VALUES AND ORGANSATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

1. Introduction
Values are long lasting and stable beliefs about what is good or what is bad. In
order to understand organisational behaviour, it is very important to study
values first because values of an individual strongly influence his attitudes,
perceptions, needs and motives at work place. Values are very powerful force
influencing human behaviour. Effective managers have to study the value
system underlying behaviour of the employees, because only then they will be
able to understand why people behave in a particular fashion sometimes.
2. Meaning and Definitions of Values
Values can be described as the basic convictions that guide an individual that a
particular mode of conduct or final outcome is personally or socially acceptable
or not. Once values are internalised, they become standard for guiding the
actions or decision making of an individual. Values contain an element of
judgement which influences an individual’s understanding about what is good or
bad, desirable or undesirable. Values are inherited as well as learnt through the
process of socialisation. The work related values such as autonomy, comfort,
achievement and status seem to be inherited. Certain individual values are also
learnt in different stages of life as a result of interaction with relevant persons in
our life like our parents, friends, teachers and colleagues etc. Values are
comprised of both content and intensity attributes. Content attributes define that
a mode of conduct or final outcome is important and the intensity attribute
define how much important it is for an individual.
Value can be defined as a, “Concept of the desirable, an internalised criterion or
standard of evaluation a person possesses. Such concepts and standards are
relatively few and determine or guide an individual’s evaluations of the many
objects encountered in the daily life.”
According to Milton Rockeach, “Values are global beliefs that guide actions and
judgements across a variety of situations.”
3. Characteristics of Values
Values generally contain a tinge of principles of morality which direct an
individual about what is right, good and desirable. Characteristics of values are
given as follows:
 a) Values provide standards of proficiency and integrity.
b) Values are fewer in number than attitudes.
c) Values are most central to the core of a person.
d) Values usually go beyond the specific objects, situations, or persons.
e) Values are relatively permanent and resistant to change.
f) When values are ranked in terms of their importance, it results into the value
system of that person.
g) The value system of an individual provides a hierarchical framework which
indicates the relative importance we assign to different values such as
freedom, self respect, honesty, self respect and so on.
4. Importance of Values
Importance of values can be understood from the following points:
a) Values provide the basic framework for understanding attitudes and
motivation of an individual.
b) Value system of an individual influences the perception about whatever is
happening around in the environment.
c) Values symbolize the explanation of right and wrong.
d) Value system influences an individual’s decision making and choice of
solution to various problems.
e) Values also play social function in an organisation. Those values which
are derived from common experiences help in uniting the societies and
groups together.
f) Values influence behaviour of an individual and therefore provide the criteria
for evaluating the behaviour of others.
g) In order to meet the challenge of reconstructing the established work values
all over the world, understanding the values becomes necessary for every
manager in the organisation.

5. Types of Values
5.1 Milton Rokeach Classification
Milton Rokeach conducted a survey which is popularly known as Rokeach value
survey (RVS) to classify the values. RVS is comprised of two types of value sets,
each containing 18 individual value items. One set is called Terminal values and
another is called Instrumental Values.
a) Terminal Values: Terminal values represent the desirable outcomes. These
represent the ultimate goals that a person would strive to achieve in his
lifetime. The examples of terminal values are:
• Comfortable life
• Sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution)
• Family security (caring the loved ones)
• Mature love (spiritual intimacy)
• Self respect (self prestige)
• Wisdom (good judgement of life)
• Exciting life (active and thrilling life)
• Freedom (to be independent)
• Social recognition (to gain respect and appreciation)
• True friendship (closeness with others)
• A world of peace (freedom for stress and conflicts)
• A world of beauty (beauty of nature and arts)
• Equality (equal opportunity for all)
• Happiness
• Inner harmony
• National security
• Pleasure
• Salvation
b) Instrumental Values: Instrumental values refer to the preferred modes of
behaviour or means to achieve desirable ends. These are the medium for
attaining terminal values. For example, the instrumental value which can
help in achieving the terminal value of ‘true friendship’ is being ‘responsible’.
Similarly the instrumental value ‘independent’ can help in achieving the
terminal value ‘freedom’. The examples of instrumental values are given as
below:
• Ambitious
• Broad minded
• Capable
• Cheerful
 • Clean
• Courageous
• Forgiving
• Helpful
• Honest
• Imaginative
• Independent
• Intellectual
• Logical
• Loving
• Obedient
• Polite
• Responsible
• Self controlled

Various research studies on RVS have pointed out that the importance of RVS
values vary among different groups. One study compared the value system of
corporate executives of a steelworkers’ union and community activists. The
significant differences among the value sets of the two groups were found. For
example, community activists ranked ‘equality’ as their most important
terminal value, whereas corporate executives ranked this value 12. Activists
ranked ‘helpful’ as second most important instrumental value, whereas
executives ranked this value 14. Values help an individual to conduct himself
appropriately while interacting with other individuals or groups. According to
Rokeach, values serve following functions:

• They influence us to favour one particular situation or ideology over

another.
• They take us to the particular position on social issues.
• They guide us in presenting ourselves to others, judging, evaluating and
praising others.
• They help us evaluating ourselves in comparison to others on moral
grounds.
• They help us persuading and influencing others to change their
beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
5.2 Allport,Vernon and Lindzey classification
G.W Allport, P.E. Vernon and G. Lindzey classified values into six major
categories given as below:
a) Theoretical values: These values reflect a person’s interest in the
discovery of truth through reasoning and systematic thinking. Ideal
theoretical man values the discovery of truth.
b) Economic values: these values refer to one’s interest in practicality,
usefulness and accumulating wealth. The ideal economic man values
whatever is useful.
c) Aesthetic values: these values reflect one’s interest in beauty, art and
creativity. The ideal aesthetic man relish artistic and aesthetic
experiences in life.
d) Social values: these values reflect one’s interest in relationships. The
ideal social man gives importance to sense of belongingness and love.
e) Political values: these values reflect one’s interest in obtaining power
and influencing others behaviour. The ideal political man gives more
importance to power.
f) Religious values: these values reflect one’s interest in unity.

The importance of the above mentioned six values varies from person to person.
Understanding these values is very important for understanding behaviour of the
individuals.

5.3 Organisational values and Work values

Organisational values: Organisations have certain core values that are so

deeply ingrained that they guide company’s actions and practices to establish
organisational culture. Good firms practice distinct and identifiable set of values
that include management’s belief about service quality, innovation, importance of
human resources, detail of information, openness of communication etc. Four
types of common organisational values are:
the belief that some people should be treated in a special way
• Power, elitism and reward.
• Effectiveness, efficiency and economy.
• Fairness, teamwork and law and order.
• Defence, competitiveness and opportunism.
 Work values: Work values are described as the concept of what is preferable
from the given alternative mode of conducts and end states with respect to one’s
work. In simple words, it can be described as individually held conceptions of
what is desirable and what is undesirable with respect to individual’s work
activities. T.V Rao proposed the following framework of work values which
describes the best career where individual will give his best:

• Creativity and challenge (Scope to do new things)

• Economic (satisfaction of financial needs)
• Independence (Freedom, autonomy)
• Service (desire to serve others)
• Work conditions (Conditions improving individual’s productivity)
• Status (Designation and prestige)
• Co-workers (availability of good colleagues)
• Security (continuity of job)
• Academic (relationship of work and academics)
6. Effects of Values
The effect of values can be understood with the help of a framework provided
by Meglino and Ravlin (1998). The framework is given as below:

As shown in the figure, values influence the outcomes in two ways:

a) First, individual values may affect beliefs, attitudes, decisions,

performance and other behaviour patterns directly.
b) Second, individual values in congruence with values of others such as
leader, colleagues or team members may also influence behavioural
outcomes of an individual. But this influence is also dependant on task
and situational variables. For example, in routine problems values will
not affect behaviour much. But, the affect of values on behaviour will be
higher in case of complex problems. This framework also explains that
when employees believe that their individual values are aligned with the
organisational values, they tend to be engaged in positive organisational
behaviours, express organisational citizenship behaviour, organisational
commitment and increase the level of their performance.
 Socialisation
Individual Outcomes:
process and
values
genetics Beliefs
Attitudes
Decisions
Values of Task and Performance
Others situational Turnover
variables Organisational
citizenship
behaviour

Value Congruence

Source: Peter Murray, David Poole and Grant Jones, “Contemporary issues in
management and organisational behaviour”, Cengage learning, pg. 46.
7. Sources of values
A person may develop values from the following sources:
a) Family: Family is the prime and most important source of obtaining values.
Every child learns some values from his family since his childhood and
retains those values in his mind throughout his life. The ways the parents
nurture, educate and raise their child shape his personality and inculcate
values in him. Family is most influential source in the individual’s learning of
norms and values.
b) Society: After family, society also plays a major role developing value system
of an individual. Every child learn basic manners and discipline from the
school. Interaction with classmates, friends and teachers in the schools and
other institutions also inculcate important values in the child. Besides
schools and colleges, other groups of society such as religious groups,
economic and political groups to which an individual belongs also affect value
system of an individual.
c) Personal factors: Personal characteristics like intelligence, ability,
appearance and education level of a person determines his value system very
strongly. For example, an intelligent and educated person will understand
 and learn the social and work related values relatively faster than the
uneducated person.
d) Culture: Cultural factors which influence value system of an individual
include norms, beliefs and other behaviour patterns which are preferred
and acceptable by the society. The valueS which an individual learns from the
culture are passed on from one generation to another generation. An individual
belongs to a society, group and an organisation. Thus he is a composite of many
cultural elements. Whether an individual is cooperative, friendly or helpful depends
upon the culture to which he belongs. The degree to which an individual is willing to
take risks, believes in saving money for future, cares for the loved ones is also
determined by cultural background.
e) Religion: generally individuals obtain strength and comforts from the religion
which they follow. Religion is comprised of set of values and traditions which
guide routine behaviour and decision making of an individual. Religious
values help people determine what is good or what is bad.
f) Life experiences: Apart from the above mentioned sources, a man learns
most from his own experiences and sometimes from experiences of others too.
The values which an individual learns from own experiences of life are
relatively long lasting and difficult to change.
g) Role demands: Role demand refers to the behaviour which is associated with
the particular position or role profile in an organisation. Every individual play
multiple roles in his life. He has to play the role of an employee in an
organisation, role of a family member in the family and friend in the social
group. The problem occurs when there is a role conflict. In such case,
individuals quickly learn the value system prevailing in the organisation so
that they may survive and progress in the same organisation.
8. Values across culture
Due to globalisation, working with people of different culture has become a very
common practice. In all multinational organisations you will find executives
hailing from different cultural backgrounds. Values differ across the cultures.
Therefore, it has become very important for the managers to understand the
differences of values across the cultures so that they may be able to understand
and predict behaviour of employees from different cultures. Hofstede’s framework
is the most common approach used to assess and understand the variations of
values across different cultures. Hofstede surveyed more than 116000 employees
of IBM working across 40 countries in late 1970s to evaluate their work related
values. The survey found that values of employees vary on six dimensions of
culture. These dimensions are explained as below:
a) Power Distance: Power distance is the degree to which people accept uneven
distribution of power in the society and institutions. People with high power
distance tend to accept unequal power distribution. The people with low power
distance relatively prefer equal distribution of power. Low power distance cultures
adopt participative style of management whereas; high power distance cultures adopt
autocratic style of management.
b) Individualism Vs. Collectivism: This value reflects preference of people for
individual goals or group goals. Individualism refers the degree to which
people value individual goals over the group goals. Such people tend to
behave individually rather than as a member of group and believe that
individual rights are above all. In opposite to this collectivism is the degree to
which individuals give preference to group goals over individual goals.
Collectivism represents a social framework where group members are
expected to protect and care other members of the group.
c) Masculinity Vs Femininity: Value of masculinity represents the degree to
which the culture favours traditional masculine roles like achievement,
control and power. Such cultures do not give equality to men and women and
fix separate roles for them. Masculine societies are generally male dominating
societies. In opposite to this, femininity value represents no or little
demarcation between the roles of males and females. Such societies respect
males and females equally.
d) Uncertainty avoidance: It shows the degree to which people in a country
prefer structured and planned situations over unstructured and unplanned
situations. This value reflects the tendency of people to tolerate uncertainty
and ambiguity or avoid uncertainty and ambiguity. The countries which score
high on uncertainty avoidance, people tend to have increased level of
apprehension for uncertainty and ambiguity. Such countries frame rules,
regulations and laws to avoid uncertainty and always prefer structured
situations. In opposite to this, the countries that score low on uncertainty
avoidance take more risks, are not rules oriented and believe in change.
 e) Long term Vs. short term orientation: long term orientation is a national
value which emphasises on future, saving and perseverance. Those countries
which have long term orientation generally live and think more for future than
for present. On the other hand, short term orientation emphasises on past
and present.
f) Indulgence Vs. restraint: Indulgence is the degree to which people prefer to
enjoy life, have fun and fulfil natural desires. Whereas, restraint is the degree
to which gratification of individual’s needs, desires and behaviour is governed
by social norms.

9. Values and OB
It has been already discussed in the above paragraphs that values influence
behaviour of an individual. Further influence of values on the behaviour of an
individual in an organisational setting can be specifically understood from
following points:
a) An individual’s perception about the problems faced by him is influenced by
his value system. As a result, the decisions taken by him to solve the
problems also reflects his values.
b) Values also affect interpersonal relationships in the organisation. The way
employees look at each other, cooperate with each other and compete with
each other depends upon their values.
c) Values guide an individual about what is ethical and unethical. Therefore, the
degree to which an employee remains ethical or indulge in unethical practices
will also depend on his values.
d) The extent to which an individual cope up with the organisation’s pressures
and contribute in the achievement of organisational goals is determined by
his value system. The employees stay in the organisations for a longer period
if their values match with organisational values and they may leave the
organisation if their values do not match with organisational values.