Institutional Values: The Foundation for Civil Service Change

The U.S. federal civil service system, which focuses on using common human resource management procedures developed through a political process, is disappearing. Since the literature suggests that inclusion of institutional values is key to successful administrative systems such as human resource (HR) management, developers of alternative federal HR systems need to know what values are most important to American institutional stakeholders. This research addresses the question of most important values from the perspective of one key stakeholder—the president. Recognizing that the president as the institutional gatekeeper is the most sensitive articulator of American values, the author uses content analysis of presidential speeches to determine which values the president articulates most frequently. The research finds that presidents consistently use ethics language when speaking to the nation. Performance and support are also regular subjects, but their intensity varies over time. Although presidents showed little interest in leadership language during colonial times, as the nation has aged, leadership language has grown exponentially.