Abstract
The present globalized era is a rapid changing era. To prove themselves, all are running, but running after what nobody knows. But in the event of proving they have to compromise with two values, that is, one is in personal value and other is work value. It is very difficult to keep a balance between the two. The present study tried to find out the same with a sample size of 262 executives from a public sector enterprise of India including male & female and salaried & non salaried spouse. The data collected from the above sample through a tool with the objectives of finding out the difference of value profile between general life and work life of executives and prioritization of each value life. Result shows that there is no significant difference between two life values in the above organization. As far as gender differentiation is concerned female attach more value to general life value than work life value in comparison to the male executives. All the groups gave more importance to work value than general value. But in both the values they prioritize ‘meaningfulness’ component as an important one. So it can be inferred that executives are able to strike a balance between both the value system in work set up or the organization is giving such a culture where general life values are being taken care of properly.
Introduction
In today’s competitive world ‘what is the operational meaning of value’ is a big debate for everybody. When we talk of value is it actually the same thing which gives us a great feeling and lifts up our feeling. The value system which we know, it shapes our life, gives weightage to our life, gives meaning to our life and makes us differentiated from non valued person. But in the present environment there is always a dilemmatic thought in our mind, that is, value stands for ‘money or mantra’. Now this value sounds as philosophy which is good to listen but not for practice. In practice it is money value of everything. When the employer demands an employee with values such as sincerity, commitment, hardworking for his organization, at the same time the promoter also asks them to a give a price tag to sincerity, commitment, hardworking. The price tags which the employer is expecting from employees in work setup are in form of such ‘give business, generate revenue, increase sales, increase profit and so on’. Managers are treated as money making machines where their dedication, relationship, sincerity and hard work score low in measuring scale. He is always sandwiched between the values which he has learned from his family and his surroundings and also the value required in work setup. The result is tension, depression, sleeplessness, job hopping, absenteeism, irritation, low performance and hence balance disorder between work life and personal life. This happens in majority of the sectors but not all the sectors.
Values are considered as desirable states, objects or behaviours serving as normative standards to judge and to choose among alternative modes of behaviour (Schwartz, 1992). Work values, according to Elizur (2004), refer to assessment of the importance of goals in the work context. General life values and work values have been usually investigated independently. Moreover conceptualization and investigation of values and work values were made separately by different groups of Organizational Behaviour scientists.
A definitional framework which integrates life and work values was suggested by Elizur (2004) and tested on five independent samples. Three basic facets were distinguished: value modality (affective, cognitive and instrumental), focus (focused and diffused) and life area (work and life in general). The various elements of each facet appear in combination with the elements of other facets.
The study of personal values and work values is important because these values help influence executives’ perceptions of the situations and problems they face. They play a principal role in determining how executives evaluate information and select between feasible alternatives i.e.,
Achieving the desired ‘fit’ between the person and the job is not always easy. It requires special attention and consistent effort on the part of managers. Rao (1990) states to develop strong and desired values among employees, three things are required such as clarification and communication of value, train and develop value, reward and reinforce value in managers. As per Pareek (2008) the Indian society exhibits certain cultural components and dominant values such as Karta, relationship, proximity to power, security, simple living and high thinking and karma. Similarly people from different cultures show different core values such as Americans are dominated by competition, risk taking, material possessions and freedom. Japanese are dominated by group harmony and the value of belonging in general life. Arabians are dominated by reputation, family security, religious belief and social recognition (Elashmawl & Harris, 1998).
Literature reveals that several studies in recent years have focused on the subject of values as a general human property. However, interest in the subject of human values of managers has been centered primarily on private managers. Little attention has been given to the study of public managers’ values especially in the Indian context. In addition, much of what exists on the values of public managers is of an impressionistic nature and is often based on a manifestation of preconceived ideas and interpersonal bias. This neglected dimension of the values of organizational actors in the public sector has created a ‘theoretical gap’ in the field of managerial behaviour.
Since the public sector enterprises in India are equal opportunity employers, it is pertinent to also examine the value profiles in terms of genders and also to analyze if any differences do exist in the value profiles of males and females.
Against this backdrop, the present research study was planned. The main objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between life and work values of public sector executives in India by analyzing the value profile of same.
Objectives
The objectives of the research are to:
To identify the different facets in value profile of executives in public sector enterprises To analyze the relationship and congruence between general life values and work values To examine the extent of parity of work values between genders in an occupational setting To investigate if there is any difference in hierarchy of values between executives having salaried spouses and executives having non-salaried spouses and if any difference exists, the extent of the same.
Methodology
Above study is based on descriptive design where samples were collected through stratified sampling technique. 262 executives from the level of junior manager to the level of general manager in public sector enterprises—mostly integrated steel plants which are units of a Maharatna public sector enterprise of Government of India. The information regarding various variables of general life value and work life value were collected from respondents for their value profile. The information was obtained from the respondents through a structured questionnaire developed by Elizur (2004) and adapted based on the literature survey and considering the work environment in these public sector enterprises. The questionnaire was administered personally and by email. 68 executives responded via email to the questionnaire. The questionnaire contained 18 aspects each for general life values (meaningfulness in life, self-fulfilment, contribution to society, happiness, love, friendship, quality of life, economic security, success in life in terms of social status, doing interesting things, being responsible, being independent, feeling satisfied with my life, recognition in the society, having good friends, comfortable living conditions being healthy, being rich) and for work values (fair and supportive superior(s), receiving a high salary, independence in my activities, comfortable work conditions, performance recognition, quality of work life, safety at work, meaningful work, job security, being responsible for my work, happiness at work, success at work, good human relations at work, work contribution to society, feeling satisfied with my work, doing interesting work, career advancement, creativity at work). The respondents were asked to indicate the extent of importance for them of each of the aspect described on a six-point (6 denotes the most and 1 the least importance) Likert-type scale.
The distribution of the respondents is as shown in Table 1.
Distribution of the Respondents
Results and Discussion
The data collected from the study was analyzed with the help of descriptive analysis, T test.
General Life Values of PSE Executives
The descriptive statistics for all the 262 responses are shown in Table 2.
It is interesting to observe that the mean values of all the variables are above 3.4 in a scale of 1 to 6. Many of the variables are rated above 4 reflecting the importance of the aspect of the value to the executives. The minimum score is observed in the variable ‘Recognition in the society’. Table 2 indicates that the executives valued ‘meaningful life’ most. They seemed to attach lesser importance to the value of doing ‘interesting things’ and ‘contribution to the society’. The responses hinted that the executives, in general, preferred ‘economic security’, ‘happiness’, ‘being healthy’ and having ‘peace of mind’. Interestingly, the variable ‘being rich’ has got the highest standard variation value reflecting a relatively higher variation in the opinion of the respondents.
Descriptive Statistics—General Life Value
Work Life Values of PSE Executives
The descriptive statistics for all the 262 responses are shown in Table 7. It is interesting to observe that the mean values of all the variables are above 3.4 in a scale of 1 to 6. Many of the variables are rated above 4.7 reflecting the importance of the aspect of the value to the executives. The minimum score is observed in the variable ‘work contribution to society’. Table 2 indicates that the executives valued ‘being responsible for my work’ and ‘safety at work’ the most, considering the nature of the jobs and the production scale of the enterprises and also the special thrust given by the respective management for accident free production. They seemed to attach lesser importance to the value of ‘creativity at work’. The responses hinted that the executives, in general, preferred ‘fair and supportive superior’, ‘performance recognition’, ‘quality of work life’, ‘meaningful work’, ‘job security’ and ‘feeling satisfied with my work’. All these variables have a high value of greater than 4.7. Interestingly, the variable ‘creativity at work’ has got the highest standard variation value reflecting a relatively higher variation in the opinion of the respondents. The variable ‘success at work’ has got the lowest standard deviation value indicating a relatively higher uniformity in the opinion of the respondents.
Comparison of all Aspects of Life in General and Work Life in Particular
Figure 3 illustrates the relative importance of different aspects of general life values for all executives, male executives, female executives, and executives with salaried spouse, executives with non-salaried spouse and male executives with salaried spouse.
Descriptive Statistics—Work Life Value
Figure 4 illustrates the relative importance of different aspects of work life values for all executives, male executives, female executives and executives with salaried spouse, executives with non-salaried spouse and male executives with salaried spouse.
Comparison of all Aspects of Life in General
Comparison of all Aspects of Life in Work Life
Priority of Value Aspects of General Life and Work Life
Table 6 lists the high priority and low priority aspects of general life value and work life value of executives, male executives, female executives male executives with salaried spouse, male executives with non-salaried spouse and executives who have salaried spouse.
Priority of Value Aspects of General Life and Work Life
Summary of Average Means
From Table 7, it can be concluded that:
All executives, in general, attach higher importance to work life values than general life values. Male executives, specifically, attach more importance to work life values than general life values. Female executives, specifically, attach almost equal importance to work life values and general life values. Male executives with salaried spouse, specifically, attach more importance to work life values than general life values. Male executives with non-salaried spouse, specifically, attach higher importance to work life values than general life values. Executives with salaried spouse specifically, attach slightly higher importance to work life values than general life values.
The Work Life Values of PSE Executives
Average Means of Value Aspects of General Life and Work Life
From Table 7, it can be concluded that:
Almost all the groups of executives have given importance to meaningfulness, happiness and at end peace of mind in their personal/general life. They don’t want anything (e.g., money, power) at the cost of peace of mind and happiness. For them value is ‘mantra’ not money. It is also found out that all most all groups of executives have given importance to meaningfulness, responsibleness and safeness in their work life in comparison to creativity and interesting work in work set up.
Therefore, it can be summed up that:
Female executives attach more importance to personal life values in comparison to work values as compared to their male counterparts in occupational domain. Executives with non-salaried spouse attach lesser importance to personal life values in comparison to work values as compared to their executives with salaried spouse counterparts in occupational domain. As far as priority level is concerned in both lives almost all groups have given importance to ‘meaningfulness’. There is no much difference between two life’s priorities.
Paired Sample Test
T-Test
T-test is carried out to find the difference between the aspects of general life value and work life value. This is a univariate hypothesis test using the t-distribution, which is used when the standard deviation is unknown. Paired sample t-test is a statistical technique that is used to compare two population means in the case of two samples that are correlated.
Since p-value is 0.864, there exists no significant difference between general life value and work life value of executives of Indian public sector enterprises. It means whatever value system an employee is learning from his life he is able to keep them intact in work set up. They do not have to sacrifice their personal value for the sake of performance and earning money.
Conclusion
Values serve as the guiding principles in everyone’s life . The case with executives and specifically with executives of public sector enterprises is no exception. Only the dimensions and aspects of values may vary from setting to setting.
In the setting of Indian public sector enterprises, the study has identified the different dimensions in general life value profile and work life value profile of executives. It has analyzed the relationships and congruence between general life values and work values. It has also examined the extent of parity of work values between genders and between executives having salaried spouses and executives having non-salaried spouses.
Descriptive statistical analysis was used to identify the aspects which had high priority and low priority in the general life value profile and work value profile of Indian public sector executives. For general life values of PSE executives, the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘recognition in the society’. Also, the analysis indicated that the executives valued ‘meaningful life’ most. Interestingly, the opinion of the respondents with respect to ‘being rich’ had a high variation. For general life values of male executives, the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘recognition in the society’. Also, the analysis indicated that the male executives valued ‘meaningful life’ the most. For general life values of female executives, the minimum score, a very low score of 2.9, was observed in the variable ‘being rich’. The analysis indicated that the female executives valued ‘happiness’ most. For general life values of executives with salaried spouse the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘being rich’ and maximum in ‘meaningful life’. For general life values of executives with non-salaried spouses, the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘contribution to the society’ and maximum in ‘meaningful life’. For general life values of male executives with salaried spouses the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘being rich’. The analysis indicated that these executives valued ‘meaningful life’ and ‘peace of mind’ most. Interestingly, the variable ‘being rich’ has got the highest standard variation value reflecting a relatively higher variation in the opinion of the respondents.
For work life values of PSE executives, the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘work contribution to society’. And maximum score for ‘being responsible for my work’ and ‘safety at work’ .This could be attributed to the nature of the jobs and the production scale of the enterprises and also the special thrust given by the respective management for accident free production. For work life values of male executives, the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘work contribution to society’ and the maximum score in ‘job security’. The variable ‘safety at work’ has got the lowest standard deviation value indicating a relatively higher uniformity in the opinion of the male respondents. For work values of female executives, the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘receiving a high salary’ and maximum scores in ‘being responsible for my work’ and ‘safety at work’. For work life values of executives with salaried spouses the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘receiving a high salary’ and maximum in ‘being responsible for my work’ and ‘safety at work’. For work values of executives with non-salaried spouses, the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘work contribution to society’. The analysis indicated that the executives valued ‘job security’. For work values of male executives with salaried spouses the minimum score was observed in the variable ‘receiving a high salary’ and maximum in ‘being responsible for my work’ and ‘career advancement’.
In brief, the descriptive analysis indicated that the female executives attached more importance to personal life values in comparison to work values as compared to their male counterparts in occupational domain and the executives with non-salaried spouse attached lesser importance to personal life values in comparison to work values as compared to their executives with salaried spouse counterparts in occupational domain.
The findings of the descriptive analysis and the T-test significantly indicated that there exists no significant difference between general life value and work value of executives. This seems to be congruent with what Sinha (1991) observed. Since it is a very old public sector the difference is not significant but if it would have been a case of new public sector or private sector then the scenario would have been different. In private sector ‘meaningfullness life’ and ‘being rich’ is not possible. So comparison between private and public could have given a better result which is also a limitation of this study. The sample size could have been more to generalize the findings to a bigger population which is another limitation.