Investigating the Impact of Personal Values on Organizational Values

This research report delves into the intricate relationship between personal and organizational values, examining how individual beliefs align with organizational culture and standards. It addresses the research problem of matching personal values with organizational values to enhance employee performance and create a better working environment. The literature review defines values, personal values, and organizational values, highlighting the importance of value congruence. The report discusses how personal values are influenced by family, peers, and experiences, and how organizational values shape decision-making processes. Furthermore, it explores the link between personal values and the Big Five personality traits, including agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, and how these traits relate to leadership abilities. Ultimately, the research aims to understand the impact of aligned values on ethical behavior and organizational commitment.

Running head: RESEARCH 0
BUSINESS RESEARCH
Matching the personal and the organizational values

RESEARCH 1
Abstract:
In this theoretical research, the major focus is on the personal values and the organisational
values of the people. This research has been conducted in order to analyse the links between the
personal values of the person and the organisational values of the person and their impact of each
other. The research initiates with the discussion of the research problem and the questions that
provides the base to conduct the research. The literature part of the research provides the
information about the previous researches on the topic and also provides the theoretical
knowledge about the topic.

RESEARCH 2
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................................1
Research problem:......................................................................................................................................1
Research questions:....................................................................................................................................2
Literature review:........................................................................................................................................2
Research variables.......................................................................................................................................6
List of hypothesis:........................................................................................................................................6
Research methodology:...............................................................................................................................7
Data collection:........................................................................................................................................7
Interviews:...............................................................................................................................................7
Sample size and collection:......................................................................................................................7
Pilot study................................................................................................................................................8
Ethical consideration...............................................................................................................................8
Data analysis............................................................................................................................................8
Findings:......................................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................................9
References:................................................................................................................................................10
Appendix:..................................................................................................................................................13

RESEARCH 3
Introduction:
Different people have different personal values. There are many factors that have its impact on
the personal values of the people. It has been analysed that personal values develop the nature
and behaviour of the personal and also form the basis of how the person deals with the things in
different haze of life (Kolodinsky, Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2008). Not only in the personal life
but the people behaves differently at the organisations as well. This may be because of their
nature and background that is supported by their personal values. Thus, it can be said that
personal values may somehow affect the behaviour of the person at the organisations. This is the
research that provides us to analyse the relationship between the personal and the organisations
values and how it can be matched to management the people at the organisations (Van den
Broeck, Vansteenkiste, Lens and De Witte, 2010).
Research problem:
This is the part of the research that describes the problem that is basis of the research, as far as tis
research is considered, it has been analysed that the topic of the research is reeled to the personal
and the organisational values of the people. The research problem in this topic is that about the
issues that the individuals or the managers of the organisations face in order to match t personal
values of the employee with their organisational values, it has been assumed that matching both
the values help the employees to perform better and also help in creating better working
environment (Suar and Khuntia, 2010).
Research questions:
This is the part of the research that discusses about the questions that needs to be answered after
conducting this research. Some of the questions are:
1. What are the personal values and organisational values?
2. How these values are related to each other?
3. How they can help in developing better working environment?

RESEARCH 4
Literature review:
What are values?
Values can be defined as the standards and principle of the person that he or she follows during
his or her lifetime. These values help in guiding the individual to make decisions in their life
(Zou, Tam, Morris, Lee, Lau and Chiu, 2009). Every situation that comes in front of the
individual is somehow similar as they survive the similar phases of life; it is their values and
their behaviour that makes the difference at the time of handling such situations (Ballout, 2007).
Thus values act as the very important part that plays an important role in framing the behaviour
of the individual and helping him or her making any kind of judgments (von Collani and
Grumm, 2009).
Personal values:
Personal values are the values that have been defined as the principle of the individual at their
personal level. These values are developed during the growing stage of the individual. When an
individual takes birth, family plays an important role in developing values amongst the child
(Schwartz, 2012). The next step is school, where the teacher and the peers or the other classmate
develop so kinds of values amongst the child (Hoffman, Bynum, Piccolo and Sutton, 2011).
Later the stage has come where the peers or the colleagues at the organisations helps the
individual to develop some values (Oreg, Bayazit, Vakola, Arciniega, Armenakis, Barkauskiene,
Bozionelos, Fujimoto, González, Han and Hřebíčková, 2008). These values are developed as the
result of the personal experiences amongst the person. It is not what is developed by them. The
surrounding and the people around the individual helps him in developing different values that
forms his behaviour and provides him the basis of make decision and handle the situations at
times (Resick, Baltes and Shantz, 2007). Personal values of the individual develop and get
affected by different factors such as:
Family: the members of the family are the one how taught different teachings to the children that
remains in the mind of the child for a very long term and may help in framing behaviour as per
the beliefs of the family (Ambrose, Arnaud and Schminke, 2008).

RESEARCH 5
Peers: peers are the one who surround the individual all the time when he stepped out of the
home. It has been analyse that company of the peer and their behaviour also affect the values of
the person or the individual.
Experiences: every individual face different kinds of situations and thus have different
perception regarding single aspect. This also helps developing a value that can be different for
the different individuals (Hafiza, Shah, Jamsheed and Zaman, 2011).
Various scholars have conducted many researches and suggested that there are many factors that
affect the behaviour and the values of the person (Wheeler, Coleman Gallagher, Brouer and
Sablynski, 2007). It has been analysed that when the conceptual framework of values are
understood, it can be the basis of opinions and decisions making of the person. Examining the fit
been the personal values and the organisations helps in understanding the match between the
personal and the organisational values.
There are some assumptions about the values.it is assumed that values of the individual influence
the behaviour and the judgement criteria of the person (Wright and Pandey, 2008).
Organisational values:
As far as the organisations are concerned, it has been analysed that values are the important part
in supporting the decision making process at the organisational level as well (Aggarwal and
Bhargava, 2009). Organisational values can be defined as the set of beliefs that act as the basis of
how the members of the company decisions the gaols of the firm and how they behave in the
organisations during the process of attaining those gaols (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007). The
author argues that culture is very much influenced by the rules and the social standards that are
maintained in the organisations. This also depicts the value of the organisations (Lester, Kickul
and Bergmann, 2007). Organisational values develop guidelines and standards of the
organisation that forms the values of the company (Cennamo and Gardner, 2008). There values
of the organisation act as the factor that has its impact on the workplace behaviour.
Value congruence or matching:

RESEARCH 6
It is the suggested term for similarity between the personal and the organisational values. The
intensity of similarity between the organisational and the personal values is known as fit. It can
also be called as personal and organisational fit.
This is the conceptual model of person and organisation fit. Some of the researchers have
attempted to examine the relationship between the individuals and organisational behaviour
(Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007). It has been analysed that there is the relation or the interaction
between the personal values and the organisational values and the behaviour of the people at the
organisation (Greguras and Diefendorff, 2009). The above figure explains that how the personal
values interact with the organisation in order to be ethical and committed to the company’s
behaviour and standards. This figure shows that how the interaction of the organisational and the
personal values of the organisation results in development of some of the positive outcomes such
as organisational commitment and ethical working environmental and practices at the
organisation (Edwards, 2008). It is not necessary that all the values of the person can aligned to
the organisational values. There can be misalignment between the values of both the parties but it
does not affect the organisational objectives but it can affect the process of attaining those
objectives or gaols (Amos and Weathington, 2008).
Link of personal values with Big five traits:

RESEARCH 7
Big five trait are the trait that are needs to be examined in order to find out the ability of the
individual to be the leader. All these big five traits include:
Agreeableness: Agreeableness is the trait that is related to the person who believes in making
contacts with the people and get along with the people very easily.
Individuals who score high on Agreeableness tend to be good-natured, compliant, modest,
gentle, and cooperative. Individuals who score low on this dimension tend to be short-tempered,
cruel, suspicious, and stubborn. Agreeableness is highly compatible with the motivational goal of
kindness values—concern for the welfare of the other people who are associated with the
individual. Agreeableness is also quite compatible with the motivational goals of conformity
values and of tradition values. This means that the person with traditional values or are agreeable
in nature sticks to their culture and family values and shows the same with the organisations as
well (Cobb-Clark and Schurer, 2012). In contrast, Agreeableness conflicts with pursuing
dominance and control over others, the goal of power values. There are several values that can be
linked to the person who scores high on agreeableness scale such as universalism, transitions,
self-motivated, social, straightforward, power and achievement etc.
Extraversion:
Extraversion are the people who are extrovert in nature that means that have the capability to
speak in public as well as the nature of sharing their opinion with others. Individuals who score
high on Extraversion tend to be friendly, fluent, confident, and dynamic; those who score low
tend to be introvert, reserved, and cautious. Extraversion is compatible with pursuing excitement,
novelty, and challenge, the goals of stimulation values (Fleeson and Wilt, 2010). In addition it,
the active and assertive aspects of Extraversion facilitates the goal of achievement values,
success through demonstrating competence according to social standards. We therefore
hypothesize that Extraversion correlates positively with attributing importance to stimulation,
achievement, and self-indulgence values. In contrast, we expect a negative correlation between
Extraversion and tradition values. It has been analyse that the individuals who are extrovert does
not believe in traditional values. It is concluded from the studies that extraversion is the attitude
or the nature of the people and this is linked with the values such as modern, social, loud,
dominating etc.

RESEARCH 8
Conscientiousness: Individuals high in Conscientiousness tend to be careful, thorough,
responsible, organized, and scrupulous. Those low on this dimension tend to be immature,
disorganized, and dishonest. There are two aspects of this theory. The people who are
conscientious in nature are motivated and have sense of achievement. The values that are found
to be associated with this trait of the person are hardworking, cautious, committed etc.
Openness to experience: It is one of the big five traits that describes the openness of the
individual for different types of risks. It describes the capability of the person to face the risks. It
has been analysed that the people who have the capability to take risks have somewhat different
values the people who do not take risks; they are not courageous in nature and take the steps that
are safe. This is also the behaviour or the characteristics of the person that is against the
traditional values. This is because the people who are capable of taking risks believe in modern
thinking and not on traditional values.
Research variables:
This is the study that focuses on matching the personal values with the organisational values. As
far as the variables are considered, it has been analysed that personal values of the people and the
organisational values are the independent variables whole the outcomes of the fit between the
person and the organisation that is the ethical behaviour and performance outcome is considered
as dependent variables.
List of hypothesis:
H1: personal values affect the organisational values of the person.
H2: person and organisational fit affects the ethical behaviour of the company.
H3: personal and organisational behaviour both affects the behaviour of the company.
Research methodology:
Data collection:
Data collection is the phase of the research in which the researcher has to collect the relevant
data about the research so that the study can be done on that data to find the meaning conclusion

RESEARCH 9
out of that (Gill, Stewart, Treasure and Chadwick, 2008). It is the research that involves two
types of data collection method. The first is the primary data collection method in which the
employees of the companies are interviewed in order to take their views on the topic. The other
method that has been used for data collection is secondary method in which many articles have
been studied to analyse the findings of prior research that has been conducted on the relevant
topics (Peffers, Tuunanen, Rothenberger and Chatterjee, 2007).
Interviews:
Semi structured interviews is the type of interview that has been used in this research. The major
aim of this research is to analyse the personal and organisational fit in the companies and to gain
the in depth knowledge about the values that are possessed by the individuals and their link with
the organisational values, it is required to go with the employees and understand their
perspectives. Semi structured interviews are flexible enough so that different questions can be
asked as per the answers of the person who is being interviewed. This helps in giving the recent
and the actual view of the topic and its associated aspects.
The interview consists of around 8-10 questions and the running time for the same is 45 minutes
for each person. Most of the questions are related to the topic and allow the employees to give
their insights about the topics and what they actually feel at the workplace.
Sample size and collection:
As prior studies discusses about the persona and organisational fit, but it is not discussed the
links between the organisational and the personal values can be linked so that the positive
outcomes can be achieved from the organisation. In terms of sample, it is required to take the
sample from different industries so that the impact of industrial values and the work that the
organisation do can also be studied (Noor, 2008). It is required to study the impact of industry on
the values of the organisations so that the intensity of the organisational value linkage can be
understood. The sample of this research includes 4 organisations from different industries. The
employees selected for the interviews are from different department of the company. As far as
the sample method is concerned, the method that has been used in this research is cluster
sampling.

RESEARCH 10
Pilot study
Pilot study is the study that is being conducted in order to make the adjustments in the research
(Leon, Davis and Kraemer, 2011). It has been analyzed that in this research the researcher have
selected only 4 participants from different industries to conduct the interview so that the he can
cover the whole sample. This is used to analyze the effectiveness of the method used and to
examine the interview question that has been selected to be asked in the interview.
Ethical consideration
It is required to be ethical at the time of conducting any type of research. As far as tis research is
considered, it is the research having a very critical topic that is related to the personal values of
the people. The interview questions talks about the culture and the values of the individual and
thus it is required to frame the research in such a way so that it does not affect the sentiments of
any of the culture or the person. Being ethical in the research helps the researcher to be away
from the controversies and thus helps him to conduct the research easily.
Data analysis
Data analysis is the process in which the data that has been collected needs to be analysed so that
the meaningful conclusion can be framed from the research. As far as the data collected is
concerned, it has been analysed that there are any software available that can be used to sort and
examine the data. NVIVO is one of the software that will be used by the researcher in this
research (Bazeley and Jackson, 2013). It helps the researcher to sort the data that has been
collected for the research. The data that needs to be analysed will be collected from the
interviews of the employees only. This is because the other associated information is being
analysed by the literature review of the articles and the journals that has been studied by the
researcher to understand the prior findings of the research.
Research contribution and gap in previous studies:
The researches that has been conducted related to this topic has suggested that personal values
are very much related to the professional values of the people because their personal values
affect the nature of the performance and their behaviour at the workplace, it has been analysed
that most of the factors affect the professional and personal values of the person but the change
in the nature of the people are personal and professional level is not being studied till now. This

RESEARCH 11
is because; it has been observed that people behave differently in their personal life and their
professional life.
Research limitations:
The limitations of the research are that it does not consider the factors other than the
organisational factors. This is because there are many factors that can affect the alignment and
the management of the personal and the professional values. The other limitation is that the
researcher has used semi structured interview as the method to collect the data. It may act as the
limitation because the semi structured interviews does not allow the researcher to ask the similar
question to all the participants and this may affect the standardization in the method of collecting
the data.
Future research:
The future research can be conducted considering the factors as well such as the personal
background of the individuals and the peer behaviour towards them in the organisation. It has
been analysed that this is the area where the organisations need to make in depth researches
because making the person and the organisational fit is very important.
Findings:
It has been found from the pilot study of the research that 2 of the participants believes that their
personal values are considered in their organisation at the time of making the organisational
values and there is a fit between the personal and the organisation. It has been analysed from the
interview that their organisation is considering the values of the employees and thus having a
great outcomes. This is because of the alignment of the organisational and the personal values of
the people who are working there. Two of the other participants suggest that there is no link
between the personal and the organisational values. Even though the employees are performing
very fine and giving great outcomes. This may be because they are trained to follow the
organisational values at the organisation irrespective of their personal values. They suggest that it