Organizational culture and individual values: evidence for a common structure

Values are of particular importance in research on organizational culture and on per-son-organization fit. However, findings from social psychological and cross-cultural values research are only partly considered and integrated in organizational studies. The present paper tries to bridge this gap by highlighting some basic commonalities. We reconsider the O'Reilly, Chatman, and Caldwell's approach to ‘organizational culture ’ by falling back on Schwartz ’ cross-cultural theory on universals in the con-tent and structure of values. First, we sketch out assessment procedures and core ideas of both approaches. Then, we demonstrate their application using organiza-tional data. Data analysis is accomplished by applying non-metric multidimensional scaling. Mapping both scale scores and items of the ‘Organizational Culture Profile’ (OCP) onto Schwartz ’ basic value dimensions reveals a clear two-dimensional struc-ture of the OCP. These results are discussed with respect to a more efficient transfer of research findings, taking the relation between values and conflict styles as an ex-ample