Abstract
Organizational success factors and thus competitiveness depend on humans, whose behavior depends on their knowledge, values, and circumstances, which also depend on knowledge, values, and circumstances of other humans involved, via organizations or individually. The three selected and briefed typologies of values are more complementary than competing alternatives, since they depend on authors' selected research viewpoints. They neither reflect nor oppose social responsibility. The fourth selected viewpoint covers the process of values' influence on human work/activity. Being based in the dialectical systems theory stressing interdisciplinary creative cooperation aimed at humans' requisite holism, this approach stresses interdependence and holism, which can be attained by responsible persons only. Thus, the values of (individual, corporate, or societal) social responsibility reflect systems approach and behavior that is critical for competitiveness in the contemporary times of Industry 4.0.
TopTheoretical Backgrounds On Values
Already in 1961 Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck introduced Values Orientation Theory. Their research of values in a describing and generalizing way suggested paying attention to five humankind’s universal problems. They claimed that societies rank these problems in different orders of importance. Their research on different societies’ solutions of these problems resulted in societies’ values orientation profiles. Kluckhohn’s and Strodtbeck’s (1961) values orientation theory comprises:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Industry 4.0: Refers to the fourth Industrial Revolution that focuses on interconnectivity, automation, machine learning and real-time data, mostly in engineering terms.
Success Factors: Factors that influence the greater likelihood of good organizational performance.
Competitiveness: The way to achieve the organization’s advantage over other competitors.
Requisite Holism: Necessary and sufficient holism, because complete holism due to the natural limitations of everything and everyone is not possible. One’s limitation to a single viewpoint makes a fictitious holism.
Interdependence: The realization that we are need each other due to our differences and not independent of each other. Every action affects every one of us, including the one of organizations.
Values: Something that means a lot to you, which you do not give up easily. Organizational values define the “range” of thinking and emotions, developing and operating the company. They are the background of the culture.
Social Responsibility: The belief that organizations and humans must take care of society and the planet Earth in addition to profit.
Culture: The totality of material and immaterial creations of mankind. The culture of an organization represents a way of working in an organization and reflects the culture of the environment in which the organization operates, expressed in the prevailing habits and criteria of right and wrong.
Innovation: Any material and non-material novelty that a user considers to be a new source of their benefit.