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Introduction
Understanding the meaning of organizational values and their influence on employee performance is becoming more and more important. Several psychologists [51], [53], [30], have been researching values for decades, both at individual and at organizational level. There is also a view [35] of organizational values that argues that just as any human community has its own value system the same is true for any organization. Taking that into account, we are facing a dilemma, whether [16] organizational values are something that emerges from an organization or are they simply transferred from an individual level to the organizational level by its employees. It is very likely that organizational values develop through a mixture [16] of both. Thus, at the beginning organizational values resemble personal values of the founder or founders of an organization. However, as the organization grows, its values alter in that they incorporate new experiences that bring about new values, thus making an entirely new set of organizational values that are specific to that very organization.
Organizational values are a part of organizational culture [52] and represent [51] relatively permanent, motivational, emotionally positive categories, for which people believe that they are worth aspiring to (love, peace, friendship, health, etc.). Through values we can also see (lifetime) goals, which reflect cultural or spiritual development of an individual or an organization. Boyatzis is regarded as one of the founders of modern definitions of competencies and argues that [9] values are the basis of the definition of competencies. There are many other definitions of competencies [45], [56], [13], [23], [46], [7] in which the following is emphasized: personal characteristics, knowledge, abilities, motivation, self-image and values. Above-mentioned authors agree that competencies develop through time based on experiences people get by performing various jobs.
The concept of correlation of organizational values with competencies is based upon a correlation that is already established within organizational culture, for which we know that organizational values are a part of. It attracts people with similar values, beliefs, knowledge, skills and abilities. In other words, certain competencies have an indirect influence on the development of organizational culture. The motivation for this research evolved form discussion [39] in which tried to answer the question of howto linkand explore organizational values with managers' competencies. It...