Can We Extend Schwartz’s Value Theory in Order to Measure Organizational Values? Findings from a Pilot Study

Description

After developing his famous Theory of Values, Schwartz designed the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) in order to measure human values. This instrument measures individual value orientations in terms of portraits of different people. For example, the first item in the female version of the questionnaire contains the following two statements: “Thinking up new ideas and being creative is important to her. She likes to do things in her own original way”. These two statements describe a person who values Self-direction. The first statement describes the importance of a valued goal to the person. The second statement describes the person’s feelings about the goal. Given that Schwartz’s PVQ is designed to measure people’s values, can it be minimally adapted to measure organizational values? We report on a pilot study that attempted to minimally adapt the PVQ to measure organizational value orientations of universities as complex organizations. The PVQ was adapted stepwise and tested in a pilot study by doing a cognitive and standardized pretest at four universities; one from each of the following countries: Austria, South Africa, Germany and Nigeria. Based on the data collected, we tested for reliability and validity of the measurement instrument. Preliminary results show that internal consistence supports the adapted PVQ (PVQ-uni). However, several items are problematic since they do not fully prove homogeneity and/or are not fully independent from respondents’ personal values. Finally, we report on improvements made to the PVQ-uni, based on the results of the pilot study, and present the latest version of the PVQ-uni.

Period	16 Jul 2019
Event title	ESRA 2019 8th Conference of the European Survey Research Association, Zagreb
Event type	Conference
Location	Zagreb, CroatiaShow on map