Commitment, satisfaction, and turnover: The impact of individual moral value structures when exposed to a conflicting or matching organizational sales culture

The focus of this study is on how organizational and individual factors affect salesperson commitment, satisfaction, and turnover in sales organizations. The purpose is to relate individual factors such as age, education, gender, income, tenure, and especially, moral values to individual commitment, satisfaction, and turnover within the organizational culture. The study determines if there are differences between individual moral values and the perceived ethical content of the corporate culture and then determines if these differences influence organizational commitment, job satisfaction, or turnover. This is primarily an ethics study which will partially test portions of several positive models of ethical decision making using salesforce management constructs as a means to this end.;There are three key research propositions. The first is that an individual who perceives that his or her moral values are in alignment with the ethical values of the corporate culture will score higher on a measure of organizational commitment than someone who does not have this perception. The second and third key research propositions treat job satisfaction and turnover, respectively, in similar fashion.;This study examines a retail salesforce, although the research propositions are thought to apply equally to a non-retail salesforce. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of store managers and salespeople employed by a nationwide chain of 725 company-owned retail specialty shops.;This study found that respondents who differ in their individual moral values also differ in the level at which they perceive the ethicalness of the corporate culture. Therefore, it appears that levels of individual moral values may influence perceptions of corporate ethicalness.;This research also found that the key to understanding the influence of ethical considerations on the organization in terms of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover appears to lie in the perceptions of the managers and salespeople of the ethicalness of the corporate culture. In each case those who perceive the corporate culture to be more ethical are more committed to the organization, have more job satisfaction, and are less likely to leave than those who perceive the corporate culture to be less ethical.