8th JUNE RC#2

Passage 35
In recent years much attention has been paid to distilling those
factors that create a positive work environment for corporate
employees. The goal ultimately is to discover what allows some
companies to foster high employee morale while other companies
struggle with poor productivity and high managerial turnover. Several
theories have been posited, but none has drawn as much interest from
the corporate world, or has as much promise, as value congruence,
which measures the "fit" between an employee's values and those of
co-workers and the company itself.

Value congruence can be broken into three main subcategories:
person-environment ("P-E"), personperson ("P-P"), and perceptual fit
("PF"). Personenvironment congruence refers to a harmony between
the personal values of the employee and corporate culture of the
company in which he or she works. Someone with a high P-E congruence
feels personally in tune with his company's stated policies and goals.
Conversely, someone with a low P-E congruence feels a sense of
disharmony between his own values and the stated policies and goals of
his company. A high P-P congruence indicates a sense
of solidarity with one's co-workers in terms of shared values and
goals. A low P-P congruence indicates a sense of isolation from
co-workers brought about by an absence of shared values. Finally,
strong PF suggests a strong correspondence between the values that an
employee perceives his company to have (whether or not the company
actually does) and the values that his co-workers perceive the company
to have (again, whether or not it actually does). A weak PF implies
that an employee's perception of his company's values differs
significantly
from that of his co-workers.

Research has shown that P-E and PF congruence are important measures
of employee satisfact ion, commitment, and likelihood of turnover,
while P-P congruence has little bearing on these parameters.
Moreover, PF is especially important in establishing harmonious
relations between workers and managers. These measures give
corporations a robust paradigm for long-term personnel planning and
productivity potentials: they allow companies to discover
dysfunctional work relationships and clarify misperceived company
policies and goals. With these tools in hand, companies can look
forward to increased employee satisfaction and, ultimately, improved
company performance.

1. According to the passage, which of the following was a motivation
in the creation of the system of value congruence?

a) a desire to minimize the liability of upper management for
employee dissatisfaction

b) a desire to help companies to improve their internal harmony

c) a desire to allow employees to increase their earning potential

d) a desire to foster awareness of factors influencing managerial success

e) a desire to eliminate discrepancies between a company's goals and
the values of its employees

2. The passage suggests that perceptual fit congruence would be most
useful in determining which of the following?

a) whether a company ought to make its policies and goals more transparent

b) whether a company ought to provide sensitivity training for its management

c) whether a company ought to create more opportunities for
interaction among workers

d) whether a company ought to address employee grievances more directly

e) whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation
program for new employees

3. The primary focus of the passage is on which of the following?

a) Comparing a new theory of corporate performance to a discredited
theory and predicting the usefulness of the new theory.

b) Illustrating a new approach to measuring employee satisfaction
through a detailed analysis of a particular case.

c) Challenging an old view of employee commitment and suggesting that
a new paradigm is necessary.

d) Promoting a new method of measuring the likelihood of corporate
success by explaining its benefits.

e) Defending a proposed system of corporate analysis through examples
of its success.