Integrating Organizational-Cultural Values With Performance Management

Early analyses of organizational culture used and an approach derived from cultural anthropology to provide guidance for leaders, managers, and employees, but lacked units of analysis congruent with behavior science. More recent approaches identify values and practices, the latter being behavior which can be analyzed. However, the abstract language of this approach limits our ability to set specific performance expectations and relies on post-hoc recognition and reinforcement. This article outlines an approach that anchors performance analysis in the valuable work outputs (accomplishments) produced by behavior, and uses value statements to adjust expectations for work outputs and behavior. With this approach we can define how specific values apply to specific work outputs and behavior, and set clear performance expectations. The author proposes that performance analysis anchored in work outputs may improve our ability to set expectations and arrange conditions for optimizing values-driven performance in organizational or societal contexts.