OML 8020 Module 5 Personal Values Seminar Paper: Schwartz's Circle and Person-Organization Fit Example

Benevolence Meets Achievement: My Values in a Culture That Is Changing Around Me

Student Name

Doctor of Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

OML-8020: Seminar in Leadership and Culture: Organizational and National Perspectives

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Benevolence Meets Achievement: My Values in a Culture That Is Changing Around Me

Introduction

The OML-8020 description turns the analysis back on the student, whose own leadership style and values both shape the culture and are shaped by it. This is uncomfortable territory for a practitioner used to analyzing others. In earlier papers I diagnosed the plant's culture and the signals leaders send. This paper turns the lens on me.

Schwartz's Theory of Values

Schwartz (1992) proposed a theory of the content and structure of human values, tested with samples from 20 countries. He identified ten values with distinct motives, which, going around the circle, are self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence and universalism. They are arranged in a circle in which adjacent values are compatible and opposing values conflict. Two higher-order dimensions organize the circle: openness to change, including self-direction and stimulation, versus conservation, including security, conformity and tradition; and self-enhancement, including power and achievement, versus self-transcendence, including universalism and benevolence. Pursuing one value tends to come at a cost to the values opposite it.

My Values Profile

I completed a version of the Schwartz values questionnaire. My highest scores were benevolence and achievement, followed by self-direction and security. My lowest were power and tradition.

Benevolence and achievement sit on opposite sides of Schwartz's circle, on the self-transcendence and self-enhancement dimensions. The tension is familiar: I want to care for long-serving employees while driving the efficiency gains the new parent expects. Schwartz's model explains why this feels like a pull in two directions rather than simply a busy job.

How Values Work in Organizations

Meglino and Ravlin (1998) reviewed research on individual values in organizations. Values are enduring beliefs about preferred modes of conduct or end states that guide choices and behavior, though their effects are stronger when situations leave room for choice. They emphasized value congruence, the similarity between an individual's values and those of others or the organization, which was associated with greater satisfaction, commitment and smoother communication. They also noted that leaders' values can shape what followers come to value over time.

Person-Organization Fit

Kristof-Brown et al. (2005) meta-analyzed research on several kinds of fit at work. Person-organization fit, the compatibility between a person's values and the organization's culture, was strongly related to organizational commitment and job satisfaction and moderately related to lower intention to quit. It was more weakly related to job performance. Fit with the job and fit with the supervisor also mattered for different outcomes.

How My Values Fit the Changing Culture

Before the sale, the plant's clan culture fit my benevolence closely, and my achievement values found room in a growing business. The new culture, stronger in hierarchy and market values, fits my achievement and security values but not my benevolence as well. Following Kristof-Brown and colleagues, this shift may explain why my commitment has wavered and why some long-serving employees with strong benevolence and tradition values are leaving.

How My Values Affect the Culture

Following Meglino and Ravlin and the findings on leaders in module four, my values also shape the culture. My benevolence is part of why the restored picnic and internal promotions mattered to me, and my achievement values show in the targets I set. My preference for self-direction may make me slow to adopt group-wide procedures, sending a mixed signal about the parent company's systems. My low power value means I rarely use authority visibly, which may be read as weakness by German colleagues who expect clear decisions.

Values Across Three Countries

Schwartz's research also shows that national samples differ in the average importance of values. My German colleagues, on average, may place more weight on conformity to rules in a technical setting, while some Mexican colleagues may give more weight to tradition and benevolence toward the in-group. These are averages, not predictions about any person, but they remind me that my values profile is not the default. A plan I see as caring may look paternalistic to a German engineer, and a target I see as ambitious may seem to ignore relationships to a Mexican supervisor.

Feedback From Others

Because self-reports can flatter, I asked three colleagues, one from each site, to describe what they think I value most. Two named results first and care second, the reverse of my own ranking. Their view suggests that my achievement values show more clearly in my behavior than my benevolence does, which is worth acting on.

Leading From Values Without Imposing Them

I do not want to remake the plant in my image. Instead, I will make my values explicit to my team, explain how I balance care and results and invite others to name their own. I will look for ways to combine benevolence and achievement, such as tying efficiency gains to reinvestment in training, which honors both. I will accept procedures where they protect quality, recognizing my self-direction as a preference rather than a principle.

A Values Conversation With My Team

I plan to share my profile with my direct reports at the next leadership offsite and invite them to complete the same questionnaire voluntarily. Discussing where our values overlap and differ may help us understand disagreements that we have treated as personality clashes.

Limits

Self-reported values may reflect how I wish to see myself. Fit research is mostly correlational. My analysis depends on my own perceptions of the culture, which module three tried to ground in data.

Conclusion

Schwartz's model showed that my two strongest values, benevolence and achievement, pull against each other, and Meglino and Ravlin and Kristof-Brown and colleagues explained why fit between values and culture matters for commitment. As the plant's culture shifts, my fit has changed, and my values are also shaping that culture. Naming the tension and finding practices that honor both values is the most honest way forward.

References

Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals' fit at work: A meta-analysis of person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 281-342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00672.x

Meglino, B. M., & Ravlin, E. C. (1998). Individual values in organizations: Concepts, controversies, and research. Journal of Management, 24(3), 351-389. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639802400304

Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1-65. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60281-6