A Comparison of the Organizational Values of the World's Largest Companies with the Organizational Values of Large Croatian Companies: A Balanced Approach

This research identifies the current practice in managing organizational values in the largest companies at the global level and compares these results with a sample of Croatian companies. In doing so, the key question examined is whether contemporary companies are developing balanced organizational values, meaning that they evenly promote different categories of values aimed at satisfying the interests of different stakeholders at the same time. To answer that question, we considered Schwartz's values model and the Competing Values Framework – two of the most influential approaches that consider balanced values in modern business literature – as well as one of the newest approaches, the Mission-based model of organizational values. Using a sample of Fortune 100 companies, the most relevant list of world's largest companies, the espoused organizational values of these companies were identified using the content analysis method, the most commonly used method for mapping espoused values. The espoused values of Fortune 100 companies were identified, and each specific identified value was then classified into a specific category of values according to the three aforementioned value models. Our findings indicate current trends in the field of managing organizational values from the perspective of different value categories, thus questioning the importance of developing balanced values in contemporary global business environment. At the same time, we conducted a study of 24 large Croatian companies to identify actual (attributed) organizational values of these companies. A total of 813 employees filled out the questionnaire. After identifying specific attributed organizational values in observed Croatian companies, these values were also classified according to the three aforementioned value models. Finally, the paper presents a comparison of the espoused organizational values of world's largest companies with the attributed organizational values of large Croatian companies, all based on three different value models. The results suggest that regardless of the approach used for comparison of the two observed samples, there is a significant difference in the structure of organizational values among them. This distinction suggests that the world's largest companies declaratively promote essentially different business principles than those dominantly present in the largest Croatian companies. Considering the relatively high uncompetitiveness of the Croatian economy in the global environment, perhaps it is finally time to pay more attention to the management of values in Croatian companies. In doing so, the world's largest (and in general most successful) companies could serve as an excellent example.