comparison of the hazard function estimates for the two groups Indicates

that the group, "all other ethnicities," displays Its highest hazard function estimate

37

for any Inten/al (.03254) during the 3-6 month inten/al while the group

"Caucasian," experiences Its highest hazard function estimate (.012346), still

lower than the function for the other group, at the 9-12 month inten/al.

The difference in the sun/ival cun/es is significant for the two groups, the

group, "all other ethnicities," displaying a higher rate of failure events in the form

of voluntary tumover at an eariier time Inten/al and an increased hazard function

estimate than the group, "Caucasian." The conditional probability of failure and

the hazard function estimates for the group, "Caucasian," are lower than for the

group, "all other ethnicities." The group, "all other ethnicities," demonstrates an

Increased hazard of voluntary tumover at an eariier interval of length of

employment.

Emplovee Psvchological Contract and Turnover

The effects of the significant variable. Employee Perceived Obligation,

from the predictive model of voluntary tumover, was tested in a series of Cox

proportional hazards models, stratifying on each of the demographic variables

that also proved to have significant effects on the hazard of voluntary tumover.

The first analysis, testing for the effects of the covariate Employee

Perceived Obligation on the dichotomous variable ethnicity, yielded a Wald chi-

square for the model (16.217, p<.0001), a parameter estimate (-0.071027) and

risk ratio (0.931) of the covariate which indicates a significant negative

association between the covariate and the hazard of voluntary tumover. For

those employees who are Caucasian and who self-report high scores on the

measure, Indicating a perceived high level of obligation to their employer, the

hazard of voluntary tumover decreases. The hazard of employee voluntary

38

tumover for those employees who are Caucasian Is 93,1% of those who are not.

The reciprocal of .931 indicates that those employees who are not Caucasian are

1.07 time more likely to engage in voluntary tumover. The mean score of the

measure. Employee Perceived Obligation, for the group, "all other ethnicities,"

(30.9379) was slightly lower than the mean score of the group, "Caucasian,"

(32.1753).

A second analysis was performed using the variable ethnicity, this time

dividing the variable Into the 8 different groups reported from the demographic

information. The total number of employees in each group and the number of

failed events are listed in Table 4. The Wald chi-square statistic (14.718,

p<.0001), the parameter estimate (-0.068658) and the risk ratio (0.934) for the

covariate, Employee Perceived Obligation, again indicate a significant negative

association between the covariate, as stratified on the 8 groups of ethnicity, and

the hazard of voluntary tumover. The group with the largest absolute number of

failure events (51) is the Caucasian group (365), reflecting a failure rate of

13.97%, while the next group, Hispanic (98) with a lower number of failed events

(25) demonstrates a higher failure rate percentage at 25.51%. Figure 1 displays

a plot of the survival cun/es for each of the 8 groups of ethnicity by employment

"length of stay."

In the next analysis, testing the global null hypothesis with the same

covariate. Employee Perceived Obligation, this time stratifying on gender, the

Wald chi-square (21.482, p<.0001), the parameter estimate (-0.078125) and the

risk ratio (0.925) for the covariate stratified on gender, indicate a significant

negative association between the covariate and the hazard of voluntary tumover.

39

Table 4. Summary of Event Values by Ethnicity

Ethnicity Total Event

51

2

25

0

2

57

2

6

Caucasian

African American

Hispanic

Asian Pacific Islander

Black Hispanic

Caucasian Hispanic

Native American

Other

365

12

98

4

3

2

9

8

The hazard of voluntary tumover for those employees who are female

Is 92.5% of those who are male and the reciprocal of .925 indicates that males

are 1.08 times more likely to engage in voluntary tumover. The mean score

(31.9749) on the measure for males Is slightly higher than that of females

(31.6481).

The next analysis Is perfonned using the third demographic variable from

the Cox proportional model, salary, divided into the five levels of salary. Again,

the Cox proportional hazard model is used to test the effects of the covariate.

Employee Perceived Obligation, on the hazard of voluntary turnover as stratitied

on the five groups of salary. The total number of employees in each group of the

40

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variable salary and the number of failed events for the groups are displayed in

Table 5. The Wald chi-square statistic (8.194, p<.0042), the parameter estimate

for the covariate (-0.055424), and the risk ratio (0.946) indicate a significant

negative association between the covariate and the hazard of voluntary tumover

when stratified on the five groups of the variable salary. For each one-unit

Table 5. Summary of Event Values by Salary

Salary Total Event

1 275 69

2 161 20

3 54 5

4 19 0

5 14 0

increase in the level of salary, the hazard of voluntary tumover decreases by

5.4%. The two groups with the largest total number of employees and the largest

number failed in each group are the groups of the two lowest levels of annual

salary. The failure rate in the group with the lowest level of annual salary,

$10,000 or less, is 25,09%. Moving up to the next level of salary, $10,000 to

$20,000, the percentage rate of failure decreases to 12.42%. As the unit-level of

annual salary increases, the hazard of voluntary tumover decreases.

The fourth significant demographic variable, age, was entered into the Cox

proportional hazard model to test for the effects of the covariate, Employee

Perceived Obligation, stratifying on the variable age. There is significance at the

42

p<.05 level as measured by the Wald chi-square (4.682, p<.0305). In order to

increase power of the analysis, age is stratified into five groups, <20, 25, 35, 45,

>50.

When testing for the effects of the covariate. Employee Perceived

Obligation, on the hazard of voluntary tumover and stratifying by five groups of

the variable age, the Wald chi-square (6.390, p<.0115), the parameter estimate

for the covariate, (-0.047662) and the risk ratio (0.953) indicate a significant

negative association between the covariate and the hazard of voluntary tumover.

For each one-unit increase in age group, the hazard of employee voluntary

tumover decreases by 4.7%.

The age group, 25 years old, reports the largest sample size (132), the

highest number of actual failed events (33), a lower percentage (25.0%), and a

lower mean score on the measure Employee Perceived Obligation (31.1970).

The next group to report the second highest number of actual failed events (22),

the smallest sample size (69), a higher percentage (31.8%) and the lowest mean

score (27,6812) on the measure, Employee Perceived Obligation, is the group

<20 years old. The highest percentage of tumover events occurs in the group,

<20 years old, the group which also self-reports the lowest levels of perceived

employee obligation. The group, 25 years old, demonstrates the second highest

percentage of tumover events and a slightly higher mean score on the measure

of employee obligation. The mean score on the measure. Employee Perceived

Obligation, increased with the age of the employee with the highest mean score

reported by the >50 group (33.5158),

43

Altemative Analyses

Two of the thirteen locations of the organization are thought to be

homogeneous with respect to survival curves depicting the hazard of voluntary

turnover, and the two sites In Wyoming and Arizona are believed to significantly

differ from all other locations. Support for this belief is in the fact that percentage

of voluntary participation at each of the two latter sites is higher than that of each

of the other sites. Percentage of participation at each of the two sites is 87.47%

and 66.84%, respectively. Since percentage of voluntary participation at each of

the other sites was considerably lower, selection bias is suspected at the other

sites of the organization. In other words. It is suspected that those employees

who would self-report high levels of commitment and obligation are the ones who

would volunteer for the study.

For this reason, an analysis of homogeneity was perfonned comparing the

one site located at Rawlins, Wyoming to the other site, in Tonopah, Arizona. The

total number of employees participating in the study at the first site (107) and the

number of voluntary tumover failed events (29) is comparable to the total of the

second site (121) and the number failed (28). Using the Kaplan-Meier method of

analysis, the Wilcoxon chi-square (1.0635, p<.3024) indicates that there is no

significant difference in the survival curves for the two locations, so the two sites

are considered to be homogeneous with respect to the hazard of voluntary

turnover.

The two sites, Wyoming and Arizona were compared with respect to the

time variable, "length of stay," or time employed, as reflected in the point

estimate for the 25% quantile and the survival estimates. The point estimate for

the first site (11 months) at the 25% quantile is much lower than the point

44

estimate for the second site (23 months). Comparison of the two sites with

respect to the life table survival estimates indicates that for the first site the

highest number failed (9) Is the same in both the 6-9 month interval and the 9-12

month inten/al, while for the second site the highest number of actual failed

events (5) is the same In both the 3-6 month and 6-9 month inten/als.

Since the two sites are considered homogeneous with respect to their

survival curves and the hazard of voluntary tumover, a further analysis is

perfonned by dichotomizing on location, to compare the two sites, Wyoming and

Arizona, to all other locations to test for homogeneity of survival curves with

respect to the hazard of voluntary turnover. Comparison of the two groups of

location with respect to size and number of failed events indicates that the total of

participating employees (322) in the first group, "all other locations," is greater

than the total (228) in the second group of two locations; however, the number of

voluntary tumover failed events (57) for the second group, "two locations,"

exceeds the number (42) for the tirst group, "all other locations." The Kaplan-

Meier method of analysis yields a Wilcoxon chi-square (12.3323, p<,0004) which

Indicates that the survival curves of the two groups differ significantly.

Comparison of the two groups of location with respect to the time variable

"length of stay," reveals a difference in the point estimate for the 25% quantile.

The group, "two locations," has a point estimate of 18 months for the 25%

quantile while the group, "all other locations," is void for the statistic at the 25%

quantile because the point estimate never reaches >.1929 in the 88 month. The

sun/ival function estimate for the group, "two locations," in the eighteenth month

(0.7469) Is less than the sun/ival function estimate (0.8071) of the group, "all

other locations," for month 88.

45

The life table sun/ival estimates by interval of "length of stay" indicate that

the group, "all other locations," experiences the highest number of voluntary

tumover failed events (10) in the 3-6 month inten/al while the group, "two

locations," reports the highest number of voluntary tumover failed events in the 6-

9 month inten/al. Conditional probability of failure (0.0318) and the hazard

function estimate (0.010787) for the group, "all other locations," at the 3-6 month

interval is lower than the conditional probability of failure (0.0700) and the hazard

function estimate (0.02418) for the group, "two locations," during the 6-9 month

interval. These results Indicate that the hazard of voluntary tumover is higher for

the two locations in Wyoming and Arizona, than for all other locations.

The same analysis of comparing the two groups of location is perfonned

with the Kaplan-Meier and life table methods of survival analysis, stratifying on

each of the demographic variables. There is a significant difference In the

sun/ival curves with respect to the hazard of voluntary tumover when stratifying

on the variable gender according to the Wilcoxon chi-square (23.0998, p<.0001)

statistic. A summary of event values by gender is displayed In Table 6. Group 0

is the group, "all other locations," and Group 1 is the group, "two locations," Life

table survival estimates at each Inten/al are presented in Table 7.

Table 6. Summary of Event Values by Gender

Total Failed 18 34 24 23

Males GrpO Males Grpi Females GrpO Females Grpi

151 97

171 131

46

Table 7. Life Table Survival Estimates

Male GrpO

GrpO

Grpi

Grpi

Interval 0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Inten/al 0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Inten/al 0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Interval 0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Failed 4 5 1 3

Failed 4 5 3 3

Failed 3 7 9 5

Failed 1 6 5 6

Cond. Prob. 0.02650 0.03400 0.00769 0.02680

Female Cond.Prob,

0.0234 0.0299 0.0194 0.0216

Male

Failure

Failure

Cond.Prob.Fallure 0.0309 0.0745 0.1071 0.0741

Female Cond.Prob.Fallure

0.0763 0.0462 0.0431 0.0612

Hazard 0.0089 0.0115 0.0025 0.0090

Hazard 0.0039 0.0045 0.0037 0.0041

Hazard 0.0104 0.0257 0.0377 0.0256

Hazard 0.0025 0.0064 0.0065 0.0085

The largest number of voluntary tumover failed events (9) with the highest

conditional probability of failure (0.1071) and the highest hazard function

estimate (0.037736) occurred in the 6-9 month interval for males in the group,

"two locations."

The two groups are compared by gender with respect to the point estimate

of the time variable "length of stay." For males in the group, "two locations," the

point estimate at the 25% quantile is 11 months and for males in the group, "all

other locations," the point estimate for the 25% quantile Is void because the

47

estimate is never > .1569 in month 38, For females in the group, "all other

locations," the 25% quantile is void since the point estimate is never >,2231 at

month 88 and for females in the group, "two locations," the 25% quantile is also

void with the point estimate never >.2490 in month 79. These results are similar

to the previous findings for gender and indicate that males demonstrate a greater

hazard for voluntary tumover than females and at an eariier interval of length of

employment.

The next demographic variable used in the analysis of the two groups of

location is the variable ethnicity, divided into two groups, "all other ethnicities,"

and "Caucasian." The variable ethnicity is reduced to two comparable groups to

enhance the power of the analysis. The Wilcoxon chi-square (27.6027, p<.0001)

Indicates a significant difference in the survival curves for the two groups as

stratified on ethnicity. The summary of event values by ethnicity Is presented in

Table 8. The results of the life table sun/ival estimates are displayed In Table 9.

The group, "all other locations," is group 0 and the group, "two locations," is

group 1.

Table 8. Summary of Event Values by Ethnicity

Total Failed All Ethnicities GrpO 78 15 All Ethnicities Grpi 93 31 Caucasian GrpO 244 27 Caucasian Grpi 135 26

48

Table 9. Life Table Survival Estimates

All Other Ethnicities GrpO

GrpO

Grpi

Grpi

Interval

0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Interval 0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Interval 0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Interval 0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12

Failed

5 5 2 2

Failed 3 5 2 4

Cond. Prob. 0.0641 0.0685 0.0323 0.0392

Caucasian Cond.Prob.

0.0123 0.0207 0.0089 0.0200

All Other Ethnicities Failed

3 10 5 4

Failed 1 3 9 7

Failure

Failure

Cond.Prob.Fallure 0.0323 0.1111 0.6580 0.0635

Caucasian Cond.Prob.Fallure

0.0741 0.0224 0.0726 0.0683

Hazard

0.0220 0.0236 0.0109 0.0133

Hazard 0.0041 0,0069 0,0030 0,0067

Hazard 0,1092 0.0392 0.0226 0.0218

Hazard 0.0024 0.0075 0.0251 0.0235

The hazard function estimates are higher for the group, all other

ethnicities," in both groups of location with the group, "two locations," reporting

the highest hazard function estimates at the 0-3 month inten/al employed and the

3-6 month interval. These results are similar to previous findings that the group,

"Caucasian," demonstrates a reduced hazard of voluntary tumover as compared

to the group, "all other ethnicities."

49

Further analysis was perfonned on the two groups of location, stratifying

again on the two groups of ethnicity and testing for the effects of the covariate

Employee Perceived Obligation. The Wald model chi-square (14.077, p<,0002),

the parameter estimate (-0.066864) and the risk ratio (0.935) for the covariate

indicate a significant negative association between the covariate and the hazard

of voluntary tumover In the two groups of location as stratified on the two groups

of ethnicity. Mean Scores of the measure Employee Perceived Obligation were

slightly higher for the group, "Caucasian" (32.7382, 31.1818) at both groups of

location than for the group, "all other ethnicities," (31.2361, 30,6996) at both

groups of location.

Using the same groups of location and stratifying on the variable gender,

and testing for the effects of the covariate. Employee Perceived Obligation, the

Wald chi-square (18.987, p<.0001), the parameter estimate (-0.074201) and the

risk ratio (0.928) indicate a significant negative association between the covariate

and the hazard of voluntary tumover for the two groups of location, stratifying on

the two groups of gender. Interpretation of the risk ratio indicates that males are

1.077 times more likely to engage in voluntary turnover at any given point.

These results are also similar to previous findings for gender.

The difference in mean scores of the covariate for this analysis appears in

the groups of location with the group, "two locations," demonstrating lower mean

scores for the measure, Employee Perceived Obligation, in both groups of male

(31.2500) and female (30.7840) than the group, "all other locations," with higher

male (32.4615) and female (32.3148) mean scores. For males in the group, "all

other locations," the ratio (11.19%) of actual number of failed events (16) to the

total (143) of participating employees was the lowest ratio of any group as

50

compared to the ratio (35,42%) of the actual number of failed events (34) to the

total (96) for males In the group, "two locations," Figure 2 displays a plot of the

sun/ival function estimates of the four groups, "males at all other locations,"

"males at the two locations," "females at all other locations," and "females at the

two locations."

The next survival analysis was stratitied on the demographic variable,

salary. There is a significant effect for the covariate Employee Perceived

Obligation on the hazard of voluntary tumover in the two groups of location, when

stratifying on the five groups of salary (7.16318, p<.0074). The parameter

estimate (-0.052591) and the risk ratio (0.949) indicate a significant negative

association between the covariate and the hazard of voluntary tumover. For

each one-unit increase in the variable salary, the hazard of voluntary tumover

decreases by 5.1%. The mean scores reported on the measure of the covariate

tend to increase with an increase In unit of salary with the highest mean score

(38.0000) for the measure Employee Perceived Obligation reported by the

employees in the $50,000 or more annual income group, specifically in the

location group, "two locations," and the lowest mean score (30.1 111) reported by

the employees In the $10,000 or less Income group also in the same location

group, "two locations." Figure 3 displays a plot of the sun/ival function estimates

of five groups of salary, "salary level 1 at all other locations," "salary level 1 at the

two locations," "salary level 2 at all other locations," "salary level 2 at the two

locations," and "salary level 3 at all other locations."

There Is also a significant effect for the covariate Employee Perceived

Obligation on the hazard of voluntary turnover in the two groups of location, when

stratifying on the five groups of age (5.022, p<.0250). The parameter

51

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estimate (-0.043272) and the risk ratio (0.958) indicate a significant negative

association between the covariate and the variable age. For each one-unit

Increase in the variable age, as grouped Into the five groups, the hazard of

voluntary tumover decreases by 4.2%. The ratio (37.14%) of the highest number

of actual failed events (13) to the total participants (35) is in the age group, <20

years, in the group, "two locations." The ratio (35.71%) of the second highest

number of actual failed events (25) to the total participants (70) is in the age

group, 25 years, also in the group, "two locations." The highest percentage of

tumover Is represented In the two groups of age, <20 years and 25 years, at the

two locations that differ significantly from all the other locations of the

organization. For this set of analyses the highest number of voluntary tumover

failed events was found in the two groups, <20 years old and 25 years old, the

same groups to demonstrate the highest tumover events in previous analyses,

stratifying on the five groups of age.

Mean scores on the measure tend to Increase with an increase in age

group until age 35, with the lowest mean score (27.6765) reported in the group

<20 at "all other locations," and the highest mean score (34.0278) reported in the

group 35 years in the group, "all other locations."

These results Indicate that when comparing the two groups of location and

stratifying on the variable age, as divided into five groups, employees in the

group, "all other locations," demonstrate higher mean scores on the measure.

Employee Perceived Obligation, and a lower hazard of voluntary turnover than

the group, "two locations." Also, the same age groups, <20 and 25 years old

demonstrate the highest hazard of voluntary tumover, similar to previous findings

in the survival analysis stratifying on the variable age.

53

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54

Group Differences in Tumover

From the previous analyses, findings indicate that there are three intervals

of employment "length of stay" in which the greatest number of voluntary

tumover failed events consistently occur. The inten/als are the 0-3 month

employed, the 3-6 month employed and the 6-9 month employed. These three

inten/al groups were compared to a fourth group, >9 months employed. An

ANOVA Is perfonned to test for significant difference in the four groups. The

results of the ANOVA for inten/al groups by demographic variables is displayed

In Table 10. Table 11 presents the frequencies and percentages of the

demographic variables. Table 12 displays the descriptive statistics for the

different groups on the demographic variables of age and on the measure of

Employee Perceived Obligation. The four groups of "length of stay" differ

significantly on the demographic variables of age, ethnicity, salary and on the

measure Employee Perceived Obligation, The demographic variable, gender, is

not significant by group.

Table 10. Summary of Analysis of Variance for Interval Groups

by Demographic Variables

Source df MS F p

Age 3 1912.85 10.52 .0001

Ethnicity 3 32.24 11.58 .0001

Salary 3 24.16 9.11 .0001

Employee Perceived Obligation 3 91.93 2.65 .0480

55

Table 11. Summary of Frequency and Percentage of Demographic Variables by Group

Gender Male

Female

Ethnicity Caucasian

African/American

Hispanic

Asian/Pacific Islander

Black/Hispanic

Caucasian/Hispanic

Native American

Other

Salary $10,000 or less

$10000-20,000

$20,000-35,000

$35,000-50,000

$50,000 or more

Groupl

8 1.45

7 1.27

5 .90 1

.18 7

1.27 0 0 0 0 1 .18 0 0 1

.18

9 1.64 4 .73 1 .18

0 0 0 0

Group 2

12 2,17

11 1,99

8 1,45

1 .18 4 .72 0 0 1 .18 5 .90 2 .36 2 .36

21 2.83 2 .36

0 0 0 0 0 0

Group 3

40 7.23

38 6.87

51 9.22

3 .54

17 3.07

0 0 0 0 3 .54 3 .54 1

.18

53 9.65 21 3.83 3 .55

0 0 0 0

Group 4

189 34,18 248

44,85

316 57,14

8 1.45

76 13,74 4

,72 2

.36 20

3.62 5

.90 6 1.08

206 37.52

143 26.05 53 9.65 18 3.28

14 2.55

56

Table 12, Summary of Descriptive Statistics for Age and Employee Perceived Obligation by Group

Group 1

Age Employee Perceived Obligation

Group 2

Age Employee Perceived Obligation

Group 3

Age Employee Perceived Obligation

Group 4

Age Employee Perceived Obligation

Mean

26.93 29.46

Mean

29.26 30.09

Mean

29.78 31.19

Mean

37.16 32.08

Std.Dev.

10.08 4.82

Std.Dev.

14.49 6.93

Std.Dev.

11.33 5.82

Std.Dev.

13.87 5.23

Min.

16 21

Min.

16 14

Min.

16 16

Min.

16 9

Max.

53 40

Max.

72 40

Max.

64 40

Max.

68 40

Considering these results, salary may be the one variable that accounts

for the employee voluntary turnover. Other ANOVA's were performed on the five

levels of salary by each of the demographic variables of age, gender and

ethnicity and by the measure Employee Perceived Obligation. The five levels of

salary differ significantly on the demographic variables of age, gender and

ethnicity and on the measure of Employee Perceived Obligation. Results of the

ANOVA's for salary by demographic variable are displayed in Table 13.

Summary of descriptive statistics for age and employee perceived obligation by

57

level of salary are displayed In Table 14. Summary of frequencies and

percentages for gender and ethnicity by level of salary are displayed in Table 15.

Table 13. Summary of Analysis of Variance for Salary by

Demographic Variables

Source df MS F p

Age

Gender

Ethnicity

Employee Perceived Obligation 30

5

1

7

10

61.94

31.47

4.28

2.78

2.38

36.28

4.89

3.41

.0001

.0001

.0001

.0001

58

Table 14. Summary of Descriptive Statistics for Age and Employee Perceived Obligation by Level of Salary

Salary Level 1 Mean Std. Dev. RangeMin. Max.

Age 32.63 14.66 42 16 67

Employee Perceived Obligation 29.97 6.04 35 5 40

Salary Level 2

Age 36.46 12.56 56 16 72

Employee Perceived Obligation 31.72 5.45 32 8 40

Salary Level 3

Age 40.12 9.76 39 22 61

Employee Perceived Obligation 34.78 4.76 26 14 40

Salary Level 4

Age 45.68 10.13 39 28 67

Employee Perceived Obligation 35.63 3.15 10 30 40

Salary Level 5

Age 48.92 10.34 32 32 64

Employee Perceived Obligation 37.36 3.38 10 30 40

59

Table 15. Summary of Frequency and Percentage for Gender and Ethnicity by Level of Salary

Salary

Gender Male

Female

Ethnicity Caucasian

African/Amer

Hispanic

Aslan/Pac.lsl

Black/Hlsp.

Cauc./Hlsp.

Native Amer.

Other

Level 1

105 19.13

184 33.52

173 36.51

. 7 1.28

70 12.75

. 2 .36

3 .55

22 4.01 6 1.09 6 1.09

Level 2

81 14.75 89 16.21

121 22.04

3 .55

30 5.46

2 .36

0 0 7 1.28 4 .13

3 .55

Level 3

33 6.01

24 4.37

50 9.11 2

.36 4 .73

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .18

Level 4

15 2.13

4 .73

19 3.46 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Level 5

13 2.37 1 .18

14 2.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

60

CHAPTER IV

DISCUSSION

The present study examined the relationships between employee

organizational commitment, job Involvement, the psychological contract,

organizational culture and the process of employee voluntary tumover. Analyses

of associations between qualitative and quantitative variables and sun/ival time

yielded a predictive model for employee voluntary tumover. Survival analysis

was used to assess the relationship of both the occurrence and the timing of the

turnover process to the multiple predictors measured at one point in time.

Relationship Between Emplovee Organizational Commitment And Job Involvement. How Predictive They are of Employee

Voluntarv Tumover

Findings from the analysis Indicate that the constructs of organizational

commitment and job involvement demonstrate a significant negative effect on the

hazard of employee voluntary tumover as stated In the first hypothesis. For

those employees self-reporting high levels of organizational commitment and job

Involvement, the hazard of employee voluntary tumover decreases by 2.8% for

organizational commitment and 2.6% for job involvement. These findings, that

the two variables demonstrate a negative association with the hazard of

voluntary tumover, are consistent with those of Blau and Boal (1987) and Morita,

Lee and Mowday (1989).

Further exploratory analyses Including the variables of psychological

contract yielded a predictive model of employee voluntary turnover. This model

61

contains one of the variables of psychological contract. Employee Perceived

Obligation to the employer. When this variable was entered into the analysis

model, none of the other variables. Including organizational commitment and job

involvement were significant. This measure alone is a good predictor of the

hazard of employee voluntary tumover since the measure accounted for a

greater amount of the variance at a lower p-level (25.7185, p<.0001). These

results indicate that for each one-unit increase in the score of the measure, the

hazard of voluntary tumover decreases by 7.7%.

Relationship Between Organizational Culture and Employee

Voluntary Tumover

Results of the Kaplan-Meier method of survival analysis indicating that the

survival curves with respect to employee voluntary tumover differ significantly

from the survival curve existent in the dominant culture support the hypothesis

that the subcultures are in fact countercultures of the dominant culture.

Additional support exists in the results of testing for the effects of the four types

of organizational culture, Mari<et, Hierarchical, Adhocracy and Clan on the

hazard of voluntary tumover. Culture demonstrates a significant negative

association with the hazard of voluntary tumover. Comparison of the different

locations and the mean scores for each covariate reveal that for all locations

except the dominant culture, which exists at the corporate office of the

organization, the highest mean score is for the type. Hierarchical. The highest

mean score reported in the dominant culture is for the culture type, Adhocracy.

Employees in the corporate office report the culture as characteristic of the

Adhocracy type, with strategic emphases toward innovation and new growth,

whereas employees in the other geographical locations report culture as the

62

Hierarchical type, with emphasis on stability, smooth operations and predictability

(Deshpande, Fariey & Webster, 1993).

The countercultures demonstrate higher rates of voluntary tumover than

the dominant culture, as hypothesized, and the sun/ival cun/es of all locations

differ significantly with respect to voluntary tumover (24.7011, p<.0163). And as

hypothesized, employees in the countercultures also self-report lower levels of

organizational commitment and job involvement. Higher mean scores on the

measure Employee Perceived Obligation are reported for employees in the

dominate culture, as compared to lower mean scores on the measure for

employees In the countercultures.

From the Organizational Nomns Scale, used to evaluate the nonns and

values of the organization's culture, one of the factors, Profitability/Cost

Effectiveness, demonstrates a significant positive effect on the hazard of

voluntary tumover. The mean score on this scale (-30.527%) indicates that

employees ' evaluation of other employees' attitudes with respect to the

Profitability/Cost Effectiveness factor is rated in the -30% range of a scale from

-100% to +100%. A score of -100% indicates that the employee positively

agrees that all other employees regard the profitability and cost effectiveness of

the organization as very important. The effects of this variable on the hazard of

voluntary tumover differed significantly in the two groups of culture, the dominant

as compared to the countercultures, with the countercultures reporting a lower

mean score (30.1508) on the variable as compared to a higher mean score

(41.3462) for the dominant culture. Employees In the countercultures report

lower mean scores on the measures of organizational commitment, job

63

involvement, obligation to the employer and the Importance of profitability and

cost effectiveness of the organization.

The Effect of Gender. Age. Ethnicity and Salary on Employee Voluntarv Tumover

Four of the demographic variables, gender, age, ethnicity and salary,

demonstrate effects on the hazard of employee voluntary tumover. For the two

quantitative variables of age and salary, the association to the hazard of

voluntary tumover is negative and for the variables gender and ethnicity, the

association is positive.

The variable salary demonstrates a strong negative effect on the hazard of

voluntary tumover, with the hazard decreasing 53.4% for each one-unit increase

in the level of salary. For each one-year Increase in age, the hazard of voluntary

turnover decreases by 2.9%.

The variable gender demonstrates a significant positive association with

the hazard of voluntary turnover; although when testing for the homogeneity of

survival curves with respect to gender, male and female, the difference is not

significant. The positive association for gender is relative to being female. Males

are 1.08 times more likely to engage in voluntary turnover.

There are some similarities in the number of failed events for males and

females as compared on specific intervals of length of employment. The highest

number of voluntary turnover failed events occurs in the time interval, 3-6

months, for both males and females. The conditional probability of failure

(0.0498) and the hazard function (0.017021) of males in the 3-6 month inten/al

are both higher than the conditional probability of failure (.0370) and the hazard

function (0.01257) for females. When comparing the estimated probability of

64

sun/ival at 7-months employed for both males and females, females demonstrate

a higher estimated probability of sun/ival (0.9272) as compared to that of males'

(0.8992). So, when comparing all locations of the organization with respect to

the survival estimates of gender, females demonstrate a higher estimated

probability of sun/ival.

There is a significant difference in survival curves for the variable,

ethnicity, when dichotomized as "Caucasian" and "all other ethnicities."

The group, "all other ethnicities," demonstrates a higher number of actual failed

events than the group Caucasian when compared In the 3-6 month inten/al

employed. When comparing the groups with respect to the conditional

probability of failure and the hazard function estimate, the group, "all other

ethnicities," demonstrates higher estimates for both constructs of failure.

The group, "all other ethnicities," demonstrates a 9.2% probability of failure at the

3-6 month Interval employed as compared to a 2.13% probability of failure for the

group Caucasian during the same interval. The group, "all other ethnicities,"

engage in voluntary turnover more frequently and at an eariier time Interval of

employment than do the group Caucasian.

The Effect of Employee Psychological Contract on Employee Voluntary Tumover

The variable. Employee Perceived Obligation, demonstrates a significant

effect on the hazard of voluntary tumover. No other variables were found to be

significant at the p<.05 when this variable was entered into the predictive model.

The variables of organizational commitment and job Involvement were not

significant because the variable. Employee's Perceived Obligation to the

employer accounted for all the variance in the model. These findings indicate

65

that a measure of the employee's perceived obligation to the employer also

reflects the employee's level of commitment to, and satisfaction with, the

organization. Robinson (1995) reports that commitment to, and satisfaction with,

the organization are reduced when there Is a violation of the psychological

contract.

The effect of the variable. Employee Perceived Obligation, was tested by

survival analysis, stratifying in separate analyses on each of the demographic

variables that also demonstrated a significant effect on the hazard of voluntary

turnover.

The psychological contract variable Is first tested by stratifying on the

dichotomous variable of ethnicity. The variable. Employee Perceived Obligation,

demonstrates a significant negative association to the hazard of voluntary

tumover by ethnicity. Results indicate that the hazard of voluntary tumover for

those employees who are Caucasian is 93.1% of those employees who are not.

The mean score on the measure for the group, "all other ethnicities," is lower

than the Caucasian group mean score. Consequently, employees in the ethnic

group, "all other ethnicities," when compared to the group Caucasian and testing

for the effects of Employee Perceived Obligation, are 1.07 times more likely to

engage in voluntary tumover than the group of Caucasian employees.

Results from a second analysis of the same variable stratifying on all 8

groups of ethnicity Indicate a significant negative relationship between the

variable. Employee Perceived Obligation, and the hazard of voluntary tumover

and specifically target the group with the highest percentage (25.51%) of

voluntary tumover failure rate, the Hispanic group.

66

When the variable measuring the employee's perceived obligation to the

employer Is stratified on gender, a significant negative association to the hazard

of voluntary tumover Is reported. The voluntary tumover rate of failed events for

the male employees is 20.9% as compared to 15.68% for female employees.

Male employees are 1.08 times more likely to engage in voluntary tumover even

though males as a group self-report a slightly higher mean score (31.9749) on

the measure Employee Perceived Obligation than the mean score (31.6481) of

the group, "females."

Results of the next analysis testing the effects of the covariate Employee

Perceived Obligation on the hazard of voluntary tumover and stratifying on the 5

groups of salary indicate a negative association between the covariate and the

hazard of voluntary turnover. Specifically, for each one-unit Increase in the level

of salary, the hazard of voluntary tumover decreases by 5.4%.

Group supports this tinding In comparison of the mean scores on the

measure. Employee Perceived Obligation, for the groups and comparison of the

failure rates. The lowest mean score (30.4182) on the measure is reported by

the group, "$10,000 or less," annual salary and the highest mean score

(37.3571), by the group, $50,000 or more, with the mean scores incrementally

Increasing in proportion to the level of salary. The highest rate of voluntary

failure events (25.09%) Is reported in the "$10,000 or less" salary group and the

failure rate (12.42%) decreases considerably at the next level of salary, $10,000-

$20,000."

Results of the analysis testing the effects of the covariate Employee

Perceived Obligation and stratifying on five groups, of the variable age, <20, 25,

35, 45, and >50, Indicate a signiticant negative association between the covariate

67

and the hazard of voluntary tumover. For each one-unit increase in age, the

hazard of voluntary tumover decreases by 4.7%. The group <20 years reports

the highest percentage of failure events (31.8%) and the lowest mean score

(27.6812) on the measure. Mean scores on the measure increased with the age

of the employee with the highest mean score (33.5158) reported by the >50 age

group. These results indicate that an increase in both employee age and

employee score on the measure of obligation to the employer decreases the

hazard of voluntary turnover for the employee.

Two Homogeneous Locations and Their Relationship to All Other Geographical Locations of the Organization

Two sites of the organization are homogeneous with respect to survival

curve and hazard of employee voluntary tumover. When the two locations are

compared to the group, "all other locations," results indicate that the two

locations significantly differ from "all other locations," with respect to survival

curves and the hazard of voluntary tumover.

Comparative analysis of the conditional probability of failure and the

hazard function estimate for the two groups indicates that employees in the

group, "two locations," demonstrate a higher conditional probability of failure and

higher hazard function estimate than employees in the group, "all other

locations." Comparing the groups on the point estimate at the 25% quantile,

results indicate that the group, "two locations" reaches the 25% quantile in month

18 while, for the group, "all other locations," the 25% quantile is void since the

point estimate Is never greater than .1929 in month 88. These two analyses

Indicate that employees in "all other locations" sun/ive longer than employees in

the "two locations."

68

Further analysis of the location groups Is perfonned, stratifying on the four

significant demographic variables, gender, age ethnicity and salary. When

stratifying on the variable gender, there is a significant difference in the sun/ival

cun/es with respect to the hazard of voluntary tumover. Males in the group, "two

locations," demonstrated the largest number of actual failed events, the highest

conditional probability of failure and the highest hazard function. Comparing the

two groups on the point estimate at the 25% quantile, males in the group, "two

locations," reach the 25% quantile In month 11, while the 25% quantile is void for

males In the group, "all other locations," since the estimate is never greater than

.1569 In month 38. Comparing the two groups of location on gender, for females,

the 25% quantile in both groups of location is void. These results indicate that

males are engaging in voluntary turnover more often than females and

specifically, males In the group, "two locations."

Using the same groups of location and stratifying on the variable gender,

and testing for the effects of the covariate, Employee Perceived Obligation, the

results Indicate a significant negative association between the covariate and the

hazard of voluntary tumover. Interpretation of the risk ratio Indicates that males

are 1.077 times more likely to engage In voluntary turnover at any given point.

The difference In mean scores of the covariate for this analysis appears in the

groups of location with the group, "two locations," reporting lower mean scores

for the measure. Employee Perceived Obligation, in both groups of male and

female. Males demonstrate the highest percentage of failed events in the group,

"two locations." Males in the group, "two locations," engage in voluntary tumover

more frequently and report lower mean scores on the measure of employee

obligation to the employer.

69

When the two groups of location are compared and stratified on the

dichotomized demographic variable, ethnicity, results indicate a significant

difference In the sun/ival cun/es and the hazard of voluntary tumover. The

hazard function estimates are higher for the group, "all other ethnicities, in both

groups of location with the group, "two locations," reporting the highest hazard

function estimates at the 0-3 month inten/al employed and the 3-6 month interval.

These results indicate that employees in the group, "all other ethnicities," are

more frequently engaging in voluntary tumover at eariy intervals of employment,

as compared to employees in the group Caucasian,

When the two groups of location are stratified on the dichotomous

ethnicity variable and tested for the effects of the covariate. Employee Perceived

Obligation, the chi-square (14.077, p<.0002), the parameter estimate

(-0.066864) and the risk ratio (0.935) for the covariate indicate a significant

negative association between the covariate and the hazard of voluntary tumover.

The employees who self-report high levels of perceived obligation to the

organization are less likely to engage in voluntary tumover. The group, "all other

ethnicities," in both groups of location reported lower mean scores on the

measure, Employee Perceived Obligation, than did the group, "Caucasian."

The next demographic variable on which the two groups of location were

stratified is level of salary. There is a significant effect for the covariate

Employee Perceived Obligation on the hazard of voluntary tumover in the two

groups of location stratifying on the demographic variable, salary. For each one-

unit increase In the level of salary, the hazard of voluntary tumover decreases by

5.1%. The mean scores reported on the measure of the covariate tend to

increase with an Increase In unit of salary. The highest mean score (38.00) was

70

reported by the employees in the location group, "two locations," in the $50,000

or more annual Income group and the lowest mean score, in the same location

group in the $10,000 or less income group.

A significant negative effect for the covariate. Employee Perceived

Obligation, on the hazard of voluntary tumover in the two groups of location is

also reported when stratifying on the five groups of age. For each one-unit

Increase in the variable age, the hazard of voluntary tumover decreases by 4.2%.

The highest percentage of tumover is represented in the two groups of age, <20

years and 25 years. In the group, "two locations." The lowest mean score on the

covariate measure is reported in the age group, "<20," at "all other locations,"

and the highest mean score is reported in the group 35 years also in the group,

"all other locations."

Group Differences in Voluntary Tumover

Survival analyses of groups by inten/als of employment using the Kaplan-

Meier method indicate that there are three length of stay employment intervals in

which the highest number of voluntary tumover failed events occur. The intervals

are the 0-3 months employed, the 3-6 months employed and the 6-9 months

employed. These three groups of intervals were compared to a fourth group, >9

months employed.

The four groups differ significantly on the demographic variables of age,

ethnicity, and salary and the measure Employee Perceived Obligation. The

mean ages of the employees in the three groups of employees who leave the

organization in the tirst 9 months of employment are all In the 26 to 29 year

range, while the mean age of employees who remain with the organization longer

71

than 9 months Is 37.16. This analysis supports previous findings that employees

In the group, "all other ethnicities," are engaging in voluntary tumover more

frequently than the group, "Caucasian." Younger employees and employees

reporting the lower levels of salary are the ones engaging in voluntary tumover

during the tirst 9 months of employment.

ANOVA's of the variable salary by each of the demographic variables of

gender, age, ethnicity and by the measure. Employee Perceived Obligation,

indicate that the five levels of salary differ significantly by each of the

demographic variables and the measure. Over 80% of the employees in the four

interval groups report In the lowest two levels of salary, 52.6% for level one and

31.0% for level 2.

Salary may be the most Important detennining factor for the event of

employee voluntary tumover, especially in the early intervals of employment, for

males, for younger employees and for the group, "all other ethnicities," These

results indicate also that level of salary demonstrates an effect on the attitude of

the employee, with those employees engaging in voluntary tumover also

reporting lower levels of perceived obligation to the organization.

Limitations

The first and probably the most crucial limitation of this study is the factor

of length of time in which the study is conducted. This variable limited the

amount of failed tumover events that could be collected. Some of the

geographical locations of the organization reported only a few failed tumover

events during the 7-month period that the data was collected. If the study could

have been extended over a period of a year or possibly longer, an increased

72

amount of tumover data could have been collected. The increased amount of

tumover data at each site would have allowed for more comparable tumover

rates at each of the geographical locations. Also, the number of censored cases

would have decreased which allows for Improved estimate of the upper tail of the

distribution (Allison, 1995),

Another limitation of the study is that there are only two geographical

locations represented with a large percentage of participation in the study. At the

other geographical locations, participation was decreased. The employees at all

locations, especially those, who were not management, demonstrated a

skepticism about participation in the study, which in some cases bordered on an

element of fear of job security. Some employees verbalized a fear of

management having access to their responses on the questionnaires and

consequently being tired If they participated in the study. This limitation may be

overcome in the future with increased support from management. Employees

need reassurance from management that the study is important to the

organization and to the benefit of the employees to help Improve the work

environment, and reassuring the employees that management does not have

access to any of the Individual response data. This attitude of fear that existed In

many locations, greater at some than others, is perhaps a product of the rigidity

of the structured hierarchical culture existing in the counterculture locations and

also, a mistrust of management.

Future Research

Findings from this study indicate that future research may focus on the

relationship between the employee and the employer, specifically the employee

73

psychological contract. Robinson, Kraatz and Rousseau (1994) state that the

study of the employee psychological contract is valuable because the

perspective Is one that extends the organizational attachment constructs of

commitment and citizenship. They also suggest that managers pay special

attention to managing the beliefs fonning the obligations and to understanding

the employee's perceptions of obligation to the organization and the employee's

perception of obligation from the employer.

Another factor for future research of voluntary employee tumover is

management styles and trust issues between management and employees.

These factors may have influenced data collection and accounted for the

increased participation of employees at two of the sites and the reduced

participation at all other sites.

74

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

Overview of Research Findings

The investigation of the relationships between employee organizational

commitment, job involvement, the psychological contract, organizational culture

and the process of employee voluntary tumover produced interesting findings

about which variables demonstrate significant associations to the hazard of

employee voluntary tumover. Findings from the analysis Indicate that the

constructs of organizational commitment and job Involvement demonstrate a

significant negative effect on the hazard of voluntary tumover.

Further exploratory analysis of variables for a predictive model of

employee voluntary tumover yielded a predictive model with only one of the

constructs, that of Employee Perceived Obligation, the employee's self-reported

perceived obligation to the organization, or employer. This measure alone is a

good predictor of the hazard of employee voluntary tumover, accounting for over

25% of the variance in the model. These findings indicate that a measure of the

employee's perceived obligation to the employer also retiects the employee's

level of commitment to, and satisfaction with, the organization. So, the factor of

organizational commitment Is embedded within the construct of the employee's

perceived obligation to the employer. Robinson (1995) reports that violation of

the employee psychological contract decreases employee commitment to,

satisfaction with and trust in the organization.

75

The employee's perceived obligation to the organization also

demonstrates a signiticant negative association to the hazard of voluntary

tumover when stratified by the significant demographic variables, ethnicity,

gender, salary and age. The ethnic group demonstrating the highest percentage

of voluntary tumover failure rate (25.51 %) is the Hispanic group. The gender

group, males, reports a higher percentage (20.9%) of voluntary tumover failure

rate than females. For each one-unit increase in each of the variables, salary

and age, the hazard of employee voluntary tumover decreases.

When voluntary tumover is compared relative to employment "length of

stay," tindings Indicate that employees who leave the organization in the tirst 9

months of employment report In the age range of 26 to 29 years. These tindings

are specific to the group, "all other ethnicities," and to the two lowest levels of the

variable, annual salary, $10,000 or less and $10,000 to $20,000.

Further analysis of the variable salary Indicate that the five levels of salary

differ significantly by each of the demographic variables, age, gender and

ethnicity and the measure, Employee Perceived Obligation. Salary is the most

Important determining factor for the event of employee voluntary tumover,

especially In the early intervals of employment, for males, for younger employees

and for the group, "all other ethnicities." The level of salary influences the

attitude of the employee, with those employees who report lower levels of

perceived obligation to the organization, engaging In voluntary turnover.

Another relationship investigated is the association between

organizational culture and the hazard of employee voluntary tumover. Culture

demonstrates a significant negative association with the hazard of voluntary

tumover, when testing for the effects of the four types of organizational culture,

76

Martlet, Hierarchical, Adhocracy and Clan. For all locations except the dominant

culture, which exists at the corporate office of the organization, the highest mean

score is for the type, Hierarchical. The highest mean score reported in the

dominant culture is for the culture type, Adhocracy.

The dominant attributes of the Hierarchical culture are rules, regulations,

order and unifomnity. Strategic emphases are on stability, smooth operations

and predictability with bonding occurring through policies, procedures and rules.

On the opposing diagonal scale of culture is Adhocracy with dominant attributes

of adaptability, creativity and entrepreneurship. Strategic emphases are on new

resources, growth and Innovation with bonding occurring via flexibility and risk.

Employees In the countercultures report lower mean scores on the

measures of organizational commitment, job involvement and employee

perceived obligation. The counterculture employees also report lower mean

scores on the factor, "Profitability/Cost Effectiveness." There Is a significant

association between this factor and the hazard of voluntary turnover. Employees

reporting lower scores on the factor are the ones most likely to engage in

voluntary tumover.

Implications

The constructs of employee organizational commitment and job

Involvement may be embedded in the construct of employee perceived obligation

to the organization. The most predictive variable of employee voluntary tumover

is the employee's obligation to the organization, or employer. Embedded In this

construct is the organizational attachment constructs of employee's level of

commitment to and satisfaction with the organization.

77

There is an Implication from these tindings for management personnel in

an organization. The role of management Is cmcial to the implementation of the

employee psychological contract, for it is the managers who have direct contact

with the employees and who may become aware of an employee's perceived

contract and respond to that employee accordingly. These issues further

implicate the importance of trust issues between management and employees.

Management styles may also be an Important factor in the management of the

employee's beliefs relative to the reciprocal obligations of employee and

organization.

These tindings also Imply that the culture of an organization demonstrates

a significant effect on the process of employee voluntary tumover. The shared

values intiuence not only the work-related behaviors such as tumover, but also,

the development of employee beliefs such as perceived obligation and

commitment to the organization. These findings imply that culture may be

assessed as an Important contextual factor influencing the development of

employee behaviors and beliefs.

78

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Porter, L W., Crampon, W. J., & Smith, F. J. (1976). Organizational commitment and managerial tumover: A longitudinal study. Organizational Behavior and Human Perfonnance. 15. 87-98.

Randall, D. M. (1990). The consequences of organizational commitment: A methodological Investigation. Joumal of Organizational Behavior. 11. 361-378.

81

Robinson, S. L. (1995), Violation of psychological contracts: Impact on employee attitudes. In L. E. Tetrick & J. Bariining (Eds.), Change employment relations (pp. 91-108). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Robinson, S. L., Kraatz, M. S. & Rousseau, D. M. (1994). Changing obligations and the psychological contract: A longitudinal study. Academy of Management Joumal. 37 (1). 137-152.

Rousseau D. & Parks, J. (1993). The contracts of individuals and organizations, in L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior. Vol. 15. (pp. 1-47). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Sapienza, H. J., Korsgaard, M A. & Schweiger, D. M. (1997). Procedural justice and changes in psychological contracts: A longitudinal study of reengineering planning. Academy of Management Proceedings '97. 354-358.

Schein, E. H. (1980). Organizational psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Schein, E. H. (1981). Does Japanese management style have a message for American managers? Sloan Management Review. 23. 55-68.

Schein, E. H. (1984). Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture. Sloan Management Review. 25. 3-16.

Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass,

Slehl, C. & Martin, J. (1984). The role of symbolic management: How can managers effectively transmit organizational culture? In J. G. Hunt, D. M. Hosking, CA. Schriesheim & R. Stewart (Eds.), Leaders and managers: Intematlonal perspectives on managerial behavior and leadership (pp. 227-269). New York: Pergamon Press.

Steele, R. P. & Ovalle, N. K. (1984) A review and meta-analysis of research on the relationship between behavioral intentions and employee tumover. Journal of Applied Psychology. 69. 673-686,

Steers, R. M. & Mowday, R. (1981). Employee tumover and post-decision accommodation processes. In L. Cummings & B. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior. Vol. 3. (pp. 235-281). Greenwich, CT: JAI press.

82

Stevens, J. M., Beyer, J., & Trice, H. M. (1978). Assessing personal, role, and organizational predictors of managerial commitment. Academy of Management Joumal. 21. 380-396.

Wiener, Y. (1988). Fomns of value systems: A focus on organizational effectiveness and cultural change and maintenance. Academy of Management Review. 13. 534-545.

83

APPENDIX A

EXTENDED REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Organizational Attachment

The relationship fomned by the employees to the employer for which they

work is often referred to as organizational attachment (Mowday, Porter & Steers,

1982). Involved in the process of the fonnation of this relationship is an

exchange between the individual employee and the employer, which occurs in

the beginning period of membership In the organization. This exchange

relationship involves each party giving up and receiving something of value and

may Include both non-economic and economic factors.

Schein (1980) reports that there are two conditions, which exert influence

on an employee's willingness to commit to an organization. The first condition is

the "goodness of fit" or match of the employee's expectations to the

organization's expectations and If there is agreement, then the very nature of

what is being exchanged is the second condition. Mutual expectations relative to

exchange relationships contribute to the "psychological contract." This contract

is an unwritten agreement between the organization and the individual, which

specifies expectations of giving and receiving from each other (Rousseau &

Pari<s, 1993: Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994; Robinson, 1995; Morrison &

Robinson, 1997; Sapienza, Korsgaard & Schweiger, 1997).

Mowday, Porter, and Steers (1982) have stated that a salient factor

involved in this "contract" is the nature of the employee's organizational

connection. Employee wori< attitudes and behaviors may be measured and

examined to obtain a better understanding of the employee organizational

84

attachment process and Its effects on the employee voluntary tumover process.

Organizational commitment and job involvement are two wori<-related attitudes

that have been researched extensively relative to the tumover process (Mowday,

Steers & Porter, 1979; Steele & Ovalle, 1984; Blau, 1985, 1987; Blau & Boal,

1987; Huselld & Day, 1991; Lee & Mitchell, 1991; Lee, Ashford, Walsh &

Mowday, 1992).

Organizational Commitment

Many detinitions exist in the literature for organizational commitment. For

the purposes of this study, the definition of organizational commitment Is derived

from Mowday, Porter and Steers (1982). Organizational commitment is defined

in tenns of the relative intensity of an employee's involvement in, and

identification with, a specific organization. Mathieu and Zajac (1990) state that

this detinition retiects multiple dimensions since It includes the concept of

identification and incorporates the desire to remain with the organization and

work toward organizational goals.

Three factors of attitudes and behaviors lend salience to the

characterization of organizational commitment. They are: (1) acceptance of and

a belief in the values and goals of the organization; (2) desire to maintain

organizational membership; and (3) a willingness to contribute to the

organization. This definition of organizational commitment denotes an active

relationship exchange between the employee and the organization and involves

attitudes and behaviors as manifestations of the actual concept of organizational

commitment. Observed behaviors of the committed employee will be congruent

with the detinition constituents (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982).

85

O'Reilly and Chatman (1986) define organizational commitment as a

psychological attachment to the organization predicted by three independent

constructs, those of compliance, identification and intemalization. Compliance is

detined as Involvement for the extrinsic rewards. Identification is involvement

with the organization because of the desire for affiliation and is an important

mechanism In the developing process of psychological attachment (Bowlby,

1982). Internalization Is Involvement based on the Indlviduars acceptance of the

organization's values. The first definitional component of the Mowday, Porter

and Steers (1982) organizational commitment model, acceptance and belief in

the values and goals of an organization. Is based on psychological attachment

(O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986).

Mowday Porter and Steers (1982) state that organizational commitment is

a global construct revealing the affective responses of the employee to the whole

of the organization. The development of commitment begins at time of

employment, continues over a period of time and Involves interplay of attitudes

and behaviors. Porter, Crampon and Steers (1976) report that the level of

commitment reported by employees on the first day of employment predicted

turnover up to several months on the job.

Alternatively, Hunt and Morgan (1994) advocate the multiple commitment

view of organizational commitment. They report organizational commitment to

be detined as multiple commitments to various groups comprising the

organization, such as commitment to the wori< group, the supervisor and to top

management. Their research supports a reconceptualization of the global

organizational commitment model as a "key mediating construct" with

compliance, intemalization and identitication as the bases of commitment.

86

Constituency-specific commitments are factors that lead to, and result in, the

concept of global organizational commitment.

Of the consequences and outcomes of organizational commitment,

reduced voluntary tumover may be the most predictable of the behavioral

outcomes (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Lee &

Mitchell, 1991; Lee, Ashford, Walsh & Mowday. 1992). A meta-analysis

conducted by Mathieu and Zajac (1990) reveals high correlations between

organizational commitment and behavioral intentions. Mathieu and Zajac

conclude that organizational commitment may represent a "summary index" of

the employee's work-related experiences and that organizational commitment

may influence the behavioral intentions in a direct way.

Job Involvement

The organizational commitment meta-analysis conducted by Mathieu and

Zajac (1990) also revealed that among the foci of commitment, the job

involvement and organizational commitment relationship was the largest

observed. The two variables are considered to influence some work-related

behaviors independently. Job involvement is detined as a belief descriptive of an

employee's relationship with the present job. This Is not to be confused with the

temri wori< involvement, which may be defined as a nonnative belief about the

value of wori< in an employee's life. Wori< involvement is a function of historical

cultural conditioning and socialization whereas, job Involvement Is a function of

the satisfaction of eminent personal needs (Kanungo, 1982). Kanungo (1982)

suggested a refomnulatlon of the job involvement construct to be viewed as a

form of psychological Identification enhanced by a cognitive or belief state. The

87

employee's identification process depends on the employee's saliency of both

intrinsic and extrinsic needs and the employee's perceptions about the job's

potentialities to satisfy the employee's needs, a psychological contract relative to

job Involvement.

According to Blau and Boal (1987), job Involvement is a better predictor of

voluntary tumover than absenteeism. Blau and Boal (1987) suggest that

organizational commitment and job involvement serve as complements relative

to prediction of the voluntary tumover process. They also report a significant

interactive relationship between the two variables (Blau & Boal, 1989).

Employees who display high levels of organizational commitment and of job

Involvement may be the least likely to engage in the voluntary turnover process

because they are involved in and committed to both the job and the organization.

O'Reilly and Chatman (1986) report that job involvement is a consequent

outcome of psychological commitment to an organization. Job involvement is

Included in a category of dependent variables that is relevant to organizational

commitment. There are certain types of positive involvement, which contribute to

the definition of job involvement. They are conformity, flexibility, motivation and

an acceptance of organizational policies demonstrated through obedience in

employee relationships.

Psychological Contract

Inherent to the foundation of employee relationships Is the beliefs of the

employee relative to the obligations that are reciprocal between them and the

organization. These expectations relative to the reciprocal obligations between

employee and organization are referred to as the psychological contract. This

88

contract Is an employee's cognitive evaluation of the transactional and relational

mutual obligations between employee and organization, which is fomned during

the employee's beginning period of membership in the organization. This

beginning period of employment is the most critical interval for employee tumover

and reportedly Is the time during which most of the tumover occurs

(Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982).

Morrison and Robinson (1997) state that the employee holds conceptions

about the organization, and not any one specific agent of the organization,

meaning that the employee perceives the organization with an identity that

assumes anthropomorphism. The entity of the organization that has direct

contact with the employee is management. The role of management is cmcial to

the Implementation of the employee psychological contract, for it is the managers

who may become aware of an employee's perceived contract and respond to that

employee accordingly.

When events and circumstances occur that are considered to be violations

of the employee's psychological contract, the employee may be distressed and

exhibit appropriate attltudinal or behavioral responses (Morrison & Robinson,

1997). Robinson (1995) reports that when employees believe that their

psychological contract has been violated, there is a decrease in the level of the

employee's trust In the employer in addition to a decrease in the level of

satisfaction with and commitment to the organization. These employee feelings

alter the employee's attitude toward the relationship with the organization and

may lead to behavioral responses such as voluntary tumover.

89

Organizational Culture

Wiener (1988) proposes that shared values play a prominent role in the

development of all fomns of commitment and In the development of corporate

culture. Schein (1981) defines organizational culture as the organization's basic

underlying assumptions, the fundamental values, beliefs and perceptions.

Schein (1985) makes a distinction between beliefs and assumptions. He defines

beliefs as cognitions and basic assumptions as including beliefs and perceptions,

values and feelings. Ott (1989) reports fifty-eight published sources with

detinitions of organizational culture. Organizational culture has been detined in

temns of artifacts (Bates, 1984), pattems of behavior (Deal & Kennedy, 1982),

beliefs and values (Allaire & Firsirotu, 1985) and basic assumptions (Schein,

1981, 1984, 1985).

Ott (1989) makes the point that although there are many existing

detinitions of organizational culture which vary relative to the selection of words,

the basic functions do not vary. He offers a functional definition of organizational

culture, which contains four basic functions viewed as the core of the detinition.

The tirst function of organizational culture is that it provides perceptions, or

cognitive Interpretations, as a guideline for thoughts and actions of organizational

members. The second function is providing shared pattems of beliefs in the

moral codes and values of the organization so that members will know what they

are expected to feel and to value. The third function is defining and maintaining

certain important boundaries that will identify members and nonmembers of the

organization. The last function is providing an "organizational control system"

that functions to prohibit and prescribe certain behaviors.

90

Ott (1989) reports the existence of subcultures within the dominant culture

of an organization. The subcultures may vary from the dominant culture and may

exist in any of the organizational groups. The groups may consist of employees

wori<ing on a project or employees linked by ethnic or religious background.

These subcultures may overiap and coincide and even conflict. Siehl and Martin

(1984) have Identified three different types of subcultures, those of orthogonal,

enhancing and counterculture.

The orthogonal subculture is identified by its congruency with the

dominant culture, in Its basic assumptions; yet, the orthogonal subculture

upholds some unique individual basic assumptions. In the enhancing subculture,

basic assumptions, values and beliefs are the same as those in the dominant

culture and are upheld with much fervor. The third type of subculture is the

counterculture. Members in this type of subculture uphold beliefs, values and

basic assumptions that are in direct contiict with those of the dominant culture.

These subcultures may serve to retine, enhance or even challenge the dominant

culture. They may be a source of divisive behavior or of functional behavior.

Shared values and beliefs function to form various groups of employees into

different subcultures at differing levels of commitment.

For the purposes of this study, the existing culture in the corporate office

of the organization, where the chief executive officer and other executive officers

reside, were assessed as the dominant culture. The other geographical locations

of the organization were assessed as subcultures of the corporate office, or

dominant culture.

Organizational culture is a contextual factor that will exert some influence

on how organizational climates develop relative to wori< groups and to wori<-

91

related behaviors such as tumover (Randall, 1990). Randall (1990) suggests

that the nature of the relationship of organizational commitment and wori<-related

behaviors such as tumover is greatly influenced by the cultural context in which

these relationships develop. Randall (1990) advocates empirically exploring the

effects of the organizational context on these relationships. For example, some

organizational behaviors may be predefined as acceptable to an extent that a

correlation may not exist between organizational commitment and the behavior

(Randall, 1990).

Voluntary Employee Tumover

Voluntary tumover is defined as the "employee's volitional departure from

the organization" and is theorized as a unidimensional concept (Lee & Mitchell,

1994b). Employees are resources of the organization and a high voluntary

tumover rate may be costly to the organization in terms of replacement costs

(Lee & Mitchell, 1994b). Expanding the understanding of the process of

organizational commitment as related to voluntary employee tumover may have

benefits for organizations, employees and society in general (Mowday et al.,

1982). Employees' commitment level may enhance their eligibility for extrinsic

and intrinsic rewards. Organizations may benefit by experiencing reduced

withdrawal behaviors, specifically tumover. Society may benefit in temns of

reduced job movement rates and increased national productivity or quality of

wori< (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990).

The employee tumover process Itself may create negative consequences

for the organization and the employees who remain (Mobley, 1982).

Organizations are faced with a loss of perfomners, productivity losses and

92

replacement costs. The employees who remain may experience a loss of valued

co-wori<ers and an Interruption in social pattems and may consequently

experience decreased satisfaction (Mobley, 1982),

Lee and Mitchell (1994a) refer to the "pull and push" theories of voluntary

employee tumover. The pull theory consists of factors that are extemal for the

employee. Extemal factors may consist of the labor force supply and demand

and job market altematlves. The push theory is related to employees' intemal

constructs that my affect the voluntary tumover process. These constructs

consist primarily of perceptions and attitudes related to the job.

Mathieu and Zajac (1990) propose that the most popular voluntary

tumover theory has been the Mobley, Griffeth, Hand and Meglino (1979) model.

This model is an expanded model of the Mobley (1977) intemnediate-linkages

model and Incorporates both Intemal and extemal constructs that may affect the

voluntary tumover process. The key constructs are job attitudes and job

satisfaction. Steers and Mowday (1981) propose that a sequence of events

implement the employee's decision process in staying or leaving. First, an

employee's affective response to the job, relative to organizational commitment,

job involvement and job satisfaction, are intiuenced by job expectations and

individual values. The second step is to factor in nonwori< influences. And finally

the intention to leave or stay may lead to the behavior.

Lee and Mitchell (1994a) expand the existing traditional theories of

voluntary employee turnover to incorporate psychological and cognitive

components relative to a decision-making process involving a type of decision

theory referred to as image theory (Beach, 1990). The model proposed is the

unfolding model of voluntary employee tumover, named so because of the four

93

decision paths, which unfold over time and differ in the requirements of

psychological processes and cognitive processing. Lee and Mitchell (1994a)

propose that the decision to leave an organization be precipitated by some event

in the employee's environment which serves as a "shock to the system." The

term "shock" sen/es as a conceptual mechanism for jarring events, which may be

categorized in three different types. The first category of events is personal

events, which are extemal to the job such as the death of a loved one. The

second type Is personal events related to the job or specific role such as the

event of missing a promotion. The final category of shocks is related to

organizational events, such as the event of downsizing, initiated by the

organization.

These shocks may serve as the catalyst to one of the four decision paths

leading to a decision to quit or remain with the organization. Shocks are also

positive job-related factors and also neutral events that are work and personal

related. Lee and Mitchell (1994a) state that employees' decisions to stay with, or

leave, an organization are based on compatibility criterion rather than on a

process of maximizing expected utilities.

Mowday, Porter and Steers (1982) report that one of the structural

correlates of commitment is related to the organization's decision-making

processes. Specifically "increased participation In decision making" was found to

be related to commitment. Employee participation In the process of making

decisions Is considered to be a related factor In the process of decentralization.

Stevens, Beyer and Trice (1978) report that employees in an organization

experiencing decentralization reportedly felt higher levels of commitment to the

organization. Those employees who experience Increased activity in the

94

decision-making process may then be more committed to the organization and

more likely to remain with the organization.

95

APPENDIX B

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT SCALE (Mowday, Steers & Porter, 1979)

1. I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond that normally expected in order to help this company be successful.

1 disagree

CVJ

slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

2. I talk up this company to my friends as a great company to work for.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

3. I feel very little loyalty to this company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

4. I would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep working for this company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

5. I find that my values and the company's values are very similar.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

96

6. I am proud to tell others that I am part of this company.

1 disagree

CVJ

slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

7. I could be just as happy working for a different company as long as the type of work were similar.

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

8. This company really inspires the very best in me in the way of job performance.

1 disagree

CVJ

slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

9. It would take very little change in my present circumstances to cause me to leave this company.

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

10.1 am extremely glad that I chose this company to work for, over others I was considering at the time I joined.

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

97

11. There's not too much to be gained by sticking with this company indefinitely.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

12. Often, I find it difficult to agree with this company's policies on important matters relating to its employees.

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

13.1 really care about what happens to this company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

14. For me this is the best of all possible companies for which to work.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

15. Deciding to work for this company was a definite mistake on my part.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

98

APPENDIX C

JOB INVOLVEMENT SCALE (Kanungo, 1982)

1. The most important things that happen to me involve my present job.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

2. To me, my job is only a small part of who I am.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

3. I am very much involved personally in my job.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

4. I live, eat and breathe my job.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

5. Most of my interests are centered around my job.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

99

6. I have very strong ties with my present job which would be very difficult to break.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

7. Usually I feel detached from my job.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

8. Most of my personal life goals are job-oriented.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

9. I consider my job to be very central to my life.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

10. I like to be really involved in my job most of the time.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

100

APPENDIX D

ORGANIZATIONAL NORMS OPINIONNAIRE (Alexander, 1978)

If an employee in this company were to . . .

1. criticize the company and the people in i t . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

2. try to improve things even though everything is running smoothly . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

3. listen to others and try to get their opinions . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

4. think of going to a supervisor with a problem . . . most other employees would: 1 2 3 4 5

strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

5. look upon himself/herself as being responsible for reducing costs . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

101

If an employee in this company were to . . .

6. take advantage of a fellow employee . . , most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

7, keep a customer or client waiting in order to look after personal matters , . , . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

8. suggest a new Idea for doing things . . , most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

9. actively look for ways to expand his/her knowledge in order to be able to do a better job . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not Important encourage encourage

10. talk freely and openly about the company and its problems . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

102

If an employee in this company were to . . .

11. show genuine concem for the problems that face the company and make suggestions about solving them . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

12. suggest that employees do only enough to get by . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

13. go out of his/her way to help other members of the work group . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

14. look upon the supervisor as a source of help and development.. . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

15. purposely misuse equipment or privileges . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

103

If an employee in this company were to . . .

16. express concem for the well-being of other members of the company . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

17. attempt to tind new and better ways to sen/e the customer or client, , , most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

18. attempt to experiment in order to do things better in the work situation . . .most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not Important encourage encourage

19. show enthusiasm for going to an company-sponsored training and development program .. . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

20. suggest confronting the boss about a mistake or something in the boss's style that is creating problems . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

104

If an employee in this company were to . . .

21. look upon the job as being only eight hours and the major reward as the month-end paycheck . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

22. say that there is no point In trying harder, as no one else does . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

23. wori< on his/her own rather than wori< with others to try to get things done . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

24. look upon the supervisor as someone to talk openly and freely to ., , most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

25. look upon making a profit as someone else's problem . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

105

If an employee in this company were to . . .

26. make an effort to get to know the people he/she wori<s with . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not Important encourage encourage

27. sometimes see the customer as a burden or problem to getting the job done . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

28. criticize a fellow employee who is trying to improve things in the woric situation . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

29. mention that he/she was planning to attend a recently announced company training program . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

30. talk openly about problems facing the wori< group, including personalities or personal problems with others . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

106

If an employee in this company were to . . .

31. talk about wori< with satisfaction . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not Important encourage encourage

32. set very high personal standards of perfonnance , , , most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

33. try to make the wori< group operate more like a team when dealing with problems or issues . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not Important encourage encourage

34. look upon the supervisor as the one who sets the standards of performance or goals for the work group . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

35. evaluate money spent by the company in temns of the benefits they will provide for the organization . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

107

If an employee in this company were to . . .

36. always try to treat the customer or client as well as possible , , . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

37. think of going to the boss with an idea or suggestion . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not Important encourage encourage

38. go to the boss to talk about what training he/she should get in order to do a better job . . . most other employees would: 1 2 3 4 5

strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

39. be perfectly honest in answering this questionnaire . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage It or discourage not important encourage encourage

40. wori< harder than what Is considered the nomnal pace . . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

108

If an employee in this company were to . . .

41. look after himself/herself before the other members of the wori< group , . . most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider It agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

42. do his/her job even when the supervisor is not around . , , most other employees would:

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree disagree consider it agree with, strongly agree or discourage it or discourage not important encourage encourage

109

APPENDIX E

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE SCALE (Deshpande, Fariey & Webster, 1993)

A. KIND OF COMPANY

"This company is . . . " 1. . . . a very personal place. It is like an extended family. People seem to

share a lot of themselves.

1 strongly disagree

CVJ

disagree 3

neither disagree or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

2. . . . a very dynamic and entrepreneurial place. People are willing to stick their necks out and take risks.

1 strongly disagree

CVJ

disagree 3

neither disagree or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

3. . . . a very formalized and structural place. Established procedures generally govem what people do.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

4. . . . production oriented. The major concem is with getting the job done, without much personal Involvement.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

110

B. LEADERSHIP

"The head of this company is . . . " 5. . . .generally considered to be a mentor, a sage, or a father figure.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

6. . . . generally considered to be an entrepreneur, an innovator, or a risk taker.

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree neither disagree agree strongly disagree or agree agree

7. . . . considered to be a coordinator, organizer, or an administrator.

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree neither disagree agree strongly disagree or agree agree

8. . . . generally considered to be a producer, technician, or hard-driver.

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree neither disagree agree strongly disagree or agree agree

C. WHAT HOLDS THE COMPANY TOGETHER

"The glue that holds this company together is . . . "

9. . . . loyalty and tradition. Commitment to this fimn runs high.

1 strongly disagree

CVJ

disagree 3

neither disagree or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

111

"The glue that holds this company together is . .

10. . . . a commitment to innovation and development. There is an emphasis on being first.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

11. . . . formal rules and policies. Maintaining a smooth-running company is important here.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

12. . . . the emphasis on tasks and goal accomplishment. A production orientation Is commonly shared.

1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree neither disagree agree strongly disagree or agree agree

D. WHAT IS IMPORTANT

"This company emphasizes . . ." 13. . . . human resources. High cohesions and morale in the fimn are important.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

14. . . . growth and acquiring new resources. Readiness to meet new challenges is important.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

CJl

strongly agree

112

"This company emphasizes . . ."

15. . . . permanence and stability. Efficient, smooth operations are important.

1 strongly disagree

CVJ

disagree 3

neither disagree or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

16. . . . competitive actions and achievement. Measurable goals are Important,

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 agree

5 strongly

agree

113

APPENDIX F

EMPLOYEE PERCEIVED CONTRACT (Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994)

1. My employer has promised to provide me with rapid advancement in the company.

1 disagree

CVJ

slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

2. My employer has promised to provide me with pay based on current level of performance.

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

3. My employer has promised to provide me

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4. My employer has promised to provide me

1 disagree

5. Myen^

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

iployer has promised to provide me

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

with high

4 slightly agree

5 agree

pay.

5 agree

with training.

4 slightly agree

with long-

4 slightly agree

5 agree

-term job

5 agree

114

6. My employer has promised to provide me with career development.

1 disagree

2 slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

7. My employer has promised to provide me support with personal problems.

1 disagree

CVJ

slightly disagree

3 neither disagree

or agree

4 slightly agree

5 agree

115

APPENDIX G

EMPLOYEE PERCEIVED CONTRACT FULFILLED (Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994)

How well has your employer fulfilled these obligations?

1. My employer has allowed me to rapidly advance in the company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

2. My employer has provided me with pay based on my current level of performance.

1 2 3 4 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly

disagree or agree agree

3. My employer has provided me with high pay.

1 2 3 4 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly

disagree or agree agree

4. My employer has provided me with training.

1 2 3 4 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly

disagree or agree agree

5 agree

5 agree

5 agree

5. My employer has provided me with long-term job security.

1 2 3 4 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly

disagree or agree agree

5 agree

116

6. My employer has provided me with career development.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

7. My employer has provided me with support for personal problems.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

117

APPENDIX H

EMPLOYEE PERCEIVED OBLIGATION (Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994)

1 . I often work extra hours for this company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

2. I feel very loyal to this company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

3. I volunteer to do extra tasks that are not required by my job.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

4. I would give advance notice if I took a job with another company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

5. I would transfer to another location if asked.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

6. I do not support companies who compete with this company.

1 2 3 4 5 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly agree

disagree or agree agree

118

7. If I hear information of a private nature about the company, I feel obligated to protect this information.

1 2 3 4 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly

disagree or agree agree

8. 1 plan to be in the company at least two years.

1 2 3 4 disagree slightly neither disagree slightly

disagree or agree agree

5 agree

5 agree

119