SHAPING HARMONIOUS MARKETING

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Department faculty hope that new hires will stay for many years and become productive. In this era of modest academic budgets, universities often cannot afford ...
SHAPING HAR M ONIOUS M ARKETING DEPA RTM ENTS Catharine M. Curran, New Mexico State University, Dept. of Marketing, Las Cruces, NM 88003 Michael R. Hyman, New Mexico State University, Dept. of Marketing, Las Cruces, NM 88003 Kevin J. Shanahan, New Mexico State University, Dept. of Marketing, Las Cruces, NM 88003 ABSTRACT Given a pool of technically competent ap plicants, marketing faculty often hire the app licant who seemingly offers the best fit. We posit that this best fit is not an elusive concept; rather it co ncerns the identifiable core value of the extant faculty. Once identified, the se values can inform a customized survey for estimating the value congruence of potential hires. INTRODUCTION One of the most difficult decisions facing any marketing department is selecting the job applicant to fill a teaching vacancy. Departm ent faculty hope that new hires will stay for many years and b ecome p roductive. In this era of modest acad emic budgets, universities often cannot afford to replace dep arting faculty. The costs associated with faculty turno ver are wellknown and include direct costs, such as the increased salaries paid to a new faculty member when market rates exceed current pay levels. Indirect costs, which are at best difficult to quantify, include the loss of institutional memory and alumni loyalty. Ea ch faculty’s goal is to hire applicants who will be long-term assets to their university, thereby reducing the probability of repeatedly incurring such turnover co sts. If organizations are composed of similar people because such people are more pro ductive and adapt more quickly to their work environment (Ostroff and Rothausen 1997), and if people seek organizations with congruent characteristics, then formal assessments of organizations’ values should promote good emplo yee-organiza tion fits. Our goal is to offer one w ay for ac ademic departments to make such assessm ents and to develop value-congruence surveys for new hires. After a brief overview of the relevant psychology and management literatures, we (1) posit the universe of core work-related values within academic dep artments in universities/colleges, (2) trace how a subset of those values came to characterize the culture of one department, and (3) show how this department might develop a formal fitassessment survey gro unded in these core values. PERSO NALITY A ND W ORK SUCCESS Personality is a complex mix of inherent characteristics and environmental influences (Rosenzweig and Fisher 1997). In the business-related literature, the most common ly used classification scheme for classifying persona lity is

Eysenck’s model, first published in 1947 (Paunonen 19 98). This model has been expanded from the original three factors and is now referred to as the ‘Big Five’ factors of personality model (Paunonen 1998). Each factor defines a distinct personality type. Management and industrial psychologists have found that these five factors relate to the fit between employees and their work environment. (Thom as, Moore and Scott 1996). Because workplace success depends on the interplay between emp loyees and their work enviro nment, personality tests alone are poor predictors of work behavior and thus are poor predictors of employment success (Furnham 1997). Clearly, assessm ents of each employee’s personality cannot capture the complex relationship between a set of employees and their work environment. To b est predict organizational fit, organizations should assess both employee personalities and organizational culture. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational culture is defined by the shared values and shared practices that affect organizational members (Hofstede et al. 1990; S chein 1990). Once institutionalized, these values become a crucial component of organizational perso nality; organizations use these shared values to justify their p r a ct i c e s (G e orge 19 92). O rga nizat i onal practices–organizational “values, rituals, heroes, and symbols” (Hofstede et al. 1990)–are meaningful to employees and direct their behaviors. Each organization’s has a unique culture that is formed by the employees and environment of its past and present– in other words, its history. An organization’s founders establish the initial values, policies, and procedures that institutionalize those values. Current organizational members interpret those initial values and develop practices that reveal the extent to which the founders’ values have been institutionalized and internalized (Schein 1990). By socializing new employees, organizations further align the values and personalities of their employees (Chatman 1991). Through their legends and myths, organizations indoctrinate their new mem bers; through their rituals, organizations reveal their core values to new members (Ho fstede et al. 199 0). The mo re vigo rously organizations try to influenc e their memb ers–e specially their new members–the more similarity between their values and their members’ values (Chatman 1991). U ltimately, the longest-tenured e m ployees share many personal characteristics and are the m ost value con gruent (Kristof

1996; Me ir, Melam ed, and D inur 1995). Job satisfaction, job tenure, and intentions to stay with a jo b are related to value congruence (Chatman 1991 ; Furnham 1997). Because the subtle components of organizational culture are not self-evident, the method used to define organizational culture should be sensitive to d eeply ingrained, but not always conscious, values and beliefs. Our proposed method, grounded in the holistic perspective, should satisfy this co nstraint. OR GA NIZA TIO NA L FIT Organizational fit was first conceived as the match between job requirements and employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities (Caston and B riato 1985 ). Recently, organizational fit was re-conceived as the match between the norms and beliefs of organizations and their employees’ values, beliefs, and persona lity traits (Saks and A shforth 1997). Bo th conceptualizations suggest that employees fit an organization when their job-related attributes match their work environment (Ostroff and Rothausen 1997 ). Although the fit between emp loyees and their organizations is never perfect, successful employees typically share the dominant characteristics of their organizations (Cable and Judge 1996). Psych ologists and m anagement experts contend that organizations dom inated by good-fitting employees are highly effective because such employees are more satisfied, more committed, and more productive, than other employees (Saks and Ashforth 1997). Incongruent employees are often absent, frustrated , stressed , anxious, burned out, and physically ill (Furnham and Walsh 1990; Meir, Melamed, and Dinur 1995), all which inhibit personal and organizational pro ductivity. Employee-organization fit is achieved through an attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) cycle (Kristof 1996). In the attraction phase, people seek o rganizations with congruent characteristics; in the selection ph ase, organizations hire people with needed comp etencies and congruent attributes (Cab le and Judg e 1996); in the attrition phase, the initial heterogeneity of the hiring process yields to attrition (i.e., employees who fail to achieve organizational congruence resign). Thus, “the people in one organization will be more sim ilar to each other than to p eop le in another organization” (Ostro ff and Rothausen 199 7, p.175), even in industries with similar firm structures, such as accounting (Chatman 1991 ; Miner, Crane, and Vandenb erg 1994). This inter-employee hom ogeneity extends to dem ographic variables. Peo ple who are “dem ographica lly similar to other organizational members enjoy important benefits that less similar individuals are less likely to receive” (Cable and Jud ge 19 96, p .295 ). Demog raphic similarity to ones’ co-workers is a strong predictor of work experiences and work outco mes (K irchmeyer 1995) because of the similar-attraction effect (i.e., high attraction to similar

others encourages frequent communication, high social integration, and a desire to maintain affiliation (Kirchmeyer 1995). Here demographic similarity is defined not necessarily in terms o f race, ethnicity and gender but more in terms of education, training, experience, etc. To hire the best replacement faculty, many psychologists and management experts might argue that faculty mem bers sh ould consider emplo yee-organiza tion fit. As in all businesses, there is a strong relationship between perso nality and o rganizational fit in academ ic departm ents. Such departments now rely on informal fit-assessment procedures; the proposed method offers departments a way to develop a formal value-congruence assessment procedure. THE DEPARTMENT-HISTORY METHOD Qualitative research method s provide o ne way to uncover an organiza tion’s evo lving set of rituals, hero es, and symbols (Hofstede et al 1990). Such research is often used to uncover veiled information about co nsumers (Stern, Thom pson, and A rnould 19 98). W e posit that the effect of a department’s history on its current practices is not selfevide nt. By tracing its history, a department may reveal the core values that motivate its current practices. Once these values are delineated, a department can use them to crea te a formal fit-assessment survey. Suggested Research Technology To trace a department’s history, we propose a method that employs a textual analysis tool like NUD*IST (Richards and Richards 1994 ). N UD *IST (Non-Numerical Unstructured Data Indexing, Searching and Theory Building) is a software package used by qualitative researchers to identify patterns in responses to open-ended questions, or in foc us groups (i.e., to locate the interrelationships in different peoples’ answers) (Fleenor 1998). Researchers can use NUD *IST from either the theory down to the data or from the data up to the theory (Richards and Richards 1994); if the former, then researchers use the coding tools in N UD *IST to search the text for theo rysupporting data. As the proposed method takes a theory down to the data approach, the first step is to identify a department’s core values. As with all organizations, we posit that successful acad emic hires must share their dep artments’ core values. To suggest the current core work-related values of university faculty, we co nsulted the recent literature; we located only one recent study conducted in a secondary school setting (Ostroff and R othausen 1997 ). This study suggests nine core values for educato rs: grow th, innovation, autono my, achievement, participation, cooperation, warmth, hierarc hy, and structure. Although universities are educational institutions, they are generally viewed as more similar to professional organizations than to se condary sc hools. Relative to other

organizations, professional organizations: (1) have less bureaucra tic management; (2) derive leadership from professional competence; (3) rely on personal motivation to fuel p r o d u c t i o n ; ( 4 ) a s su m e i t s m e m b e r s a re socialized–indoctrinated about professional values, norms, ethical precepts, and codes–during their professional training; (5) condone professional loyalty over organizational loyalty; (6) assume work-related satisfaction derives primarily from pro fessional achievement; and (7) assume its members exc el when their role requirements match their motivational levels (Miner, Crane, and Vandenb erg 1994). Research on professional organizations suggests that five role prescriptions com bine with individual motivations to produce successful wo rkers and wo rk environm ents. These prescriptions are (1) the desire to learn and to acquire knowledge, (2) the desire for independence, (3) the desire to acquire status, (4) the desire to help others, and (5) valuebased identification with the profession (Miner, Crane, and Vandenb erg 1994). Absent current research on the intra-departmental work values of university/college faculty, we assum ed that this value set is the intersection of value sets for both secondary schools and professional organizations. As neither hierarchy (i.e., locus of authority in supervisory personnel) nor structure (i.e., intra-organiza tional formality and constraint) characterize either secondary schools or professional organizations, both values we re drop ped as p ossible core values; thus, we assumed that the possible core values are growth, autonomy, innova tion, achievement, cooperation, participation, and warmth. (See Figure 1 inserted here.) We posit that the department unde r study will have held these values throughout its history and that these values were held in a consistent order of importance. SAMPLE APPLICATION W e interviewed all members of the marketing faculty at one major state university in the southwestern U.S. and asked them to discuss the history of their department. Two doctoral students in mark eting, trained in qualitative research methodologies and questioning, conducted informal interviews that lasted up to one hour. Faculty were told that the interviews were part of a class project meant to record the history of the d epartment. Once all the interviews were conducted, the tapes were transcribed into text files tha t were the n transferred to NUD*IST. Next, the text search tool in NUD*IST was used to search for references to growth, autonomy, innovation, achievement, cooperation, participation, and warmth. Once located within the text, the surrounding text was examined to ensure that the notion wa s used as per our framework. (Again, see Figure 1.) The text was then coded for one of the seven values. Next, each value was ranked by the number of times it appe ared in the text and the numb er of separate

individuals who discussed that value. W e concluded that the most-often mentioned values were the most salient for this department and should be held by any new hires to maximize intra-departmental value congruence. Faculty Pro file At the time of the interviews, all the previous chairmen remained on staff. T he tenures of the marketing faculty ranged from five to seventeen years; all nine faculty–three chairmen and six other faculty–were tenured. T he oldest member of the marketing department, who was the first chairman of the joint marketing-a nd-b usiness-la w dep artment, joined the faculty in 1985. W e considered the first chairman to be the founder of the department and used his text as the found ing story o f the dep artment. All faculty are Caucasian; one is female. With one exception, all faculty are married; none have young children and five have adult children . The three chairm en hold doctorates from the same state university in the northwestern U.S.; the other faculty hold doctorates from major state universities. Other than Ph.D.-granting university, no other background questions were asked. Results The text search and re-interviews of several historically key faculty revealed a distinct ordering of the aforementioned seven dimensions. W e found that this faculty most valued collegiality or warmth. Collegiality was a stated goal of each departm ent head. The text search revealed many references to the “good feeling” that permeates this dep artment. Eac h faculty member mentioned this “good feeling” and the imp ortance of “getting along” with everyone; the latter was especially important for new hires (i.e., no “boat rockers”). Many warmth-related com ments concerned the department’s cooperative environment. This result is unsurprising because cooperation fits with warmth; after all, cooperative environments foster warmth towa rds co-wo rkers. Autonomy is seemingly contrary to cooperation, yet this faculty prized autonomy highly. This faculty appreciated its unhindered academic freedom; only one faculty member failed to mention it. Academic freedom was often discussed in the context of “freedo m in develo ping the courses” and “control over class material and course content.” By our framework, these concepts concern personal growth and skill development. For this faculty, growth is related to autonomy. References about the “lack of department politics” were often proximate to references about academic freedom. Four faculty mem bers to ld stories about joining this dep artment; each story focused on their desire or need to flee negative departmental politics. These fou r stories suggest that the core work-related values of these faculty members are autonomy, cooperation, and warmth. Faculty repeatedly mentioned mutual participation or

true shared governance of the department. For this dep artment, the one person, one vo te system pertains; senior faculty never received preferential treatment. If the most junior faculty member and the most senior faculty member prefer contrary resolutions to some issue, the faculty will vote on a resolution without regarding the proponent’s rank. To insure its continuance, this system was instilled by the first department head and transmitted to subsequent department head s. W ithin the text, mentions of shared governance were often proximate to mentions of cooperation and warmth. For this department, participation is central to the cooperative work environment and warmth that is highly prized. If most socialization occurs during the training phase of one’s professional career, then faculty from the same training ground should be more similar. As previously noted, all three department heads since 1985 received a doctorate from one major state university in the northwestern U.S.; in fact, several mem bers o f this majo r university’s faculty mentored and trained all three heads. This common training experience helped stabilize this department during leadership changes. Perhaps unique to this department was the lack of desire to attain status; no faculty mem ber m entioned this as a goa l. Perhaps this surprising response was an artifact of asking open-ended question geared to departmental history rather than personal motivations. N onetheless, the transcripts contained no co mments about status seeking. Achievement was mentioned more in terms of aggregate achievement. Comments like “we are the largest department within the College,” “we have the m ost majors and are the fastest growing department,” and “we started the Ph.D. program and had its first graduate,” show that only group achievement is impo rtant. Departmental succe ss is this faculty’s primary source of success. Self-interested behavior without regard for departmental good w ould be incongruent with the existing value se t; thus only aggregate achievement is cherished. Again, this is unsurprising because warmth, which is a collectivist value, is the most highly prized value. With the value profile, this faculty can develop either a questionnaire or set of scenarios to assess a job cand idate’s value congruence. For example, this faculty might pose questions such as: (1) How much do you value and atmosphere of mutual respect? (Wa rmth) (2) How much do you value shared governance? (Participation) (3) How much do you value persona l achievement and recognition? (Achievem ent; reverse scored) (4) Is exercising academ ic freedom important to you? (Autonomy) (5) Sh ould faculty members be asked to work on projects meant only to advance their departm ent? (Cooperation) And other similar questions for each of the identified departmental core values. From this questionnaire an overall departm entcand idate fit sco re can be arrived at by summing the mean score assigned to each answer. Only candidates with the highest scores would receive further consideration.

CONC LUSIONS AND CAV EATS Like all businesses, acad emic departments succeed “by recruiting employees who will be responsive to organizational practices, by transmitting the significance of prevailing values, and by dismissing those who do not fit, organizations hope to establish a robust and stable attachment among members” (Chatman 1991, p. 460 ). Clearly, the marketing department under study has a distinct set of values. To be suc cessful within this departm ent, a new hire should value warmth/collegiality, cooperation, auto nom y, and particip ation. Faculty who develop a customized value-congruence survey should no te the following six caveats: (1) department-cand idate value congruence should not be the sole hiring criterion; candida tes must possess the requisite know ledge , skills and abilities to perform the job (2) the resulting value-congruence survey ignores perso nality concordance; (3) a superior core value framework may exist within the management or psychology literatures; (4) in factious departments, collecting goo d data will be difficult, many times these department are characterized by multiple sets of core values. In many cases the existence of these competing value sets causes the dysfunction within the department. Our data collection method may not be suitable for these environments and a standardized questionnaire may be more appropriate; (5) more established departments may forego constructing a departmental history; and (6) the existing dep artment culture should not be perpetuated, if the dep artment is dysfunctional then new hire should be brought in to change the culture, not perp etuate it.. References an d figures available upon re quest.