Human Values: Importance, Sources, Types, Framework

Abhimanyu Dalal
MBA Gen - B
haracter,
Definition and its Importance

that makes
Human values are the foundation for any viable life within society: they
build space for a drive, a movement towards one another, which leads to
peace. Human values thus defined are universal: they are shared by all
human beings, whatever their religion, their nationality, their culture, their
personal history.

aracter,
There are values and many sub-values or virtues that come from the
main values. Together they make up the tapestry that forms an individual
of character, containing all that makes a human of character, containing

that makes
all that makes a human being noble, caring and kind.
 What are Human Values

Henderson and Thomson (2003) defined human values as sum

of our preferences and priorities.
Preferences are what we would like to have in our life.
Priorities indicate how important each preference is in relation
to another.
People hold many of such human values with respect to almost
every aspect of their life: personal, work, social, cultural,
political, economic, aesthetic, etc.
When all these are put together then it is called a value system.
Every person has such a system of values. An organization too
has a set of values by which it operates.
 Rokeach (1973) simply meant a value as an enduring belief that is personally or socially
preferable.
As such, values can exist at individual, organizational or societal level.
At individual or organizational level, values act as guidance or standards of peoples
behavior.
They represent the way people think and behave. Values, therefore, contain a
judgemental element in that they carry an individuals ideas as to what is right, good, or
desirable (Rokeach, 1973).
This attribute of values leads to the contention that what is right for one person or group
may not be right for another.
The enduring element of values signals us to know causes, consequences and
implications of values in personal and organizational life. The enduring element does not
necessarily mean that values cannot be changed.
Values or peoples preferences and their priorities, of course, change over a period of
time and for many reasons. Thus, knowledge about values can be capitalized by
managers in order to inculcate appropriate and sound work and personal values in their
workforce.
 What Human values are not?

Human values are not just abstracts or written words. They

must be experienced and lived to have any real meaning.
Human values are not physical objects, for example, money is
not a value, but things it represents are, such as security,
wealth, power and freedom. (Henderson and Thomson, 2003).
Ethics are not necessarily values. Ethics are agreed code of
behavior adopted by a group or associations.
As such, Rokeach (1973) simply notes a value as an enduring
belief. Thus, values are an established belief about the
desirability, preference, and priority of something.
 Importance of Human Values - Why values matter in organizations?

Human values create focus, as they represent our preferences and priorities.
Human values simply express what is important to us in our life and
business.

Human values enable us to understand our underlying motivations, beliefs,

and assumptions behind our decision and behaviors (Gerhart, 2008).

Therefore, human values determine quality of management practices in

organizations (e.g., zero defect, due diligence).

According to Henderson and Thomson (2003), values are the DNA of the
culture of an organization because they provide embedded codes of a culture
that reflect what happens and why. While values alignment or fit may also
lead to better performance, values conflict may lead to better performance in
some situations, another aspect that is explored later in this article.
 Modern business practices such as due diligence, zero defect,
and money-back guarantee would cease to exist without values.
Thus, values determine quality and management practices.
According to Izzo and Withers (2007), values help bring out our
best and contribute to create high performance and high
fulfilment in our work and life.
Therefore, behavioral and performance researchers consider
work-related values as unique human resource capabilities that
can create competitive advantage (e.g., Paine and Organ,
2000).
For examples, cultural group norms may encourage employees
to help each other whenever necessary, personal disposition to
cooperate are influenced by values absorbed from the wider
culture and carried in the minds of individuals.
 Human
Values
Dynamic relationships between values, management practices and behavioral and

Managerial Behavioral
policies and and
practices performance
outcomes
Human values are reflected by: WATCH

Action
 Sources of Human Values

Families, School, Society, Friends, Religion, Books,

Entertainment sources, etc.
The family and society is important in developing the moral
values of child. There is a close contact between the parents
and children, which determine the personality of child. Family is
the foundation on which values are built.
Family plays a major role in helping a child socialize and has
great influence and bearing on the progress of the child. Joint
family system, the presence of elders in the family plays the
effective role in social and moral development of the children.
 Sources of Human Values

In school, children are members of a small society that exerts a

tremendous influence on their moral development. Teachers
serve as role model to students in school; they play a major role
in inculcating their ethical behavior.

Peers at school diffuse boldness about cheating, lying, stealing,

and consideration for others. Though there are rules and
regulations, the educational institutions infuse the value
education to the children in an informal way.
 How Are The Human Values Taught?

There are two main approaches:

The Inherent one
From the surroundings
Thought for the day
Stories
Values based songs
Activities
Silent sitting
There are certain universal values, because ever since human beings have lived in
community, they have had to establish principles to guide their behaviour towards
others.

In this sense, honesty, responsibility, truth, solidarity, cooperation, tolerance,

respect and peace, among others, are considered universal values.

However, in order to understand them better, it is useful to classify values according

to the following criteria:

o Individualistic values
o Family values
o Personal values
o Material values
o Spiritual values
o Moral values
o National values
o Professional values
 Individualistic Values

The most inherent value of a person is individualistic which means

valuing the self over anything else in the world.
This is also the most natural value which is inherent in every animal of
the world.
The animals live for themselves without much bothering about the
other animals. The only exception would be the mother animal which
takes care of her child animal till the child grows up sufficiently to
support itself.
The modern world has been moving more and more towards
 The human specie may be the most powerful specie on the earth but it
is also true that human is also the weakest specie.
The support of family is must for the growth of every human child.
The concept of family has given rise to the family values where a family is
considered to be the basic unit of the society instead of the individual.
In a family system, the members of the family divide their work in a way that
all members perform complementary functions rather than performing same
functions.
The entire system of family value is maintained by tradition and trust.
However, when family values are strong, it results in the reduction of
individual freedom and decline in the individual values. Every person has to
think for the family first and the self as secondary.
 Personal Values

These are considered essential

principles on which we build our life
and guide us to relate with other
people.
They are usually a blend of family
values and individualistic values, and
also depend on our experiences.
Examples of core personal values are
Love, Respect for Others, Honesty,
Integrity etc.
 Professional Values

A society is made of not only families which are natural but also by
organizations which are artificially created to fulfil the specific requirements
of the society.
The government is one of the most important organizations which had been
created to bring order in the society.
There are many other organizations which are run by private persons or bodies
which produce goods and provide service to the people of the nation and the
world.
Every person has to join an organization to earn his livelihood and to contribute
to the society. These organizations need a set of values to keep all members of
the organization motivated and united. Thus man develops a set of values due
to his profession.
Each profession has its own set of values which often contradict the values of
 National Values

The world today is divided into a number of countries and each

country is sovereign and independent.
By virtue of independence, every country develops certain
values which keep on evolving with time.
The values of a nation represent its tradition, history and
experiences of its people since its creation. The values of India
and China are many thousands of years old while the values of
the newly created nations like USA, Israel, Australia, and
Pakistan are quite new.
The national values are often codified in their laws that seek to
grant equality and justice to all its citizens. There, is wide
diversity in these laws as the requirement of each country is
different.
The violation of national values is treated criminal acts which
 While the legal values of a country or society are documented and
enforced, these are insufficient for the smooth functioning of the
state.

The disparity and injustice created in the society is largely reduced

due to the prevalence of the moral values in the society which need
not to be codified in the books.

The moral values are passed on from one generation to another by

tradition. For example, the sanctity of the institution of marriage
in India has kept the divorce rate to the minimum despite having the
provision of divorce in the law books like any other western country.

The moral laws are enforced jointly by the society.

As every man desires to be loved and respected by the society, the

moral values are often more powerful to keep the man on the right
path than the legal enforcement.

Examples- Honesty, Respect for Others, Loyalty, Responsibility for

Personal Actions, Generosity, Kindness etc.
 All values adopted by men create exclusivity in human beings as these values are different for every
society and indeed for every man.

All these values are non-permanent and transient which changes with time and space. The values of the
present generation are not same as the value of the previous generation.

Yet there is some ingredient in all values that never changes. It has remained same in long years of
human evolution. Therefore, often people call such values as spiritual or divine as it never dies and its
origin too is not known.

The spiritual values are often attributed to God and called divine.

It is the nature of the man to imbibe these values irrespective of his religion, race, culture or nationality.

The spiritual values unite all human beings on this world.

The spiritual values can not be eliminated from man and these are universal.

Examples- Love, Compassion, Justice, Truth etc.

 The Conflict of Values

No person can have only one set of values and all human beings are
governed by the combination of all values.
However, the dominating value in every person is different which arises
due to the birth in a particular family, culture, religion or nationality.
The values also change with the age of the person as the same person
transforms from individual to a family man.
When a person grows up and earns his living, he has to work in some
profession where his professional values are developed. The national
values too get ingrained in the person due to the common value shared
by the citizens. However, as the men grow older, they tend to become
spiritual and develop spiritual values.
Thus all values are always prevalent in every society that keeps the
society moving and united.
 The Competing Values framework

Cameron and Quinn's (1988) 'competing values framework' suggests that there are a
range of values and priorities that determine and influence a community's culture.
These influences are depicted across three dimensions:

Using these value dimensions, Quinn identifies four main organisational approaches
that are likely to be evident in a community.
 MODEL 1 OF 4: HUMAN RESOURCES
MODEL
Means: Morale and cohesion
End: Human resource development
Focus: Internal
The human resources model is a
flexible approach that encourages
commitment and belonging
MODEL 3 OF 4: INTERNAL PROCESS
MODEL
Means: Information management
and communication
End: Stability and control
Focus: Internal
The internal process model is a more
controlling approach that aims to
achieve continuity and consolidation
of past achievements.
MODEL 2 OF 4: OPEN SYSTEMS
MODEL
Means: Adaptability and readiness
End: Growth, resource acquisition,
partnership
Focus: External
The open systems model is a
flexible approach that emphasises
growth and expansion
MODEL 4 OF 4: RATIONAL GOAL
MODEL
Means: Planning, goal-setting
End: Productivity, efficiency
Focus: External
The rational goal model is a more
controlling approach that promotes
productivity and outputs.
 UNESCO Framework on Child Values

The overall goal of this initiative is to develop a harmonized

and common framework to integrate values in early childhood
programmes and services by involving different target groups
(including policy makers, community leaders, trainers,
caregivers, families, parents, children).
The following five levels of action were suggested to facilitate
the implementation of the Framework for Action:
Personal level: Adults need to learn to express feelings. Children need
to learn to listen, model, acknowledge diversity, to have time, to enjoy,
to play, feel.
Family level: Parents need to be supported, helped, educated.
School level: Educators need to be trained to take into account
emotional and affective attitudes.
Community level: Communities need to have/create places/spaces
 DECS Values Framework

Goal:
To provide and promote values education at all three levels of
the educational system for the development of the human
person committed to the building of a just and humane
society and an independent and democratic nation.

Objectives:
Proper implementation of the program will develop
citizens who:
1. are self-actualized, integrally developed human
beings imbued with a sense of human dignity;
2. are social beings with a sense of responsibility for their
community and environment;
3. are productive persons and who contribute to the economic
security and development of the family and the nation;
4. as citizens, have a deep sense of nationalism, and committed to
the progress of the nation as well as of the entire world community
through global solidarity; and
5. manifests in actual life an abiding faith in God as a reflection of
his spiritual being.
Principles and Guidelines:
 Australian Value Framework

Care and Integrity

Compassion
Respect
Doing Your Best
Responsibility
Fair Go
Understanding,
Freedom
Tolerance and
Honesty and Inclusion
Trustworthiness
 The HV4K framework is based on a simple
theory that human values can significantly
impact people's lives, especially children, and
can and will change the world for the better.
The framework is made up of three parts: (1)
media development, (2) education in human
values, and (3) academic research.
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http://www.bcny.org/programs/exercise-your-mind/department-of-education-services-desc
Thank you