Individual Moral Development and Ethical Climate: The Influence of Person–Organization Fit on Job Attitudes

By Maureen L. Ambrose, Anke Arnaud, Marshall Schminke. 2007

349 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This research examines how the fit between employees moral development and the ethical work climate of their organization affects employee attitudes. Person–organization fit was assessed by matching individuals' level of cognitive moral development with the ethical climate of their organization. The influence of P–O fit on employee attitudes was assessed using a sample of 304 individuals from 73 organizations. In general, the findings support our predictions that fit between personal and organizational ethics is related to higher levels of commitment and job satisfaction and lower levels of turnover intent. Ethical P–O fit was related to higher levels of affective commitment across all three ethical climate types. Job satisfaction was only associated with ethical P–O fit for one of the three P–O fit variables and turnover intentions were significantly associated with two of the ethical P–O fit variables. The most consistent effect was found for the Conventional – Caring fit variable, which was significantly related to all three attitudes assessed. The weakest effect was found for the Preconventional – Instrumental fit variable, which was only predictive of affective commitment. The pattern of findings and implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Subfields: Demography, Information Systems and Management, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ebef9e0ffa109d4d864203c2a5addb4a3d9a8518

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In Demography

In Information Systems and Management

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Citations in the corpus

Toward a Better Understanding of the Link Between Ethical Climate and Job Satisfaction: A Multilevel Analysis (2011, background): “Recently, researchers in the literature have worked to derive within-group agreement indices (rwg and ICCs) (e.g., Ambrose et al. 2008; Cullen et al. 2003; Schminke et al. 2005) that can be used to justify aggregating data from the individual level to an organizational level.”
Leveraging the employee voice: a multi-level social learning perspective of ethical leadership (2019, background): “Ambrose, Arnaud, and Schminke (2008) have empirically verified that the fit between a person’s moral development and the ethical climate of that person’s organization will be related to greater organizational commitment.”
Ethical work climate, employee commitment and proactive customer service performance: Test of the mediating effects of organizational politics (2017, background): “Moreover, employees are more committed to their organizations when their ethical values match those of the organizations (Ambrose et al., 2008).”
Internal marketing, internal branding, and organisational outcomes: The moderating role of perceived goal congruence (2013, background): “Ambrose, Arnaud, and Schminke (2008) found individual employee–organisation misfit may be due to differences in expectations of the employee and organisation, and this can result in problems in employee recruitment and retention.”
Assembling Fragments Into a Lens: A Review, Critique, and Proposed Research Agenda for the Organizational Work Climate Literature (2009, background): “Similarly, Ambrose, Arnaud, and Schminke (2008) demonstrated that the fit between an individual’s cognitive moral development and the ethical environment influences job attitudes.”