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International audience; Since the days of Hofstede (1980), cross-cultural comparisons of countries based on societal-level work values have been a norm. This approach has been represented more recently in Ronen and Shenkar’s (2013) 11 clusters of country cultures. However, more contemporary research found within-country heterogeneity of values/behaviors is substantial and growing exponentially across today’s twenty-first century businessworld. We investigated, across a sample of 39 societies, whether work values variance within societies was greater than work values variance across societies, and whether individual work values differences contributed more to predictions of behavioral performance criteria than the society in which the individuals lived. Both sets of analyses addressed how work values conceived at societal-levels are relevant in understanding the twenty-first century businessworld. Our findings revealed first that there was substantial within-society values heterogeneity, which resulted in the failure to replicate Ronen and Shanker’s (2013) societal cluster aggregations. Second, we found individual-level values contributed significantly to the prediction of employees’ behaviors, while societal-level values contributed substantially less. These findings strongly suggest that cross-cultural studies of work values predictive power are most relevant when conducted at the individual-level. Finally, we also make available for future investigators a 51-society database containing 11,780 individual-level records.

International audience

With a 41-society sample of 9990 managers and professionals, we used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the impact of both macro-level and micro-level predictors on subordinate influence ethics. While we found that both macro-level and micro-level predictors contributed to the model definition, we also found global agreement for a subordinate influence ethics hierarchy. Thus our findings provide evidence that developing a global model of subordinate ethics is possible, and should be based upon multiple criteria and multilevel variables. Journal of International Business Studies (2009) 40, 1022–1045. doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.109

Advocates for a social Europe are worried that the accession of ex-Eastern Bloc countries into the European Community would lead European corporations to emphasize a financial orientation rather than a societal orientation. We examined this question in a study of the values orientations of 3,836 managers in 16 countries representing established EU, new EU, and candidate EU country groups. Within-Europe managerial values convergence was found in a relatively high openness to change and low self-enhancement values. However, we found divergent values such that managers in established EU countries were more self-transcendent and less conservative than their counterparts in new EU and candidate EU countries. Implications for the convergence of future values within the Europe region are discussed.

This article presents information about a study done to empirically address the global issue of how men and women differ in their attempts to climb the corporate ladder. Women are urged to be astut...

We investigate upward influence ethics in 35 societies. A global converging was found on the acceptability of different types of upward influence ethics. Differences among the regions, and societies within each region, as well as this overarching trend of consistency, were also found. Additionally, macro-level (economic wealth), as well as the micro-level (egalitarian commitment- conservatism), factors provide predictive power for this model. Thus, our findings provide evidence that a global model should be based on multiple-level variables.

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal- level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual- level make a more significant contribution to explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal- level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. Is the use of societal-level values for cross- cultural analyses both acceptable and sufficient in today’s global economy? To begin to address this question, we examine the extent to which values predict the ethical behaviors of 16, 229 business professionals from 48 societies. Specifically, we conducted multi-level analyses to simultaneously assess relationships at the societal and individual levels of analysis for the collectivism and the individualism values dimensions of the cross-culturally validated Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) construct (Schwartz 1992) with the four dimensions (pro- organizational, image management, self-serving, and maliciously intended) of the cross-culturally validated Subordinate Influence Ethics (SIE) construct (Ralston and Pearson 2010). We begin by briefly reviewing the study constructs and providing an overview of the debate on appropriate levels of analysis for predicting the behavior of professionals in the global workforce. Having thus framed our research question, we present the study methods and results. We conclude with a discussion of reasons why our findings support using individual-level analyses, as well as our observations on future directions in work values research.

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach's α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach's α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. © 2011 The Author(s).

This study investigated the attitudes toward social, economic, and environmental corporate responsibilities of 3064 current managers and business students in 8 European countries. Participants in Western European countries had significantly different perspectives on the importance of these corporate responsibilities (CR) than those in Central and East European countries. Within each country, environmental CR is perceived as most important in both CEE and Western European countries. Across countries, Western European respondents accord more importance to social CR and less importance to economic CR. CEE countries are not homogenous, e.g., CR attitudes in the Czech Republic are closer to that of Western Europeans, possibly triggered by the accession to EU. Work experience (managers vs. business students) influences social and environmental orientations more than the economic orientation for only some countries. Generational differences were found as well: Business students attribute more importance to environmental CR and less importance to social CR than managers.