The first purpose of the pilot study was to pre-test the research instruments for linguistic intelligibility, validity and methodological adequacy (Baker, 1994). Furthermore, the first sets of data regarding the personal value systems of executive managers in privately owned Chinese companies were generated. Similarly, data was obtained on which type(s) of corporate culture executive managers and employees identified as being strongly influential in their companies, i.e., on the level of similarity between the two organisations in terms of how their members evaluated their corporate culture.
Finally, employees of both pilot study companies were questioned about the levels (1)
of the perceived congruency between their own and their firms’ value systems, and (2) of their affective commitment.
Obviously, only a limited range of statistical calculations was available due to the relatively small sample size. Nevertheless, the results gave a valuable general indication of possible outcomes of the main study.
For illustrative purposes, the results for both firms A and B regarding preferences of managerial values are presented below. All other results regarding types of corporate culture systems, levels of P-O fit and affective commitment are included in Appendix B.
Personal Values Questionnaire
28 v_27 High Productiv. 66.7% 0.9 Table 6.1 – Pilot Study, Personal Values Questionnaire (source: author)
The managers of firm A rated 26 out of 47 value categories as ‘very important’. A value concept was considered ‘very important’ when at least 75% of the managers rated this item with 6 or 7 on the seven-point Likert scale. The highest scores were given to Employees, Co-Workers and Trust (mean = 6.7), followed by Loyalty (mean = 6.6). All managers (100%) rated Employees, Customers, Co-Workers and Trust as ‘very important’. At the same time, basically no value was considered to be ‘of little importance’. The managers gave the lowest scores to Leisure (mean = 5.0), followed by Dignity (5.2) and Power (5.4). Overall, the standard deviation was between 0.5 and 2 with an average of 1, and the arithmetic mean of 43 out of 47 values varied between 5.8 and 6.7.
In regard to the evaluation of the most influential type(s) of corporate culture, it was decided to set, based on the seven-point Likert scale, an equal to, or higher than 5.0 mean mark to define a type of culture as being considered ‘strongly influential’. In firm A, both managers and employees evaluated all four types of culture with a mean value equal to, or higher than, the 5.0 mark. Consequently, the most influential type of culture in firm A consisted of a mix characterised in parts by all four OCAI culture types. The high grade of conformity in the answering pattern of both the executive team and the
employees gave reason to classify the organisational culture in firm A as strong. The standard deviation in both the manager and the employee samples was between 1.25 and 1.47.
The employees of firm A exhibited a tendency to report high levels of P-O fit. Item one (“My personal values are generally compatible with the values of my organization”) was seen very positively, with a mean value of 5.5. The second item (“I find that sometimes I must compromise personal principles to conform to my organization’s expectations”) was reverse-scored and came out with a mean value of 3.1, which led to a combined score of 4.3. These answering patterns indicate that employees seemed to perceive a high degree of compatibility between their own personal value systems and those of their employers, while at the same time they were aware that they needed to make compromises in their jobs. These scores could be interpreted as contradictory, since employees reported conformity and non-conformity with the value system of their firm at the same time. Considering that a high level of conformity in regard to the evaluation of the type of organisational culture was found between the executive team and the employees of firm A, the high level of perceived value congruency reported by the employees in item 1 of the Shared Values Scale could still be seen as giving support to the proposition in general. The seemingly contradictious answering pattern regarding item 2 did not confirm findings from other studies in a western context, but could be interpreted as a phenomenon that is specific to private Chinese companies, a hypothesis that had to be further investigated in the main study.
The Affective Commitment Scale consists of three positively and three negatively worded items; the last three (negatively worded) items are reverse-scored. The first three items (positively worded) obtained unanimous approval by the employees of firm A (mean = 5.9), while for the last three items (negative statements) the answers varied (reverse-scored mean: 5.1). The first three items received the highest scores (6 and 7) from 64 to 78% of the employees. By contrast, the negative items received scores from 1 to 6, and while 47 to 56% gave the lowest scores (1 and 2) to these items, 17 to 25%
rated them neutral (4), and 17 to 32% rated them with 5 or 6. Overall, the results can still be interpreted as demonstrating high levels of commitment. In their majority, the employees of firm A perceived themselves to be in tune with the cultural values of their working environment, which might be the reason why they saw a strong positive relationship to their firm and therefore showed a high degree of commitment.
In firm B of the pilot study, a similar but less pronounced tendency became obvious: A positive skew of the PVQ results was observed, and no item was considered to be ‘of little importance’. However, contrary to firm A, some managers of firm B gave lower scores to specific values. In total, 15 out of 47 value concepts were rated as ‘very important’ by at least 75% of the managers. The highest scores were given to Trust, Loyalty, Employees and High Productivity (mean = 6.7). All managers (100%) rated High Productivity, Employees, Customers, Trust and Loyalty as ‘very important’ (6 or 7 on the seven-point Likert scale). Similar to firm A, the lowest scores were given to Leisure and Compassion (mean = 4.7). The positive skew was reflected in the arithmetic mean of the seven-point scales, which varied between 5.0 and 6.4. The standard deviation was between 0.5 and 2, with an average of 0.9.
Regarding the results of the OCAI, it could be observed that in comparison to the results in firm A, managers and employees of firm B differed more in terms of their identification of their company’s culture. While the managers characterised their firm’s culture as being closer to Market and Adhocracy, the employees perceived it as a multi-type culture with characteristics of all four multi-types. The mean values ranged between 5.0 and 5.6. Based on these results, conformity between the executive team and the employees of firm B regarding the evaluation of the organisational culture of their respective company was observed, but to a lesser degree than in firm A. Consequently, this result led to the conclusion that the cultural system in firm B was less strong.
At the same time, the analysis of the results of the Shared Values Scale showed an almost similar positive value for the employees of firm B, with a mean of 5.6 for item 1 of the Shared Values Scale compared to a mean of 5.5 for the same item of firm A.
Again, a seemingly contradictory answering pattern regarding item 2 could be observed with a mean of 4.6 (to be reverse-scored), which led to a total P-O fit value of 4.5.
The strong perception of high levels of affective employee commitment in firm B supported the generally positive evaluation of the results above. Similar to firm A, the scores for the AC Scale were in the high positive range (mean = 5.1), with 44 to 56% of the employees giving the highest scores to the first three items. Consequently, the affective attachment of the employees of firm B to their company was found to be very strong. The complete tables of results can be found in Appendix B.