Values in organisational Behaviour

                        VALUES 

Meaning and Definition of Values

A value system is viewed as a relatively permanent perceptual framework which influences the nature of an individual's behaviour. The values are the attributes possessed by an individual and thought desirable. Values are similar to attitudes but are more permanent and well built in nature. 

A value may be defined as concept of a desirable, an internalized 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 every day life. 

Values are so embedded that they can be inferred from people's behaviour and their perception, personality and motivation. They generally influence their behaviour. Values are relatively stable and enduring. This is because of the way in which they are originally learnt.

Everyone has a hierarchy of values that forms value system. This system is identified by the relative importance they assign to such values as freedom, self respect, honesty, obedience, equality, and so on. 

According to Milton Rokeach, "Values are global beliefs that guide actions and

judgments across a variety of situations".

According to Stephen P. Robbins, "Values are specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence".  

According to Eduard Spranger, "Values are constellation of likes, dislikes, viewpoints, inner inclinations, rational and irrational judgments, prejudices, and association pattern that determine a person's view of the world".

Characteristics of Values 

Values possess the following characteristics:

1) Part of Culture: Values are elements of culture, which is a complex set of values, ideas, attitudes, and other meaningful symbols to shape human behaviour in the society. Every society has its own culture and people in that society adhere to cultural requirements.

2) Learned Responses: Human behaviour represents learned phenomenon. Unlike other animals, human beings have to learn almost everything about how to be human from experience. This is because human beings live in a society having certain cultural characteristics which prescribe to behave in a particular way.

Cultural field represents a set of stimuli to an individual and also a set of responses appropriate to those stimuli. An individual either is directly rewarded for adopting those responses (alternatively punished for not adopting) or indirectly associated them with other stimulus situations that are rewarding. Through this process, the individuals are uncultured or socialized, i.e., the response of a set of culture becomes his own set of response tendencies. Cultural items learned early in the life tend to resist change more strongly than those learned late in life. This fact is very important from organisational behaviour point of view.

3) Inculcated: Values are inculcated and are passed through generation to generation by specific groups and institutions. Such transmission starts from the family from where the socialization process starts. Apart from family, educational, religious, and ethnic institutions also transmit cultural values from one generation to another.

4) Social Phenomenon: Values are a social phenomenon, that is, cultural habits are shared by aggregates of people living in organized society. An individual's way of thinking and behaving is not culture, rather group behaviour constitutes culture. Group is developed and reinforced through social pressure upon those who are interacting with one another. 

5) Gratifying Responses: Values exist to meet the biological and other needs of

the individuals in the society. Thus, elements in the culture become

extinguished when they are no longer gratifying to members of the society. The society rewards behaviours which are gratifying for its members. 

6) Adaptive Process: Culture is adaptive, either through a dialectical process of evolutionary process. Dialectical or sharply discontinuous change occurs when the value system of a culture becomes associated with the gratification the society reject the logic of the value system and replace it with a new value system, such as through revolution or other methods. In the evolutionary process, the change occurs slowly as a gradual process, but not through revolution.

Importance of Values

Values are important to the study of organisational behaviour because of the

following points signifying their importance: 

1) Values lay the foundations for the understanding of attitudes and motivation.

2) Personal value system influences the perception of individuals. 

3) Value system influences the manager's perception of the different situations.

4) Personal value system influences the way in which a manager views the other

individuals and the groups of individuals in the organisation. 

5) Value system also influences a manager's decisions and his solutions to the various problems.

6) Values influence the attitudes and behaviours. An individual will get more job satisfaction if his values align with the organisation's policies. If the organisation's policies are different from his views and values, he will be disappointed; the disappointment will lead to job dissatisfaction and decline in performance.

7) The challenge and re-examination of established work values constitute important cornerstones of the current management revolution all over the world. Hence, an understanding of the values becomes a necessity.

Sources of Values

Parents, friends, teachers and external reference groups can influence individual values. Indeed, a person's values develop as a product of learning and experience in the cultural setting in which he lives. As learning and experiences vary from one person to another, value differences are the inevitable result. Not only the values but also their ranking in terms of importance differs from person to person. 

1) Familial Factors: A significant factor influencing the process of socialization of an individual is role of the family. The child rearing practices that parents use shape the individual's personality. The learning of social behaviour, values and norms come through these practices. For through reward and punishment, parents show love and affection to children, indicating the typical ways in which a child should behave in difficult conditions.

2) Social Factors: Of the societal factors, school has a major role to play in the development of values. Through discipline in school, a child learns desirable behaviours important in the school setting. Interactions with teachers, classmates and other staff members in the educational institutions make the child inculcate values important to the teaching-learning process. Other institutions that may influence the values are religious, economic and political institutions in the society.

3) Personal Factors: Personal attributes such as intelligence, ability, appearance and educational level of the person determine his development of values. For example, one's higher level of intelligence may result in faster understanding of values.

4) Cultural Factors: Cultural factors include everything that is learned and passed on from generation to generation. Culture includes certain beliefs and other patterns of behaviour. An individual is a participant in social culture, group culture and organisational culture. Thus, he is known as a composite of many cultural elements. Culture is based on certain implicit and explicit values. For example, whether a person is cooperative, friendly or hostile depends upon to which culture he belongs to. Individual relationships are different in different cultures and within certain groups of society also. Whether, the individual values money making or doing service to the mankind again depends upon his cultural background.

5) Religious Factors: Individuals, generally, receive strength and comfort from their religion. Religion comprises of a formal set of values which are passed on from generation to generation. Advancement in technology has under viewed faith in traditional religious beliefs and values.

6) Life Experiences: A man learns the most from his own personal life experience. Sometimes man can learn from the experience of others also. In the long run, most of the values which influence our behaviour are validated by the satisfaction we have experienced in pursuing them. Individuals work out their values on the basis of what seems most logical to them. Values carry importance in direct proportion to how much faith the individual has in them. He should have those values which can stand the test of reality. He should not have rigid values but flexible system which can change with the changes in the individual himself, his life situation and the socio-economic environment. 

7) Role Demands: The role demand refers to the behaviour associated with a particular position in the organisation. All organisations have some formal and some informal code of behaviour. Role demand can create problems when there is a role conflict.

Thus, the managers will have to quickly learn the value system prevalent in the organisation, if they want to move up the ladder of success. For example, if the informal code of behaviour says that the manager must mix up socially with the subordinates, he should learn to do so even though, his personal value system conflicts with his role as a manager.

8) Halo Effect: The halo effect refers to the tendency of judging people on the basis of a single trait, which may be good or bad, favourable or unfavourable. Sometimes, we judge a person by one first impression about him or her. For example, if a person is kind, he will also be perceived as good, able, helpful, cheerful, nice, and intelligent and so on. On the other hand, if a person is abrasive, he shall also be perceived as bad, awful, unkind, aggressive, harmful and wicked. Thus, what one sees in the universe depends partly on one's inner needs. Thus, with the help of halo effect, we see certain values in others which are actually not there, but we perceive them to be there.

Types of Values

The core values can be divided into two categories: 

1. Personal Values

Our personal values are an expression of our needs. People are mirror image of their values. Personal values are qualities that your personally holds in high regard and have made part of your work and life in general such as integrity, honesty, sincerity and so on.

The set of personal values are classified into two broad categories: 

1) Terminal Values: It reflects a person's preferences concerning the "ends" to be achieved; they are the goals an individual would like to achieve during his or her lifetime. In other words, it reflects what person is ultimately striving to achieve.

2) Instrumental Values: It reflects the "means" for achieving desired ends.

They represent how one might go about achieving his important end states,

depending on the relative importance attached to the instrumental values. In

other words, it reflects how the person gets there. 

Illustrative research shows, not surprisingly, that both terminal and instrumental values differ by group (e.g., executive, activist workers, and union members). 

These preference differences can encourage conflict or agreement when different groups have to deal with each other. 

1) Achievement: getting things done and working hard to accomplish difficult things in life. 

2) Helping and Concern for Others: Being concerned for other people and with helping others.

3) Honesty: Telling the truth and doing what you feel is right.

4) Fairness: Being impartial and doing what is fair for all concerned.

Organisational Values

These four values have been shown to be especially important in the workplace; thus, the framework should be particularly relevant for studying values in OB. Organisational values define the acceptable standards which govern the behaviour of individuals within the organisation. Without such values, individuals will pursue behaviours that are in line with their own individual value systems, which may lead to behaviours that the organisation does not wish to encourage.

In a smaller, co-located organisation, the behaviour of individuals is much more visible than in larger, disparate ones. In these smaller groups, the need for articulated values is reduced, since unacceptable behaviours can be challenged openly. However, for the larger organisation, where desired behaviour is being encouraged by different individuals in different places with different sub-groups, an articulated statement of values can draw an organisation together. 

Clearly, the organisation's values must be in line with its purpose or mission, and the vision that it is trying to achieve. So to summarize, articulated values of an organisation can provide a framework for the collective leadership of an organisation to encourage common norms of behaviour which will support the achievement of the organisation's goals and mission.

Different values required at workplace are:

1) Dedication: How hard an employee works, or how much effort she puts forth, can go a long way. Obviously, organisations want results, but most employers prefer a worker who gives an honest effort to one who might be considered a "natural" at the job, but is otherwise disruptive. Either way, when an employee signs on with a business, she is agreeing to perform her best to help the company flourish.

2) Integrity: An important aspect of workplace values and ethics is integrity, or displaying honest behaviour at all times. For example, an employee who works at a cash register is expected to balance the drawer and deposit the correct amount of money at the end of the night. Integrity in the business

world also might mean being honest when turning in an expense report or not attempting to steal a sales account from a co-worker. 

3) Accountability: Employees in all organisations are expected to act accountable for their actions. That means showing-up when they are

scheduled and on time, and not taking advantage of time allotted for breaks. It also means accepting responsibility for when things go wrong, gathering yourself and willingly working toward a resolution. And sometimes it might mean working longer than planned to see a project through to completion.

4) Collaboration: In almost every organisation, workplace values and ethics consist of teamwork. That is because most companies believe that when morale is high and everyone is working together, success will follow. So it is important for employees to be team players - whether assisting co - workers on a project, teaching new hires new tasks, or following the instructions of a supervisor.

5) Conduct: Employee conduct is an integral aspect of workplace values and ethics. Employees must not only treat others with respect, but exhibit appropriate behaviour in all facets of the job. That includes wearing proper attire, using language that is considered suitable around the office and conducting themselves with professionalism. Every company enforces its own specific rules on conduct, and typically makes them extremely clear in employee handbooks and training manuals.

Five Ways to Live Out Values 

There are five suggestions to live out values:

1) Communicate the Values Constantly: Values should fit with the organisations' communication, both internally and externally. Refer frequently to the values in talks and sermons, in articles in internal/parish magazines. Acknowledge and thank those people who have achieved something which particularly emphasizes the values. 

2) Enrol New Folk: The values should be explicitly available as new members

join an organisation. 

3) Re-visit and Refresh the Values: Re-visit values periodically - allowing

members to update them. This has the power of enrolling those who have joined the organisation recently, and avoids the stated values no longer reflecting the business culture. 

4) Confront Contradictory Behaviour: Ensuring that feedback is given to those who do not live out the values of the organisation. If people are allowed to live out contradictory values, then over time there is a clear danger that these will usurp the desired values, particularly if it is the more dynamic, dominant individuals who are espousing the contradictory values. 

5) Periodically Check-Out with Feedback: Ask people what they think are the values of the organisation - not only members, who may be influenced

by the stated values, but outsiders observers, customers, former members.

Constraints in Practicing Values in Organisations 

It is often believed that people cannot practice the values that they want to because of constraints in work organisations. The following reasons were identified for such feelings: 

1) Lack of awareness about one's own values and practice. 

2) Choices and decisions based on habits, fears, and expectations of others rather than own values.

3) Differing standards for self and others.

4) Tendency to avoid pain/loss rather than actively seek meaning and well

being. 

5) People making choices based on values different from others feeling they are 'alone'.

6) People wanting others to change the system while their own choices support

the status quo.

7) Blindness to group processes and larger entities. People holding incompatible values, often with materialistic and self-serving values taking priority.

9) End values not supported by process values and skills.

10) Unquestioned pursuit of materialistic goals without balancing spiritual goals/ values.