Personal Values of Japanese Business Managers.

Researchers have spent many years examining the Japanese business culture, but there is limited empirical evidence about the personal values of Japanese business managers. The research of these authors confirms some previous conclusions, but also might detect new attitudes in Japan at the dawn of the 21st century.

A value has been described as "an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is personally and socially preferable to alternative modes of conduct or end states of existence." [1] Values are deeply ingrained, stable in nature, and a relatively permanent part of a person's inner self. [2] Business managers, either individually or collectively, make decisions that are influenced by their values. Thus, identifying and measuring the values of individual business managers may be useful for understanding the basis for managers' decisions.

Studying the personal value systems of managers is also important because personal value systems influence "the way in which a manager looks at other individuals and groups of individuals, the perception of individual and organizational success as well as their achievement; the limits for the determination of what is and what is not ethical behavior by a manager and the extent to which a manager will accept or will resist organizational pressures and goals." [3] Because there is limited empirical evidence about the personal values of Japanese business managers, we conducted a study to identify value types of mid- and senior-level Japanese business managers.

Two survey instruments have been primarily used for research studies of values. Most studies have used the survey instrument designed by Milton Rokeach that categorizes values as terminal or instrumental. [4] Other researchers have used the M. Macoby instrument which measures theperceptions of head and heart traits. [5] Researchers Shalom Schwartz and Lilach Sagiv presented a theory about universals in the content of individuals' values and derived ten motivationally distinct types of values, postulated to be recognized in all cultures. [6] Although the Rokeach instrument calls for ranking values, the other two instruments (Macoby; Schwartz and Sagiv) obtain a measure of the importance of the values measured. The Schwartz Values Questionnaire is currently the most widely used instrument for measuring personal values and it examines a greater number of personal values than does the Macoby instrument. [7]