Changes in Goal and Reward Structures in Organizations since the Financial Crisis in South Korea: The Issue of Congruence and Employee Social Value Orientation

Rather1)limited research efforts have been extended on the issue of congruence even after dramatic changes in reward and goal structures in South Korea after the economic crisis in 1997. Three hundred seventy-six workers in the Koreann IT industry participated in an Internet survey on their attitudes towards organization performance systems and social value orientation. Two hundred twenty-six workers identified their organizations’ goal-reward structures as congruent, while 150 indicated otherwise. Analysis of the survey results indicated that an individual working for an organization with congruent goal-reward structures tends to perceive the organization’s performance system more favorably than those working for one with an incongruent goal-reward structure. However, a test of interaction effects between goal-reward structure congruence and social value orientation showed that pro-social participants and pro-self participants with a fit congruent goal-reward structure did not show different level of attitudes toward an organization’s performance system in comparison to those with an unfit congruent goal-reward structure. Meanwhile, the overall interaction effects showed that pro-social participants tended to favor congruent mixed goal-reward structures while pro-selves did not. In comparison,pro-selves perceived their organization system more positively than pro-social participants in congruent individual goal-reward structures. The results indicated that organizations in South Korea did go through a great deal of changes in their goal and reward structures but some organizations might have ignored the importance of congruence among their organizational systems and their members’ social value orientations. More attention is called for in developing an organization’s performance system to maintain congruence between goal and reward structures.