Organization's value communication strategies from a human resource management perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the methods organizations use to communicate their values to employees, and to determine the extent of their ef- fectiveness, thereby revealing how values are incorporated in the roles of em- ployees from a human resource management perspective. The study was con- ducted with managers and executives in four organizations, of different sizes and economic sectors, throughout the United States and Finland. The research consisted of interviews that aimed to reveal the specific strategies of how values are communicated to employees at different organizations, and to discover what strategies were most effective and why. The findings of the study revealed many different value communication strategies that organizations possess, the most effective being creating a call-out culture and leadership. Further, there were significant factors that determined how effectively values were communicated, such as the size of the organization, nature of the mission, and the extent of value congruence between employees and the organization. The findings suggested that while all organizations at- tempt to communicate their values, the extent to which they are communicated effectively, varies between organizations. The research project concluded that while values have the potential to provide a valuable reference for HRM, the implementation and consistency needed for value communication, is difficult to achieve for certain organizations.