Espoused Organizational Values, Vision, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Does it Matter to Organizational Members?

Abstract

Organizational values are beliefs held by organizational members regarding the means and ends that organizations �ought to� identify in the running of the enterprise. The most basic level of commonality that provides a common identity and shared sense of purpose is reflected in the company's vision. Research suggests that when employees share organizational values, they feel more loyal, committed, identify more strongly with the organization, and are more likely to stay. Espoused values that are expressed on behalf of the organization or attributed to an organization by its senior managers in public statements may be distinct from practised values. While the relationship between espoused values and organizational practices continues being researched, espoused values are also used to enhance organizations' images. Espousing socially relevant values and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining enormous importance today. The main objective of this study was to investigate organizational values (both espoused and practised), vision, and CSR. It also aimed to assess employees' awareness and understanding of core values, vision, and CSR. Further, it also aimed to investigate differences among employees' awareness of core values, vision, and CSR according to gender, age, department, hierarchy, and tenure. The sample comprised 90 executives in one of India's largest automobile company, Maruti Suzuki India Limited. Maruti is a market leader, enjoying a market share of 55 per cent in the car segment. The measures included: (1) Understanding organizational values questionnaire" (self-constructed); (2) Semi-structured interviews with 20 executives; and (3) Document analysis of five years� Annual Reports and Chairman�s speeches at Annual General Meetings. Results showed that: The espoused values were: customer obsession, fast/flexible/first mover, innovation and creativity, networking and partnership and openness and learning. Employees� awareness of espoused values, vision, and CSR was moderate, very low, and fairly high, respectively. Only age and tenure influenced awareness of CSR and one core value, respectively. Older employees had better awareness of CSR than younger employees. More experienced employees were more aware of ‘customer obsession’ as compared to the less experienced ones. Awareness and understanding of vision among employees was very inadequate, with 50 per cent of employees unable to state or explain it. In contrast, the awareness of CSR was very high (95%). A small gap existed between espoused and practised values; e.g., the most important core value of customer obsession was not mentioned by even one employee as important for success in the organization. These findings have implications for making efforts towards value internalization by holding workshops, training programmes and implementing values in performance appraisal systems. It is suggested that CSR be reconceptualized as a corporate social necessity, and may even replace organizational vision as a powerful tool for managing employee-relevant outcomes. It is also recommended that organizations' strategy on CSR must be in line with their core competency to provide them with a competitive edge.