Abstract:

Organizational models allow us to study the form of management that institutions use to foster their internal processes, where the organizational context plays a major role. Specifically within the University context, it is essential for the achievement of its goals to develop ways that increase their workers performance while understanding their level of commitment as well as the characteristics of the organizational culture with which they interact. A person who is highly committed and whose values match the values proposed by the organization will be more productive, at the same time the employees will be more satisfied with their work. Our study started from the hypothesis that there should be no differences in the organizational culture, in Universities that share the same context and legal form, however our results showed evidence that contradicts said hypothesis. This study was conducted in three Universities in Ecuador, with the aim of identifying differences between them according to the levels of engagement and value congruence of their workers. The sample consisted of 121 employees from three Universities (University1=59; University2=30; University3=32). To recollect the data, an inventory consisting of two questionnaires was applied: the UWES questionnaire to measure engagement though three components: vigour, dedication and absorption; and the APO questionnaire to measure value congruence also with three components: value recognition, P-O fit and value conflict. The data was analysed through correlations calculus and mean comparisons. Our results were divided in two: taking into account general values, and taking into account specificities according to each University. In global terms, we can affirm that staff working at Universities in Ecuador is highly committed and there also exist high levels of value congruence. However, when performing separate analysis, we had differences according to the University. In this case, we obtained significant differences considering vigour, dedication, recognition and P-O fit; being University1 the one with higher values in all variables, and University2 the one with the lowest values. We also had differences when considering variable correlations, being University 3 the one with higher amount of variables correlating significantly, and University 2 with no significant correlations between variables. Through this study, we can confirm that there are going to be differences if a situation is analysed in general, but, in the case of studies made in Universities such as this study, even if they belong to the same context or legal form, we cannot extend global results as generalized behaviors or patterns, since each University is going to develop its own way of doing this. Organizational culture in Universities turns to be a challenge for understanding their dynamics and give steps for actions in order to improve their management processes.

Keywords:

Engagement, value congruence, University, legal form, context.