Leadership, Person-Organization Fits and Organizational Commitment

In the 21 st century the world has become a constant changing and turbulent place. Moreover, the economic situation, in recent years, affects us all as private individuals and within organizations. We can reasonably expect greater needs for human resource and less funding to meet them. This study is offering a kind of leadership that develops organizational commitment (OC) not only by calculative factors (satisfaction of needs), but also by psychological aspects: Moral and self-perception (level of value realization and level of self-identity expression). While the OC research literature deals a lot with needs satisfaction as a contributor to OC there is almost no theoretical reference to "self-processes” and no study examined there contribution to OC. This absence seems a bit peculiar given that the social psychology literature has devoted substantial attention to the "self" as a driver of behaviour.

The study examined the relationships of three aspects of person-environment fit (P-O Fit) that contribute to OC - degree of: Needs fulfilment, values realization, self-identity expression, with manifestations of OC: "Identification", "contribution", "presence". The study was based on a questionnaire given to 444 respondents, all members of community organizations who also were workers in business/work organizations. Findings showed fulfilment of needs to be central in its contribution to OC manifestations, and that its highest contribution was to the component expressing "presence". However, satisfaction with values realization and self-identity expression also contributed to OC. Moreover, The three types of P-O Fit were distinct from one another, they contributed differentially to the explanation of OC manifestations, and their respective contributions to the prediction of OC level were additive. Therefore, leaders of organizations that put emphasis on satisfying their worker's needs but also allow realizing values and expressing self-identities should extract a higher degree of commitment from their members.