Knowledge and Process Management

Volume 21 Number 3 pp 159166 (2014)

Published online in Wiley Online Library
(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1447

Special Issue Article

An Analysis of the Organizational Core

Values of the Worlds Most Admired
Companies
Maria Assunta Barchiesi* and Agostino La Bella
Department of Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Despite the importance of the ethics and values for the design and implementation of managerial practices, there has
been little effort to analyze the core values of the companies that act in the international arena from the point of view
of their impact on the business performance. To that end, we examined the value statements of the companies that
have kept their place within the top 50 of the worlds most admired companies rankings, made by the authoritative
business magazine Fortune, from 2009 to 2013. We have identied ve independent core value orientations: to
customer/user, to employees, to economic and nancial growth, to excellence, and to social responsibility. Our analysis highlights the strict relation between high revenues, global admiration, and social-responsibility-oriented core
values. Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION
Latest business scandals (e.g., Enron, WorldCom,
Global Crossing, Arthur Andersen, AIG Insurance,
and Fannie Mae) and ethical managerial lapses have
re-heightened the need for ethics and core values in
business practice (Williams, 2011; Childs, 2012). As
a number of theorists have argued, there is evidence
that companies irresponsible conduct is wrong not
just in ethical terms but also in terms of nancial
returns (Gustafson, 2013; Frooman, 1997). And that
not only because customers pay an increasing attention to the several impacts of organizations activities but also because the awareness of the needs of
a wider range of stakeholders is the basis for better
long-term strategies, compelling rms to pay attention to factors and variables that would have been
otherwise neglected, but that in the long run may
turn very inuencing on the business. Moreover,
all stakeholders expect companies to develop capabilities to sustain themselves through future time,
while contributing to the improvement of society
(Cohen, 2010; Florea et al., 2013). As a result, in order to achieve sustainable and enduring competitive advantages, ethical and socialenvironmental
*Correspondence to: Maria Assunta Barchiesi, Department of
Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del
Politecnico 1, 00133 Rome, Italy.
E-mail: maria.assunta.barchiesi@uniroma2.it

Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

issues should be integrated with all companies core

business activities (Orlitzky et al., 2011; Calabrese
et al., 2013a; 2013b). It is a concept far from the mere
reconciliation of ethics and business: It involves the
conceptual spheres of the role of corporations in society, their identity, and reputation.
Nevertheless, despite the interest that both scholars
and the general public have demonstrated with respect to a more ethical approach to business, it appears
that most rms do not put the social responsibility
concept at the core of their concern, and even consider
this matter as a source of additional costs and therefore
as a hindrance to reach a more competitive asset. A research from Cooper et al. (2001) shows that large rms
are concerned with a wide range of stakeholders, but
not very concerned with respect to environment, society, and what the other rms in their supply chain are
doing. Above all, most attention is reserved to shareholders, implying a focalization on short-term return
rather than on sustainability.
On the contrary, each company ought to rethink
itself according to a social actor conception (Whetten
and Mackey, 2002), enlightening in its core value statements how it would effectively contribute to the sustainable development of both business and society.
Following this lead, in our paper, we investigate how
deeply social responsibility is rooted in the core values
of the worlds most admired companies.
The paper is organized as follows. In the next section,
a critical review of conceptual issues in stakeholder

160

M. A. Barchiesi and A. La Bella

theory and corporate social responsibility (CSR)

principles is discussed, and then in the Section on
Organizational Core Value Orientations, we propose
a taxonomy of organizational core value orientations. The Core Value Orientations of Worlds Most
Admired Companies Section is devoted to analyze
the value statements of the companies that stayed
within the top 50 of the worlds most admired companies rankings, made by the authoritative business
magazine Fortune, from 2009 to 2013. In the Section
on Discussion and Managerial Implications, we
discuss the results and provide some managerial
hints. Finally, in the Conclusions Section, we provide
conclusions.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND DEFINITIONAL

ISSUES
As we shall see, social responsibility plays a key role
as an underlying guide to many companies that
achieved recognized excellence in their elds of activity. This fundamental concept can be traced back
to the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau
and his book on the Social Contract (1762), in which
he stressed the idea of a pact among all members
of a society to safeguard the greater good and the
well-being of the community. In 1954, Drucker
underlined the social role of enterprises and of their
management: According to him, it is important to
consider the impact of every business decision in
order to promote the public good and to contribute
to society strength and harmony. Recently, a similar
concept has been used to account for the relationships between a company and society: The company
must assume obligations toward all its stakeholders
in return for its rights to operate and grow (Christie
et al., 2013). The stakeholder theory, introduced by
Freeman (1984), states that any organization must
consider in the decision-making process all impacts
that the organization activities may have on individuals, environment, government, and more generally
on the various components of the social context

(Figure 1). This should happen not only because it

is moral and ethical but also because it improves economic performance and therefore actually benets
the company and its shareholders.
More recently, this concept has evolved into a
broader eld of studies and practices labeled as corporate social responsibility (Garriga and Mel, 2004;
Costa and Menichini, 2013; Global Reporting
Initiative, 2014), which has at his center three basic
principles: sustainability, accountability, and transparency. The sustainability principle expresses the
concern on the long-term impacts of a companys
activity, whereas accountability implies the quantications of all effects generated both internally and
externally, and their accurate reporting to all interested parties, accepting full responsibility for the
consequences of all companys actions. On its turn,
the transparency principle implies a full understanding of the social role of the organization as a
part of a community and therefore that the reports
provided must not attempt to hide, disguise, or distort facts, even if total disclosure may result detrimental to the organization.
Every corporation boasts a CSR policy, and many
produce reports documenting the social balance of
their activities from the CSR perspective. Unfortunately in most cases, social responsibility is not a
part of the core values of the organization, and
CSR reports are produced only with the mere intention to go with the times, thus representing mainly
a cosmetic exercise, aiming at enhancing the organizations image. The transparency principle, instead,
goes beyond the concept of corporate image, because it means that companies have to make their
deep identity, expressed by their organizational core
values, visible to stakeholders.
Indeed, organizational core values are the most dening characteristics of an institution (Williams, 2002),
because they are collective beliefs about what entire
enterprise stands for, takes pride in, and holds of intrinsic worth (Fitzgerald and Desjardins, 2004, p. 124).
They should reveal how people communicate,
explain, rationalize, and justify what they say and

Government

Environment

Other
organizations

Society

The
company

Groups and
factions

Individuals

Figure 1 Examples of a companys stakeholders

Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Know. Process Mgmt. 21, 159166 (2014)

DOI: 10.1002/kpm

Analysis of Organizational Core Values

do as a community (Sathe, 1985, p. 10). Core values
steer organizations perspective regarding strategic
direction, mission determination, and visioning.
They are relatively stable over time. Indeed, when
facing accelerating change, organizational core
values should be the stable anchors for any other
thing in transition. Core values should be the principles and criteria at the basis of individual and group
behavior. They should serve as a glue between
employees, motivating them to high purpose and
giving them a sense of pride about their jobs. Employees ought to recognize them as the governing
ethos of the organization.
In the recent past, because of the onset of numerous short-term focused management practices, the
core organizational values that contributed to organizational purpose were segregated from the business strategic planning process (Williams, 2002).
Although the denition and implementation of the
organizational core values are recognized by international business leaders as a top priority and a vital
inuence on the ethical culture of the organization
(Humble et al., 1994), little has been carried out at
the practical level (Williams, 2011). Many organizations made an effort to dene their core values without matching them with the day-by-day business
practice. Organizations that successfully identify
their core values and align their actions accordingly
gain the admiration of their peers and have a long
track record of making a signicant impact on the
world around them (Collins and Porras, 2002). Indeed, Brown and Logsdon (1999, p. 169) dene reputation as the long-term combination of outsiders
assessment about what organization is, how well it
meets its commitments and conforms to stakeholders expectations, and how effectively its overall
performance ts with its socio-political environment. Corporate reputation reects organizations
culture and values (Dowling, 2004) and improves
the company ability to attract resources, enhancing
its performance and building competitive advantage
(Fombrun et al., 2000).

ORGANIZATIONAL CORE VALUE

ORIENTATIONS
Despite the importance of the ethics and values for
the design and implementation of managerial practices, there has been little effort to analyze the core
values of the companies that act in the international
arena. Nevertheless, it is important to consider
which values are most critical and impactful at work
(Williams, 2011).
Because values differentiate organizations, it is
difcult to directly examine and compare core values
of different companies. Nevertheless, an adequate
outcome can be obtained by examining their value
orientations. Although organizational values are closely
related to the organizational culture (Chatman J. A.,
Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

161

1989; Agle and Caldwell, 1999; Vandenberghe and

Peiro, 1999) and guide the ethical behavior of individuals at work (Singhapakdi and Vitell, 1993; Akaa
and Lund, 1994), value orientation refers to the nature
of assumed beliefs and thoughts determining the fundamental direction of the organization (Wang, 2009).
For example, expressions such as take care of our
employees, we make an unusual effort to identify
and recruit the very best person for every job, and
we offer our people the opportunity to move ahead
more rapidly than is possible at most other places refer
to values that may induce different managerial decisions, but all of them share the same nature that we
label employees orientation,
We have identied a set of ve core value orientations:
to customer/user, to employees, to economic/nancial
growth, to excellence, and to social responsibility.

Denition of customer/user orientation

We label customer/user orientation all the core
values related to a customer/user-oriented organizational culture, in which customer/user satisfaction is for all intents and purposes at the core of
every decision for every employee.
Wordings of corporate core values that may be
included in the set of customer/user orientation
are as follows: we constantly strive to anticipate
the rapidly changing needs of our clients and to develop new services to meet those needs, quality,
service, condentiality, loyalty, passion for
our customers, our clients interest always come
rst, our business is highly competitive and we
aggressively seek to expand our client relationships, focus on the user and all else will follow,
dedication to every clients success, and maintain reasonable prices.

Denition of employees orientation

In this area, we include all the core values related to
a human-resources-oriented organizational culture,
in which each employee is seen as a source of strategic competitive advantage, that is, creative, proactive, and worthy of development.
Wordings of corporate core values that may be
included in this are as follows: a fun and rewarding
place to work, team spirit, diversity and inclusion, human resources, people as competitive
advantage, concern to staff, empowered people,
we are committed to our people, safety and health
at work, and every person, every idea counts.

Denition of economic/nancial growth

orientation
This orientation is dened by all the core values
typical of a culture in which the economic prosperity
Know. Process Mgmt. 21, 159166 (2014)
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162

M. A. Barchiesi and A. La Bella

and the nancial strength are considered key issues

to develop over time by pursuing stakeholders
interest and perpetuating comparative advantages.
Wordings of corporate core values that may be included in this set are as follows: attractiveness for
investors, growth driven, globally oriented, our
goal is provide superior returns to our shareholders,
fair prot for suppliers, we grow our business
protably, co-prosperity, and our shareholders.
Denition of excellence orientation
When core values point to a culture in which all
employees intents and purposes are focused on
the pursuit of outstanding results, the organization
is oriented to excellence.
Wordings of corporate core values that may be
included in this are as follows: a will to win,
leadership, earn admiration, playing offence,
embracing speed and excellence, living the hallmarks of our companys leadership, the dedication
of our people to the rm and the intense effort they
give their jobs are greater than one nds in most other
organizations, its best to do one thing really, really
well, great just isnt good enough, aspire to the
best, execute superbly, build a great and winning
culture, and we strive continually to improve.
Denition of social responsibility orientation
We have a social responsibility orientation when
core values encourage honest and ethical behaviors
in response to social demands, also regarding environmental sustainability and global relevance of
the impacts of organizations actions.
Wordings of corporate core values that may be included in this set are as follows: integrity, good
citizenship, respect our social and physical environment, you can make money without doing evil,
serve our world, we operate our business ethically, we give back to our communities, nutrition,
health, wellness, human rights in our business
activities, agriculture and rural development,
environmental sustainability, water, and love.

CORE VALUE ORIENTATIONS OF WORLDS

MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES
Every year, the Hay Group, a global management
consulting rm, partner of Fortune magazine, conducts an annual survey of 15 000 business analyst,
executives, and directors to determine which among
the worlds largest companies (revenue of $10bn or
more) have the strongest reputation. The companies
are sorted according to a 57 industries list. Nine attributes of reputations are considered: innovation,
people management, use of corporate asset, social
responsibility, quality of management, nancial
Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

soundness, long-term investment, quality of products/

services, and global competitiveness. A companys
score must rank in the top half of its industry survey
to be listed. To arrive at the top 50 most admired
companies overall, the Hay Group asked the 3800
respondents to select the 10 companies they admired
most, from a list made up of the companies that
ranked in the top 25% in last years survey, plus
those that nished in the top 20% of their industry.
Fortune reputation index was criticized by Mahon
(2002) because it mainly focuses on nancial performance from the viewpoint of CEOs and nancial
analysts. Surely, their viewpoint is only a part of
company reputation, because the whole concept
should reect what all key stakeholders think and
feel about it. Nevertheless, reputation is based on
the accumulation and the sharing over the time of
experiences and stories that stakeholders tell about
the company. Corporate reputation attains stability
and structure over a certain period, and it is robust
when each stakeholder is able to recognize and give
the right value to it. Because of this, we decide to
concentrate our analysis on companies that have
been for at least 5 years in the Fortune reputation
rankings, being sure of the fact that companies in
our set have performed high revenues and gained
admiration of their peers for an adequately long period. We do not aim to examine unimpeachable companies, but admired ones, that is, companies able to
meet their commitmentsprincipally expressed by
their core valuesand conform to stakeholders
expectations.
We have identied a set of 37 companies able to
stay within top 50 of the rankings made in the years
from 2009 to 2013. We contacted all of them by
email asking them the statements of their organizational core values. Most of them responded to our
request. For those that did not respond, we autonomously extracted their core value statements from
their corporate websites. We could not nd any
clear core value declaration only for three of them.
Eventually, we analyzed the core values statements of 34 global companies. Of them, 88.24% are
from the USA (we refer to headquarters), only one
from Europe, one from Singapore, one from South
Korea, and one from Japan. As shown in Table 1, because of candidate companies selection criteria for
the rankings, the industries in which they operate
are very various.
Each company may articulate its core values in
one or more sentences. Generally, companies that
pay more attention to communication use simple
and clear words to express them, searching for
maximum clarity in answering to questions such as
what is important to us? which is our philosophy?
and how we conduct business? Most companies in
our sample followed this lead, and we could easily
identify their core values. We labeled them according
to the ve core value orientations described in
the Organizational Core Value Orientations and
Know. Process Mgmt. 21, 159166 (2014)
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Analysis of Organizational Core Values

Table 1

Airlines
Apparel
Beverages
Computer software
Computers
Consumer credit card
and related services
Consumer food products
Delivery
Electronics
Entertainment
Food services
General merchandisers
Hotels, casinos, resorts
Industrial and farm
equipment
Information technology
Internet services and
retailing
Medical equipment
Megabanks
Motor vehicles
Petroleum rening
Pharmaceuticals
Semiconductors
Soaps and cosmetics
Specialty retailers

Pursue excellence

Analyzed companies

Industry

163

Marriotts reputation for superior customer service

dates back to founder J. Willard Marriotts original goal
for his business: good food and good service at a fair price.

Companies
Singapore Airlines,
Southwest Airlines
Nike
Coca-Cola
Microsoft
Apple
American Express

Embrace Change
To fulll our vision to be the #1 company in the world,
Marriott continually seeks innovative and creative ways
to meet the needs of customers.
Act with Integrity

Nestl, PepsiCo
FedEx, UPS
General Electric, Samsung
Electronics
Walt Disney
McDonalds, Starbucks
Nordstrom, Target, Wal-Mart
Stores
Marriott International
Caterpillar, Deere

Marriott International adheres to high ethical and

uncompromising legal standards in every aspect of our
business, from human rights to environmental and
social sustainability.
Serve our World
As a multinational FORTUNE 500 company, Marriott
focuses on ve global social issues: poverty alleviation, the
environment, community workforce development, the
well-being of children, and global diversity and inclusion.
We identied ve core values. One core value is
oriented to customer (embrace the change), one to
employees (put people rst), none to economic/
nancial growth, one to excellence (pursue excellence), and two to social responsibility (act with integrity and serve our world).
Figure 2 shows the relative weight for each orientation. The predominant one is social responsibility.
As shown in Table 2, the selected companies
on the average declare about six core values (standard deviation 2.858), ranging in an interval from
2 to 15.
Even if social responsibility is never an absolute
orientation for the companies in our sample (the frequency of the value 1 is nil), it is the predominant
one (the highest frequency of predominance, median and average values). Furthermore, it is the
orientation more present in the statements of the
companies in our sample (the smaller frequency of
the 0 value).
The orientation less present and never predominant is economic and nancial growth.

IBM
Google
3M
Goldman Sachs Group, J.P.
Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo
Toyota Motor
Exxon Mobil
Johnson & Johnson
Intel
Procter & Gamble
Costco Wholesale

calculated the relative weights to determine the

predominant orientation.
For the sake of clarity, we report the core values
expressions of a company of our sample (Marriott
International) and the procedure to identify the
orientation relative weights.
Marriott Internationals core value statements:
Put people rst
Around the globe, we offer our associates fair treatment, respect, and opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Customer/User
Orientation
0.4
0.3
Social Responsibility
Orientation

0.2
0.1

Employees
Orientation

Excellence
Orientation

Economic/Financial
Growth Orientation

Figure 2 Marriott Internationals core value orientations

Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Know. Process Mgmt. 21, 159166 (2014)

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164

M. A. Barchiesi and A. La Bella

Table 2
Min

Number of
identied values
Orientation
Customer
Employees
Economic/
nancial growth
Excellence
Social responsibility

Max

Descriptive statistics of gathered data

Frequency of
the value 0

Frequency of
the value 1

Frequency of
predominance*

15

Median
value

Average
value

Standard
deviation

5.5

6.12

2.858

0
0
0

1
1
0.3333

7
9
27

1
2
0

8
9
0

0.2
0.16667
0

0.23881
0.22867
0.03665

0.20398
0.24688
0.08061

0
0

1
0.75

13
5

1
0

7
20

0.125
0.36364

0.17374
0.32213

0.21512
0.20184

*When a company has two or more predominant orientations, we count multiple predominance.

DISCUSSION AND MANAGERIAL

IMPLICATIONS
Our study reveals some peculiar aspects of international business practice, which can be useful for prescriptive recommendations to companies that aspire to
gain global admiration and increase their protability.
First of all, the business practice should be
founded on few, but really, really important, core
values. The 82.35% of companies in our sample declare a number between 3 and 8 core values. Because
core values represent the profound identity of an
organization, they must not be too many: They
ought to be intrinsically essential for each member
of the organization, and it is important to not confuse them with cultural or ethical prescriptions. As
a matter of fact, no organizations can have enduring
success without a corporate culture based on a real
interest and a genuine passion for what they do.
Corporate values, which are the building stones of
corporate culture, are therefore the best source of
distinctive resources. Values cannot be articially
constructed, imported, or copied: If they are not
there, they cannot be simulated.
Rarely, social responsibility can be the unique core
value orientation, but surely, it is a strategic necessity.
CSR lapses alienate stakeholders and generate a hostile institutional environment (Werther and Chandler,
2005). CSR should be acted and documented in the
core business of the organization (DAnselmi, 2011):
Each company should enlighten in its core value
statements how it would contribute to the sustainable
development of both business and society.
Excessive focus on a single core value orientation
could not be positive if it is not associated with high
attention to social responsibility matters. Indeed,
only a company among the most admired ones declares to completely found its business practice on
customer-oriented core values, only one on employeesoriented core values, and only two on excellence, while
most companies of our sample (85.29%) found their
business practice on social responsibility together with
other orientations.
Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Indeed, it could be a mistake to address the business practice exclusively on customer satisfaction.
Poor service is not always associated to unfair company practices, but unfair company practices are always linked to customer perception of poor service
(Seiders and Berry, 1998). Moreover, the customer
is not always right: Berry and Seiders (2008) solicited
a discussion on the customer unfairness, that is, the
customer behavior that is devoid of common decency, reasonableness, and respect for the rights of
others, creating inequity and causing harm for a
company, its employees, and, in some case, other
customers. In their opinion, denying the existence
and impact of unfair customers erodes the ethics of
fairness upon which great companies thrive.
Even the exclusive focus on employees could be a
mistake if it is not supported by CSR activities.
Turker (2009) analyzed the impact of CSR on organizational commitment. The results of his study
show that employees prefer to work in socially responsible organizations, and their organizational
commitment level is positively affected by CSR, that
is, by attention on society, natural environment, next
generations, non-governmental organizations, employees, and customers. Moreover, ethical lapses by
employees can put organizations at substantial risk:
Recent changes in regulatory requirements and more
stringent sentencing guidelines demand an enhanced
ethical awareness (Kayes et al., 2007).
Finally, the companies ability to grow and to improve continuously is also determined by its social
competences, ethical responsibility, and environmental contribution. It is undeniable that the concept of
business excellence includes social responsibility
aspects.
The relative low score of nancial return as a core
value does not contradict the obvious fact that corporations exist to produce wealth: wealth for themselves,
for their shareholders, and for their employees. However, top performances arise when this concern does
not prevail over a deeper commitment to generate
well-being for the community to which it belongs. A
company can aspire to outstanding performance,
Know. Process Mgmt. 21, 159166 (2014)
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Analysis of Organizational Core Values

even if young and with very little tradition, only if it
rmly cultivates social responsibility within its fundamental core values and shows its rst commitment to
its stakeholders and its products, leaving balance
sheets in the background.

CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we analyzed the core value statements
of Fortune worlds most admired companies
(20092013) according to ve independent core
value orientations: to customer/user, to employees,
to economic and nancial growth, to excellence, and
to social responsibility. Our study reveals that companies that for a long time are performing high revenues and are gaining admiration of their peers
declare to have founded their business practice on
social-responsibility-oriented values.
As a matter of fact, nowadays people, especially
those belonging to advanced economies, are becoming more and more socially responsible, and hence
becoming generally more sensitive to social and environmental issues. With CSR practices, companies are
able to internalize stakeholder preferences about social and environmental concerns and, consequently,
improve their protability by investing in CSR activities (Calabrese et al., 2013a; 2013b).
All this leads to think that there is a positive correlation between a rms care for CSR and its corporate
performance and that ethical behavior and a concern
for people and for the environment help in achieving
and maintaining a strong competitive position. CSR
can help companies to nd a way to realize real sustainable businesses in view of their central role in
the global economic and nancial stability (Costa
and Menichini, 2013; Macagno, 2013).
Moreover, although all of the worlds most admired companies have been very protable, there
are many indications that their achievements are
mainly due to competence, passion, motivation,
and diligence and that nancial return is not the
most important driving force behind their success.
Indeed, very few admired companies assert to have
founded their business practice on economic/nancial-growth-oriented values.
Thus, contrary to the objections of those who consider CSR both useless and detrimental because it
distracts companies from their primary goal of
prot maximization (Friedman, 1970; Sundaram
and Inkpen, 2004; Karnani, 2011), our analysis conrmed the strict relation between high revenues,
global admiration, and social responsibility.

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