Who is attracted to what organizational culture?
An organizational culture is a set of norms and values that is widely shared and strongly held by organizational members to help them understand which behaviors are and are not appropriate. Often, this culture is established by its founder and then evolves and becomes stable as it helps the organization survive and thrive. Many organizations consider their culture as a competitive advantage. They advertise it in various mediums and use it to attract talent. However, still little is known about the attractiveness of different organizational cultures to employees with different personality traits.
“To attract people with high ethical standards who can help them to foster and maintain an ethical culture, organizations may need to consider more than organizational ethics alone!
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Employees with high ethical standards can help organizations to foster and maintain an ethical culture. In our research we developed an instrument, the Hazardous Organization Tool (HOT), to assess five organizational characteristics that make organizations unattractive to people with high ethical standards: in such organizations managers and employees (a) are more tolerant of sexual misconduct, (b) support power inequality, (c) are strongly motivated by monetary incentives, (d) disregard ethical standards, and (e) hide knowledge. Understanding which characteristics attract people with low ethical standards and repel those with high ethical standards can help organizations critically assess their culture. It can also lead them to evaluate the information they share about the organization in different media, so that they attract the people that benefit the organization and help them develop the culture they aspire to have.
Find out more
Wang, B., Andrews, W., & de Vries, R. E. (2023). HOT and Attractive? The Hazardous Organization Tool as an Instrument to Avoid Attracting and Retaining People with Low Ethical Standards. Journal of Business and Psychology. Advance online publication. Link