Towards sustainable defence organization : values congruence and organizational commitment

ENA profound transformation of modern culture in line with increasing individualism and self-interest have been observed in the last few decades. While competing for limited resources, public organizations have to tackle the issues of lower commitment and turnover of employees. A recent shift of Lithuania’s defence policy revealed the issues, related to the attraction and retention of qualified personnel. It appears that organizations have to fulfil the demand for loyal and committed personnel and to deal with increasing individualism and self-interest. Thus, the research aims to investigate if and how values congruence of defence organization is interrelated to intentions of personnel to continue and organizational commitment. Theoretical discussion, related to person and organization fit, vlues congruence and organizational commitment, let to develop a questionnaire. The analysis is grounded on the survey of personnel deployed in one unit of defence organization. The final sample comprised 56 respondents. The results confirm the assumption that higher affective commitment increases intentions to stay with organization. In addition, the conclusion that personnel demonstrate identification with organization can be made. Second, the study demonstrates that physical values congruence is positively interrelated with affective commitment. Hence, the sense of favourable social guarantees, benefits, appropriate work place and health consideretaions influence individual’s identification with organization. The implications for top-level management lie in the possibility to monitor values congruence and subsequently, increase organizational commitment of staff. [From the publication]