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The human and professional values of managers: Impact on the profession

Introduction of values:
Values can be defined as the preferred events that people seek based on their beliefs (Sally

Glen, 1999). As defined by the famous social scientist researching values, Rokeach (1973),
Personal values are enduring beliefs that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state existence. A manager is faced with the task of making decisions for the organization based on certain facts or his judgment. What drive the manager to make decisions based on his judgment are his values. Managers recognize that they have to satisfy many demands many of which conflict his human and professional values. Personal values are fundamental determinants of perceptions, attitudes and behaviors. The personal values of a person are based on their family background, education, religion, race and past experiences. These values are unlikely to change over a short period of time. Some examples of personal values are job and monetary security, to be well respected by his subordinates and seniors, to share a warm relationship with the others and to have a sense of belonging with his company to name a few and self respect. (Anusorn Singhapakdi, 1993) The other values that govern the decision making of a manager are the professional values. Professional values are said to grow out of personal values. These values are shared by people of the same profession. People with similar professional education, interests, and experienes may exhibit similar values and attitudes. A few examples of professional values are professionalism, responsibility, honesty, integrity; focus on success, profit, prosperity, relationships, co-operation and team work. (Jozefna et al, 2007)

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Importance of values to managers:

A study conducted on small and medium sized enterprise owners concluded that the personal and professional values, most important to managers were reliability, integrity and honesty, responsibility and focus on money, profit, financial success. Though this does not necessarily mean that, these values were implemented in practice. They felt that if they followed their human values, they would not be able to meet peoples expectation and the company would lose its competitive edge. More than one third of the respondents were willing to give up their values if they could increase profit and gain economic success of their company. However, almost three quarters of respondents would break their personal values in order to save their companies from bankruptcy. Hence the proportion of managers willing to break their personal values to save their company was high. (Jozefna et al, 2007)

Impact on the Profession:

Professional and human values have a big impact on the managers profession. Most of the time, how a manager behaves depends on his personal values. The values of a manager and that of the organization might not always be aligned. Consider the example of a marketing manager, whose primary task is to maximize the profits of the organization through sales growth. If the manager is under pressure to show sales growth he might resort to manipulation of sales figures to project profits which are nonexistent. This might conflict with the managers professional values of maintaining honesty and integrity in an organization but might be aligned to the manager human value of keeping a job and monetary security. The manager might feel that if he doesnt show increased sales figures, it might lead to lose in monetary gain from the company (in terms incentives) or worse being sacked by the company. A case in point is the Satyam fiasco, where the former chairman B. Ramalinga Raju confessed to inflating the profitability of the Company. He did this by manipulating the Balance sheet which was signed off by Srinivas Talluri, a partner of Price Waterhouse Cooper, the auditing firm. Industry experts believe that such a big fraud is hard to miss. There must have been conflicts between the professional and human values of the auditors. The auditors compromised on their professional values of being honest and adhering to the law. There was also some concession on the integrity of the individuals and credibility of the company. The prime accused in this crime

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Mr. Raju, inflated the profitability to maintain the market status of his company. Mr. Raju hailed from a poor family, hence for him monetary security and to be respected were very important personal values. He was ready to bargain on his professional values to avoid seeing the company he had built over the years fail. The above examples are of people who either succumbed to the professional value pressure or who had weak (negative) personal values. There are a number of people who uphold their personal and professional values at the same time. A person with such strong values is Ex President of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam who was also called the peoples president. Dr Kalam stood by his values, refusing to be a dummy President and not go by the government. He refused to sign the office of Profit bill and send it back to the Lok Sabh for re-evaluation. This has hardly ever done by a President. Dr. Kalam comes from a family with strong cultural values and very good educational background, this harnessed his personal values. Managers who have tried compromise on the positive personal and professional values feel that the short term benefits are high but the long term benefits are very low. Richard Sears founder of Sears Roebuck and Companystarted the modern mail order industry, supplying a burgeoning nation with innovative products and building a business that gave employment to hundreds of thousands of people. In his zeal to sell merchandise, Sears occasionally would get carried away with catalogue descriptions, praising products far beyond the literal truth. This in turn led to returned merchandise and reduced profits. But Sears learned his lesson. In later years, he was fond of saying, - Honesty is the best policy. I know because I've tried it both ways. (Ken Shelton, 1998)

Conclusion:
We can conclude that there is a major overlap between the human and professional values of a manager. The ultimate goal of a majority of managers is to attain economic growth and social well being. Managers try to balance their human and professional values to accomplish these goals but this is not always possible. And when this is not followed it results in scams and frauds. Finally a manager should be very clear about his and the companys value to better apply them.

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Bibliography
Anusorn Singhapakdi, S. J. (1993). Personal and Professional Values Underlying the Ethical Judgments of Marketers. Journal of Business Ethics . Glen, S. (1999). EDUCATING FOR INTERPROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION:TEACHING ABOUT VALUES. Nursing Ethics . Jozefna SIMOV, A. O. (2006). PERSONAL AND BUSINESS VALUES IN SMEs: WHAT GENERAL VALUE CONCEPTS DO MANAGERS AND BUSINESS OWNERS OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES APPRECIATE MOST? Shelton, K. (1998). Integrity at Work.

- from (Shelton, 1998), ed. By Ken Shelton.

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