Abstract

Despite a growing interest in psychosocial factors in Chilean organizations, few studies have investigated their links with organizational culture. This study explores the relationship between three dimensions of organizational culture proposed by Hofstede (results-process orientation, task-people, and strict control-laxity) and psychosocial factors of the work environment (harassment, destructive leadership, effort-reward imbalance, psychological distress, and work vulnerability). A survey was applied to 1995 workers in three metropolitan areas of Chile and through a latent class analysis, six patterns of perception of work culture were detected. Those who perceived a culture highly oriented to results and tasks, but unbalanced and ambivalent in control, reported higher exposure to psychosocial risk factors. Both sexes reported only higher prevalences of effort-reward imbalance when controlling for all other variables. Women did not have significantly higher exposure to risk factors, although overall, they reported a higher prevalence of distress and vulnerability. These results suggest that human resources professionals should pay attention to worker-focused cultural practices in the Latin American regional context.