ORGANISATIONAL VALUES IN THE FRAMEWORK OF CRITICAL INCIDENTS: WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR VALUES-BASED SOLUTIONS?

According to different estimations, nearly 50% of organisations have defined their core values in the wake of their leaders’ declaration that they would treat values as their primary guide in daily activities. In this article we argue that managing values might in reality be far more complex. Based on 98 cases, this paper brings forth the most common practices that account for either alignment or discrepancies between the outcomes of everyday work situations and the sets of organisational values. Our study reveals a host of reasons explaining consistent behaviour as well as misalignment. The results suggest that, regardless of the type of critical incidents, the cases where solutions to particular incidents did not call for violation of organisational values were typically associated with the managerial level of judgement and, accordingly, commitment from the top. Employees’ commitment to values also plays a significant role, but contradictory organisational values or ill-defined allocation of resources may severely distort it.