The influence of culture and identity on organizational commitment: the case of a German non-profit organization

Abstract

Values, according to the business futurist Patrick Dixon, are vital for an organization, since for him they comprise the organization's immune system. If one is interested in a healthy organization with a good immune system, one has to ask: where can these values be found, where are they visible? The answer typically is: those values can be found in the organizational culture and identity, because values are some of the core aspects of most definitions of an organizational culture and identity. You can find them very clearly in symbols, in a vision or in stories, all belonging to an organization's identity. Questions to be asked here could be: what does the organization stand for? What is said about the organization, inside and outside? Where do the organizational members want to go with the organization, what are their plans for the future? In addition, yet maybe less evident, the organization's culture can say a lot about the values of a company too. For example, how is power being executed in the particular organization? How is the organization structured? How is control being implemented? Interesting for managers and organizational scholars alike are questions of whether those values of an organization have an impact on the organizational commitment of its members. Employees can be committed to the organization for many reasons, be it money, job-attractiveness or, and also, the organizational identity and organizational culture of an organization. So, if one would like to find out more about these three phenomena - organizational culture, identity and commitment - and how they can affect the positive development of an organization, as a first step, one would examine two things: