Interiority and exteriority in the workplace : an exploratory journey into the realm of personal, workplace and societal values as they impact on each other

Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between personal and organisational values in business workplaces and in a wider societal context. It does so from the perspective of the researcher as a meaning-seeking individual wanting to make sense of the contradictory situations and tensions in which I find myself. I also seek to understand the values tensions I regularly witness in my professional role as a change agent between organisational members' personal values and expectations and the values that get prioritised in their workplaces. For the purpose of this thesis: PERSONAL V ALUES refer to the values and underlying needs that people bring into their places of work and seek to have met there. These values typically originate in employees internal worlds and are used in a conscious or subconscious way to filter their experiences of their external workplace context. Such values typically include a desire to enjoy work, to be respected, to maintain self-esteem, to learn and have contributions recognised; ORGANISATIONAL VALUES refer to those values that are both espoused by organisations as being important to them, and, those values in use that can be deduced from the behaviours that get recognised and rewarded on a daily basis. Organisational espoused values and values in use are typically different. Such differences however are rarely openly acknowledged. SOCIETAL VALUES are those values seen to be important to the wider society in which business organisations are embedded. These values are evolving and increasingly becoming divergent from the values being promoted within organisations. This gap between societal and organisational values is recognised by external stakeholders (members of civil society) and is having adverse impacts on those organisational members who share society's values and experience their organisation's values to be out of step with these.

Date of Award	2004
Original language	English