Socialization mechanisms and goal congruence

Frances A. Kennedy and Sally K. Widener

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 2019, vol. 76, issue C, 32-49

Abstract: Firms use performance measures linked to incentives and the evaluation process to motivate and direct employees' efforts towards goal congruence. In a research setting where the noise in the performance measures hinders such formal linkage, we examine how firms can achieve goal congruence. We first examine the direct relation between employees' perceptions of the extent to which socialization mechanisms (i.e., perceptions of the extent to which employees perceive that top management communicates core values, supervisors engage in career development mentoring, and employees themselves engage in peer mentoring) are related to goal congruence. Second, we examine the process by which the relationship works. We posit that the relationship works because socialization mechanisms communicate information, which reduces employees' uncertainty thus increasing their perceptions of career security, and in turn, employees become more attached to the firm and better impound its goals. Using survey data from 354 employees to estimate a structural equation model, our results fail to support a direct association between socialization mechanisms and goal congruence. However, we find an indirect association through employees' perceptions of career security. We further find that the indirect effect only holds for non-union employees. Interestingly, for union employees, goal congruence is directly facilitated by employees’ perceptions of the extent to which top managers communicate core values.

Keywords: Management control; Socialization mechanisms; Goal congruence; Survey; Structural equation model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361368219300042
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:76:y:2019:i:c:p:32-49

DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2019.01.004

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting, Organizations and Society is currently edited by Christopher Chapman

More articles in Accounting, Organizations and Society from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().