What does it mean to be a leader in a cultural context - Essay Example

Organizational culture, as agreed by most of the writers, in a great determinant of person-organization fit. It’s a combined effect of individual and situation response that determines and elicit a response. Kirstof (1996) views person-organization fit as the compatibility between the people involved and the organization; a compatibility of value and expectations between employee and the employer. It often refers to as the congruency of an individual’s beliefs and values with the culture, norms and values of an organization.

This is the crux of person-culture fit where according to Chatman (1988), values provides the starting point and selection and socialization processes are complimentary to person- culture fit. This article revived the interest in person-situation interactional paradigms and shed light on various aspects of the concept, providing an insight into various approaches that shows the relationship between the two. It identifies values that are often used in describing an organizational culture. As per numerous researches conducted, it has been observed that people generally tend to place them in different social categories: race, color, gender, religion, ethnicity etc.

and use these categories to define themselves. Based on this, they tend to go for roles that provide congruency in terms of organizational fit and go for such organization which they perceive to be similar to their underlying values. The article, moreover, moves beyond the relationship and focuses on the qualitative assessment of the person- organization fit. It studies the person-culture fit through profile comparison technique in order to determine individual preferences for culture and relationship amongst the two across a broad range of values.

(O’Reilly 1990). The results obtained were highly reliable and had strong validity. It showed that individual preference for organization varies with differences in personality characteristics. It also revealed that organizations within the same industry also vary with respect to cultural values. Q-sort thus provides analysis within and across organizations in terms of cultural values (Burns & Stalker, 1960). Moreover, person-organization fit also provides useful insight into individual adjustments into different organizations with respect to varying individual preferences.

Moreover, high person-organization fit results in high organizational commitment, job satisfaction and hence productivity and growth of both the employer and the employee. In order to get ultimate satisfaction with the work, employee needs to join a company that has value system congruent with that of the individual. There has been a strong relation between high performance and the perfect fit between organization and the employee. Organization culture profile item set includes numerous variables.

Of the various items I had a personal organizational experience with, includes being socially responsible. As a part of my value system, social responsibility has always influenced me and I try to integrate it in my conduct wherever applicable. The current organization I work with, exhibits high corporate social responsibility in its business affairs, products and offerings. It believes in initiating environmental friendly behavior rather than merely guiding others to do so. Because I find it congruent with my belief system, it is easier for me to work and is a source of intrinsic motivation.

Another item is being team oriented which my employer high