Organisational values

Much has been written about how values contribute to organisational culture in organisations across all three sectors (public, private and voluntary). Projecting an image of a strong organisational culture and a sense of shared values has been regarded as a useful marketing tool for organisations (Watson, 1996 cited in Hester et al., 2013, p. 306). In the context of the voluntary sector, voluntary organisations are often perceived to be particularly value-driven.

Organisational values may be similar to the types of personal values you have explored so far such as helping others, showing compassion, making a difference and so on. They are usually expressed in a more collaborative way, such as ‘we believe’ or ‘our objective is to…’ and so on. Just as personal values are the set of beliefs and principles guiding people’s behaviour, this also applies to organisations and how they work in practice.

In theory values guide organisations’ activities, services offered, recruitment and management policies. Statements of values explain to staff, stakeholders and the public what the purpose of the organisation is and what it stands for or what it feels is important. Sometimes an organisation’s values might be expressed as more ‘aspirational’, such as ‘This is what we want to achieve but we might not be there yet.’ Forrest et al. (2012, p. 1) at Cass Business School in London conducted a large-scale survey with detailed case studies on values in voluntary organisations. They found that the words most frequently used to express values were:

• ‘collaborate’

• ‘respect’

• ‘compassionate’

• ‘excellence’

• ‘professional’

• ‘creative’.