Work values hierarchies: What motivates workers

Abstract

How to achieve a self-regulated and strategically aligned workforce? In the ‘old paradigm’ it would be an impossible quest, as it is dominated by “the assumption of Homo Economicus—a model of people as rational self-interest maximizers” (Ghoshal, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(1), 75–91, 2005). For the workforce to be aligned with the strategy of the organization, human resources systems would deeply depend on control elements because of the insurmountable divergence between the interests of ‘principals’ and ‘agents’, as agency theory tells us. Characteristics of the ‘new ideal worker’ have to be aspirational, but for this ‘ideal’ to drive policies and organizations, people must be convinced that ‘real’ workers are capable of behaving accordingly to those characteristics. This chapter bridges a gap between the findings of psychology and other social sciences and the embedded beliefs in mainstream management theories about workers motivations and work values hierarchies. It presents Schwartz Values Theory and shows how the findings it has enabled in the last decades can open a much wider perspective for a scientifically plausible ‘new ideal worker’, motivated by self-transcendence values, as well as openness to change, self-enhancement and conservation values.