Editor’s Note
Prof. Manas Chakravarty, teaches Human Resource Management at Globsyn Business School – which has always been considered to be one of the best MBA colleges in Kolkata. Prof. Chakravarty moved to academics following a distinguished career in the industry culminating in leadership roles. Prior to joining the faculty team at Globsyn Business School, he was the Associate Dean at ICFAI, Hyderabad and Dean at Unitedworld School of Business, Karnavati University, Gandhinagar. In addition to administrative and professional responsibilities, Prof. Chakravarty has delivered executive learning programs at leading corporate houses across the country and has been the program director of national and international conferences. Apart from academic writing, he also has a blog page in the Economic Times.
In common parlance, the term ‘values’ is often used to signify things that are considered to be ‘good’ for the human society. Using ‘value’ as a synonym of ‘good’ is however an over simplification that does not lend itself to intellectual discussions on the subject. A more discerning approach has been taken by the discipline of social psychology. As had been noted in the blog “Human Values – Social Psychology Perspective” published here on 2nd August last year, Shalom Shwartz – one of the most prominent social psychologists of current time – has identified 10 basic values: Benevolence, Universalism, Self-direction, Security, Conformity, Hedonism, Achievement, Tradition, Stimulation, and Power. Each of the 10 basic values identified by Shwartz has distinctive defining goal. It is also interesting that a particular value may be in conflict with another and congruent with some other.
To understand the conflict and congruence between values, it is necessary to first look at their defining goals which according to Shwartz are as follows:
- Benevolence: Preserving and enhancing the welfare of those with whom one is in frequent personal contact.
- Universalism: Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature.
- Self-direction: Independent thought and action – choosing, creating, exploring.
- Security: Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self.
- Conformity: Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms.
- Hedonism: Pleasure or sensuous gratification for oneself.
- Achievement: Personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards.
- Tradition: Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that one’s culture or religion provides.
- Stimulation: Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life.
- Power: Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources.
The defining goals mentioned above determines which values are congruent and which conflicting. If the goal motivations are opposed, then the values conflict but if aligned the values have congruence. For example, ‘achievement’ whose defining goal is personal success often coming at the cost of wellbeing of other people is likely to be in conflict with ‘benevolence’ whose motivation is to enhance the welfare of others. On the other hand, ‘benevolence’ would be congruent with ‘universalism’ which has similar motivation. It may be said that ‘universalism’ is ‘benevolence’ with universal target. Similarly, ‘power’ and ‘achievement’ may complement each other while the relation of ‘hedonism’ with ‘conformity’ and ‘tradition’ could be incongruous.
Though each of the values have distinctive defining goal, Shwartz points out that when taking two of them at a time with relatable motivation, they may be seen as forming a cascading continuum of complementariness as follows: Power and Achievement; Achievement and Hedonism; Hedonism and Stimulation; Stimulation and Self-direction; Self-direction and Universalism; Universalism and Benevolence; Benevolence and Tradition; Tradition and Conformity.
In order to understand the role that values play in the functioning of individuals and institutions, it is necessary to move away from the good-bad binary construct and examine them from the social psychology perspective. To enable students, staff and faculty members gain exposure to all facets of human values including the social psychology perspective, Globsyn Business School has established the Sukamal Dasgupta Universal Human Values Center in July 2024, which provides a platform for informed discussions on the subject.
Prof. Manas Chakravarty
Faculty – Human Resource Management
Globsyn Business School