Contemporary business schools are expected to educate their students to embrace ethical and prosocial values. But can business schools rise to this challenge? Comparing a business school to another ...professional school, social work, that encourages prosocial values, we investigated value profiles as reflected in school websites and among their students. The findings show that the business school expresses self-enhancement values (power and achievement) more, and prosocial values (benevolence and universalism) less than the social work school. We further investigated self-selection and socialization as complementary organizational processes that may lead to and sustain the value profile of each school. Our findings show that as early as the first week of studies, freshmen's values are congruent with the value profile of their departments, indicating a value-based self-selection process. To investigate socialization, we compared freshmen and seniors and conducted a yearlong study among freshmen. The findings revealed a small change in students' values throughout their training, providing only some support for value socialization. Altogether, our findings suggest that business schools that are interested in prosocial students should attract and select students that emphasize these values, rather than rely on socialization attempts.
This research investigates how creativity is influenced by externally imposed structure (how structured the task is), internal, cognitively produced, structure (how structured the individuals' ...cognitive style is), and the interaction between these two factors. Reviewing past literature, we find a contradiction. Studies that focused on the situational perspective found that externally imposed structure increases creativity. In contrast, studies that focused on the individual found that systematic (structured) cognitive style decreases creativity. In two empirical studies we investigated this seeming contradiction. We focused on two aspects of externally imposed structure: The construction of the task (Study 1) and the instructions provided (Study 2). The findings of both studies revealed that creativity was higher under structured conditions. We also show that intuitive individuals are more creative than systematic individuals, but mainly under free conditions, where structure is not externally imposed.
This research investigates how the cultural mindset influences problem-solving. Drawing on the notion that cultural mindset influences the cognitive process individuals bring to bear at the moment of ...judgment, we propose that the congruency between the cultural mindset (individualistic vs. collectivistic) and problem type (rule-based vs. context-based) affects success in problem-solving. In 7 studies we incorporated the traditional approach to studying the impact of culture (i.e., comparing cultural groups) with contemporary approaches viewing cultural differences in a more dynamic and malleable manner. We first show that members of an individualistic group (Jewish Americans) perform better on rule-based problems, whereas members of collectivistic groups (ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arabs from Israel) perform better on context-based problems (Study 1). We then study Arabs in Israel using language (Arabic vs. Hebrew) to prime their collectivistic versus individualistic mindsets (Study 2). As hypothesized, among biculturals (those who internalize both cultures) Arabic facilitated solving context-based problems, whereas Hebrew facilitated solving rule-based problems. We follow up with 5 experiments priming the cultural mindset of individualism versus collectivism, employing various manifestations of the cultural dimension: focusing on the individual versus the collective (Studies 3, 6, and 7); experiencing independence versus interdependence (Study 4); and directing attention to objects versus the context (Studies 5a-b). Finally, we took a meta-analytic approach, showing that the effects found in Studies 3-6 are robust across priming tasks, problems, and samples. Taken together, the differences between cultural groups (Studies 1-2) were recreated when the individualistic/collectivistic cultural mindset was primed.
This paper reviews and integrates past research on personal values in work organisations, seeking to portray the role personal values play in shaping the choices and behaviour of individuals in work ...settings. We start by addressing the role of values in the occupational choice people make. We then review research on the relationships of personal values to a variety of behaviours at work. We continue with discussing the multiple paths through which managers’ values affect organisations and their members. In the last section, we address the interplay between organisational levels, and discuss the congruency between personal and organisational values and its implications for organisations and their employees. Together, the research reviewed indicates how the broadness and stability of values make them an important predictor of behaviour at various levels of the organisation. We end by discussing directions for future research on values in organisations.
Creativity is vital in the contemporary business world. Drawing on the culture-as-situated-cognition theory, we investigate how language affects divergent thinking. We study multicultural bilinguals ...(Arabs in Israel) whose two languages reflect contrasting cultural mindsets: individualism (Hebrew) versus collectivism (Arabic). Theoretically, individualism is associated with novel thinking as it encourages autonomy of thought and action, whereas collectivism encourages compliance to social norms. We investigate the impact of language as a factor that may affect performance in divergent thinking tasks through its associated cultural mindset, distinguishing this from the effects of the speaker's proficiency in the language. We expected that individualism induced by language (in this case, Hebrew) would promote greater originality in tasks demanding high, but not moderate, levels of ingenuity. Study 1 (N = 163) induced competing cultural mindsets using two cultural primes-language and task instructions-in a divergent thinking task. As hypothesized, Hebrew was associated with greater originality (uniqueness of ideas) but not fluency (number of ideas); and this pattern is specific to language, not the cultural prime induced by task instructions. Study 2 (N = 137) confirmed that the effect is stronger in tasks calling for greater ingenuity. Implications for language management in organizations are discussed.
Public Significance Statement
Creativity is an important skill for individuals and organizations. Many external factors impact creativity, among them cultural individualism. We expect individualism to amplify novel and original thinking. Using language as a cultural cue, we study Arab students proficient in Arabic and Hebrew and show that, despite being more fluent in Arabic (their mother tongue), they display greater originality in Hebrew (a language associated with individualistic values). This research shows that language is much more than words and sentences; it carries the essence of a culture and impacts performance.
Abstract School vision statements articulate an aspired future state for the school, highlighting its ideals, purpose, and unique aspects to direct behavior and promote motivation and commitment ...among stakeholders. This paper investigates vision statements of schools as artifacts expressing the values emphasized by schools, drawing on organizational literature that shows the role of central organizational artifacts in conveying the values important to the organization. Using a comprehensive sample of elementary schools across all districts in Israel ( N = 99), we built on Schwartz’s values theory to identify values and analyze expressed values. We employed a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze these values. First, we analyzed the content of vision statements to investigate how values were manifested. Then, we investigated the values hierarchy reflected in the vision statements, and compared sectors to identify the impact of the broader social context. Our analysis revealed variation in values expression: as expected, self-direction and benevolence emerged as the most prevalent values in school vision statements; power and hedonism were less salient. Comparison of vision statements from public and public-religious schools, as well as across schools with varying socioeconomic status (SES), revealed differences in universalism values. Public schools and those with higher SES placed greater importance on universalism values compared to public-religious schools. Additionally, tradition values were less prominent in public schools but were the second most significant values in public-religious schools. We discuss the results within the framework of values theory and educational policy.
The present study investigated personal values underlying career-related preferences among young adults deliberating on their career choice. As a fundamental component of one's identity, personal ...values can offer valuable insights into how individuals prioritize their career-related preferences.
We employed two complementary approaches: variable-centered and person-centered, using a sample of 636 young adults (69.5% women; M
= 21.9, SD = 2.12).
Using a variable-centered approach, we identified 14 value-expressive career-related preferences, demonstrating that individuals are less willing to compromise on these preferences than on non value-expressive preferences. Using a person-centered approach, we applied latent profile analysis to identify four groups of young adults with distinct value profiles: (1) growth-focus (n = 212; 33.3%), (2) protection-focus (n = 206; 32.4%), (3) self-focus (n = 122; 19.2%), and (4) social-focus (n = 96; 15.1%). Importantly, the four profiles varied in 18 of 31 career-related preferences, revealing the composition of values underlying these career preferences. Fourteen of these preferences were identified as value-expressive in a variable-centered approach.
The two complementary approaches employed in the present study introduce a fine-grained understanding of the value-expressiveness of career-related preferences.
We investigate how constituents interpret information about political leaders in the course of forming judgments about them. More specifically, we are interested in the intentionality attributed to ...the actions and decisions taken by political leaders – whether they are perceived as designed to benefit the politician’s own interests, or the interests of the public. In two field studies, we show that the political orientation of constituents plays a central role in driving constituents’ judgments about political leaders and their actions (in terms of beneficiary attributions), reflecting an identity-motivated reasoning process. Political leaders of the ingroup are perceived more favorably than political leaders of the outgroup, in terms of trust and a desire to see that leader represent the country in the international arena. More interestingly, constituents are likely to attribute the actions of ingroup leaders as intended to benefit the country (national interests), and the actions of outgroup leaders as intended to benefit the political leaders themselves (egoistic interests).
Being part of a culture means knowing what to expect in most everyday situations –with the implication that something may be awry if unfolding situation mismatches culture-based expectation. We ...tested the prediction that culture-based mismatches challenge people's sense that current patterns (e.g. the color of money, the taste of toothpaste) represent a natural order, calling into question whether social categories have stable essences. To do so, we asked people in China, Israel, and the U.S. (N = 1803) to rate products (e.g., breakfast plates, wedding photographs, Valentines) then complete unrelated scales, randomly assigning them to products that matched or mismatched their respective cultural expectations. Exposure to mismatch reduced psychological inherence –the feeling that existing patterns in the world reflect how things ought to be in unrelated domains and this reduced cultural essentializing (the feeling that cultures have fixed essences that cannot change). Effects were small-to-moderate-sized and consistent across countries.
•Being part of a culture means knowing what to expect in most everyday situations.•People experience cultural disfluency if a culture-based expectation is not met.•This undermines the feeling that way things are now the way they ought to be.•Undermining inherence undermines essentialism and heightens self-uncertainty.•Effects are stable across three countries (China, Israel, the U.S.).
To study value change, this research presents an intervention with multiple exercises designed to instigate change through both effortful and automatic routes. Aiming to increase the importance ...attributed to benevolence values, which reflect the motivation to help and care for others, the intervention combines three mechanisms for value change (self‐persuasion, consistency‐maintenance, and priming). In three experiments, 142 undergraduates (67% male, ages 19–26) participated in an intervention emphasizing the importance of either helping others (benevolence condition) or recognizing flexibility in personality (control condition). We measured the importance of benevolence values before and after the task. In Experiment 1, the intervention increased U.S. participants' benevolence values. In Experiment 2, we replicated these effects in a different culture (Israel) and also showed that by enhancing benevolence values, the intervention increased participants' willingness to volunteer to help others. Experiment 3 showed that the increases in the importance of benevolence values lasted at least 4 weeks. Our results provide evidence that value change does not require fictitious feedback or information about social norms, but can occur through a 30‐min intervention that evokes both effortful and automatic processes.
