Organizational values expressed in the websites and its relation with corporate branding and social desirability (página 2)

This study follows the line of research of the study made by Blasco, Córdoba and Cornejo (2007) that found in an exploration at the website of 72 companies from 16 different sectors, that the most published values on their web-site were ethics, security-health, innovation, customer orientation, quality and hard-working by this order. That research suggested that companies publish their values in the corporate information of their website, and those corporate values seems to be related with social desirability. It"s suggested also, that there are different values structure depending on the sector of business that the company operates. By the present paper, the contribution to this research line is to analyze in a deeper way two concrete sectors (hotels and food business), by analyzing a higher sample of corporate websites in each concrete sector, and compare the values observed, with the results of a questionnaire of social desirability values designed to explore the priority of the Spanish society, as consumers, about the desired corporate values in the companies.

In the same research line a more ambitious project is carried out. The present paper will contribute on it as a part of that more global research. This is one of the three researches, in which each of them will analyze the corporate values of different subsectors in the same sector. That will permit to make analysis between sectors and inside the same sectors. Specifically it"s being analyzed in the tourism sector from Hotels, Travel Agencies and Leisure & Entertainment companies; while in the Mass Consumption sector it"s being analyzed values from Food business, Drink business and Beauty and Hygiene companies.

It"s interesting to make a review on the scientific literature about the research published around the main concepts of the paper.

Values and corporate brand values

The scientific interest in values started by Allport G.H. in 1928 saying that the real truths and the more enduring values of life are simple and the task of the social psychologist is to teach individuals to examine the ends for which they submit themselves to regulations. Just a few years later Allport and Vernon (1931) built a scale to measure the relative prominence in adult personalities of six universal values. Those values were named social, theoretical, economic, aesthetic, political and religious. Catril and Allport (1933) found in their study of several experiments done with that instrument that there is a clear relationship between values and conduct, that the general evaluative attitudes enter into various common activities of every-day life, and in so doing help to account for the consistencies of personalities.

Rokeach (1971) distinguish attitudes and values saying that an attitude represents an organization of interrelated beliefs that are all focused on a specific object or situation, while a value refers to a desirable "end state of existence" (terminal value) or a desirable "mode of behavior" (instrumental value). Thus defined, a person is conceived to have many thousands of attitudes but only several dozens of values. These relatively few values are conceived to have many of all man"s attitudes as well as his behavior.

Human values are commonly defined as transituational goals, varying in importance that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or a group (Schwartz, 2005). He identified 10 motivationally distinct basic values that are recognized across societies, which are power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity and security.

Dolan and García (2002) define values as words that are relatively simple structures of thought which nevertheless encompass complex ideas about the reality desired by people, and resign its importance at work by the leadership based on values. Employees who are capable of articulating their own values and translating them into initiatives, into creative behavior at work make autonomous, flexible and committed employees. A professional without autonomy is not a real professional, only an operative or dependent worker. The utility of management by values as a tool of leadership has three main objectives: Adapt to the organizational complexity, to share the strategic vision and to develop the employers" commitment.

When discussing values, it is important to distinguish between individuals" personal values and the espoused values that are characteristic of organizational cultures. Whereas personal values involve stable and deeply embedded structures that exist within individuals and are not necessarily conscious, espoused values are articulated, publicly announced principles and values that the group claims to be trying to achieve (Berson, Oreg and Dvir, 2008). Values published in corporate websites, as corporate brand values are at the level of espoused values.

Corporate values should reflect, by one side, the qualities that are desired to be appreciated by the shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees and the society in which the company operates, and by the other side, should reflect the ways of doing that must set the culture of the organization to make that appreciation sustainable. At the end, the responsibility of the values configuration is the coherence and consistence of the company"s policies with regard to the values listed (espoused values), and the ability to recognize the behavior of its members, whether encouraging those according to the values, and avoiding the ones that are far from them (Ortiz, 2005).

Frameworks postulate that corporate brand values needs respect the organization"s culture, i.e. the internal values, beliefs and basic assumptions that encapsulate the way things are done in a firm and guide employees" behavior (Gotsi, Andriopoulos and Wilson, 2008). That"s because, individuals are motivated to behave in accordance with their values in order to avoid the unpleasant sensation that accompanies value-behavior incongruence (Sosik, 2005).

Corporate branding

Among the changes that business make as they move toward globalization is a shift in marketing emphasis from product brands to corporate branding. Hatch and Schultz (2003) found some different aspects that lead the change from product branding to corporate branding:

• Focus of the branding efforts shifts from the product to the corporation.

• Attraction and support. Product brands target consumers and corporate brands target to all company stakeholders.

• The corporate brand has a much broader temporal base than does a product brand.

• The strategic importance of corporate branding lies not only in its positioning of the company in its marketplace, but in creating internal arrangements that support the meaning of the corporate brand.

In particular is important to highlight the danger of establishing espoused corporate brand values (corporate brand values set by senior management) that are not aligned with employees" values in use (the emergent or practiced values at work). Values imposed and sustained only by autocratic authority will not have the same credibility in the marketplace as expressions of genuine value and belief supported by a culture that stands behind and is a central part of the corporate brand. Respect for values and beliefs supported by the existing culture, invite perceived coherence and bestow authenticity (Hatch and Schultz, 2003).

In this study, because not having enough time neither resources, it"s not going to be possible to check if the values published in the website are congruent with the real internal values of the companies" corporate culture, but it would be a good challenge for continue studying in future research.

Corporate web used as a communication tool

Once a positive relationship with a company is formed, consumers show their satisfaction with loyalty to the product the company manufactures. Furthermore, consumers with a long-term relationship with a brand are willing to pay premium prices, make referrals, and spend more money (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998). Because acquiring a new customer is more costly than retaining a current customer, companies make every effort to understand consumers" changing needs and want to provide new or increased values to the consumers in the hope of achieving long-term alliance with them (Morris, Barnes & Lynch, 1999). An emerging, effective channel for relationship building is the Web, which provides an attractive opportunity for companies to get closer to consumers (Yoon, Choi & Shon, 2008).

Internet has certain peculiarities that makes it a great, or even the best tool for corporate communications, these are: It"s universal, versatile, customizable, bi-directional and almost unlimited scope channel. With the use of internet, consumers have a high level of information about the characteristics of the products. In this situation the client"s expectations have changed and product is not the only factor to purchase, it also gives special attention to the company that stands behind that product. The trend, nowadays, is to transmit values that reinforce the image of the company in the society. The presence on the internet by business is often manifested through corporate website, which is the virtual place in internet that the company provides information about its activities, products, services and corporate information (philosophy, organization, relationship with society…). To transmit the corporate values to the society is done with the objective to make people build a determinate image in their mind of the company. It"s usually done by corporate webs, to the external public, and by intranet to internal public (Villagra & Benavides, 2002).

Social desirability

A value can be defined as a desirable end of existence (terminal value) or a desirable mode of behavior (instrumental value) (Rokeach, 1971). Consequently associations between measures of social desirability and values should be expected because both have a desirability component (Fisher & Katz, 2000).

Social desirability has been deeply studied in research referred to the bias that people make when are answering a questionnaire about themselves in a way to show a better image of themselves to the society. Zerbe and Paulhus (1987) maintain that social desirability response bias occurs because individuals have a tendency to over-report (under-report) activities that are deemed to be socially or culturally desirable (undesirable). It is behavior congruent with the expectations of the society, but sometimes not aligned with the personal traits, motivations, values…

In this study the term social desirability is not used in the classical way. Social desirability values will be named to the values that Spanish society, as consumers, consider desirable in the corporate culture of the companies.

The hypothesis is that companies act as people answering a questionnaire, publishing their corporate values in congruence with the expectations or desires of the society (social desirability values), but can be that are not really their corporate values from the culture of the company. That hypothesized behavior of not align the espoused corporate values with the internal values has some risks, as it"s explained in the area dedicated to corporate branding of this paper.

Related research

There are some marketing studies that analyses the use of the values in their advertisements, and the different use of them depending of the culture. Strong arguments have been made suggesting that advertising both reflects and influences cultural values (Albers-Miller and Gelb, 1996; Mueller, 1987). It has been shown that advertising which reflects local cultural values, is more powerful and persuasive than culturally insensitive advertising (Mueller, 1987).

However, there is not much scientific literature published about the corporate values using the corporate webpage of the companies as the source of information.

Singh, Zhao and Hu (2003) made an exploration of corporate Chinese, Indian, Japanese and American websites, to see the depiction of cultural values on the local web sites and to investigate whether the cultural content in a web site really depicts the prevalent cultural values of the country in question. Their founds were that a culturally unique web style is emerging on the web. Thus, marketers should be cautious when launching standardized or machine-translated web sites for their global audience. They offer to marketers to use their validated cultural value framework as a practical tool to develop culturally adapted web sites, or analyze their international web sites to measure the degree of adaptation targeted toward a particular culture.

Microsoft and Urbanoticias in 2006 published a quantitative study made by the company Marco de Comunicación between august 2005 and February 2006 in 14 different sectors, analyzing the corporate values of 3234 enterprises from 12 countries, which 223 of them were Spanish. In the international level, quality, innovation and customer satisfaction are the three more important values by that order. The corporate values of Spanish companies were innovation, sustainability of the environment and quality. In that study was shown that there is a different use of corporate values depending on the sector. In the tourism sector, corporate values are customer satisfaction, quality and innovation in this order. For the food business sector was found that the more represented value was quality.

The present study follows a research line focused in the analysis of corporate values in the websites of the companies. It was started by Blasco, Córdoba and Cornejo (2007), making a review of 72 websites of Spanish companies from 16 different sectors. They found that the most published values (around 60% of the sample) were Ethics (15%), Health-Security (14%), Innovation (10%), Orientation to costumers (10%) and quality (10%). By these results, they suggested that the values found can be related to social desirability, but it was limited to don"t have any data of social desired corporate values to contrast that hypothesis. It was suggested also, that sector determines the values published from the companies that are used as a marketing strategy, depending on what values are expected from the company operating in a sector by the society. A limitation of this was that the sample was small in each sector, and they were not homogeneous, having a different number of companies in each sector.

With that background, it is purposed the following study with the aim of improve the methodological limitations of the last cited research in a manner of concentrate the study in two concrete sectors, and have the contrast with an approximation of the Spanish society desirability about corporate values in the companies operating in Spain.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Do values published in corporate webs of hotels and food business, reflect social desirability values?

Do different sectors, specifically hotels and food business, show a differentiate values structure?

RESEARCH OBJETIVES

1. To analyze the presence of corporate values in organizations from hotels (Tourism sector) and food business (Mass Consumption sector) in their websites.

2. To analyze the priority of corporate values desired from the Spanish society to determine social desirability.

3. To analyze if the values expressed in corporate webs of two different sectors (Hotels and food business sectors) reflect social desirability.

4. To check if companies of two different sectors show in their websites a differential structure of values.

Method

Thirty two and thirty one organizations have been analyzed in Hotels and Food companies sector respectively. These organizations were chosen by two conditions:

• High presence in Spanish market.

• Hotels:

• Using this online directory of hotel companies: http://www.poraqui.net/directorio/hoteles-cadenas-espanolas.php

• Food companies:

• Using this online directory of food business companies: http://www.spainselecta.com/index.htm?http://www.spainselecta.com/secciones1/empresas/alimentacion.htm

• Looking at the product"s brand in different supermarkets in Barcelona.

• To have corporate website with their values published in any area of the text.

A content analysis has been done in the corporate webs to extract words or phrases that are based on values. The content analysis procedure has been extensively used in the marketing and the advertising literature to study cultural value appeals (Albers-Miller and Gelb, 1996). It"s an interpretative method of the communicative products that its objective is to make and process relevant data.

To be considered as a value these words or phrases, they"ve had to adapt to one of the definitions of value explained in the introduction. All they were written in a list classified by sectors and companies. With the help of two trained judges, in an attempt be more objective, by unifying criteria and classifying only by consensus, that values have been categorized. The two external judges are working in the same global project with different subsector as focus of research, so they have enough knowledge of the procedure to categorize. It has been used the list of 19 categories of organizational values purposed by Blasco, Córdoba and Cornejo (2007). In the categorization process, it has been checked the adaptation of this model to the values extracted on the companies of study. In case that this model wouldn"t have adapted, another organizational values category would have been designed. Some examples of phrases categorized into the values category are: "Our philosophy is the focus on the excellence", which was categorize into quality; or "we chase the interests and needs from the costumers", categorized as costumer orientation.

A table was done for each sector, detailing the values categorized from each company, using the software Excel from Microsoft Office. That table provides the frequency and percentages of use of each value in one and other sectors.

After checked and conclude that it"s valid the model of Blasco, Cordoba and Cornejo (2007), it has been used also to design a questionnaire of values preference, that determines the social desirability about the values that Spanish society prefer in every company not depending on the sector, the values preferred on companies of tourism sector, and the values preferred on the mass consumption sector. The 19 values were shown in a list, and the participants of the sample have decided in order which 3 are preferred in general terms in any company, which 3 are preferred in tourism companies, and which 3 are preferred in mass consumption companies (view annexes to see the questionnaire) . The sample arrived to 238 participants, with a mean age of 38,8 years old and a percentage of 43,3 % of men and 56,7 % of women.

With the data obtained it"s made some statistical descriptive analysis. It"s compared the table of values found on the corporate information of the companies in both sectors together with the results of the questionnaire of preference of values in general sectors. It"s compared the table of the values shown by the companies of Hotels with the results of the questionnaire of preference of values in Tourism sector, and it"s compared also, the table of the values shown by Food companies in their websites with the results of the questionnaire of social desirability in the mass consumption sector.

To answer the first research question it"s made a chi-square test, to check if the sample of data comes from a population with a specific distribution. If the test results in a confirmation that both data comes from the same distribution, it can be considered that the values found in the website is related to social desirability. In other words, if statistically is consider that the distribution from the values in the websites comes from the same population as the distribution of the social desirability values, it can be concluded that there is relation between this variables.

The second research question will be answered using the method of correspondence analysis with the data of the tables of frequency of values in each sector. It will show in a graphical mode, the distance of relationship between organizations, sectors and values.

The correspondences analysis allows deepening in the dependency relationships that are established between two qualitative variables observed in the same sample, and in particular, emphasizing in the explanation of how the different values or categories of these two variables are related one to each other. In other words, it allows representing geometrically the structure of relationships between data. It"s especially adequate in studies with few or null hypothesis, that is needed an exploratory analysis of the situation as starting point to subsequent analysis, or as a checking of a specific structure of data previously hypothesized (Cornejo, 1988).

Before the analysis, as a methodological requisite, it will be tested the data by a chi-square test of Pearson to check the hypothesis of the distributions independence.

The correspondence analysis will statistically analyze the relation between files and columns (values and companies). If it"s the result is a significant value, it means that there is relation in the contingency table, so it can be summarize the results in a small number of factors that explains a reasonable quantity of inertia.

Results

It is going to be shown a descriptive summary of the results illustrated by some graphics.

As it can be seen in the graphic 1, the quality value is the one that is been found in the 91% of the sample analyzed. It has appeared in 29 of 32 of the corporate websites analyzed in the sector of Hotel"s business. Customer"s orientation is the second, which appears in the 88% of the websites analyzed, and Innovation in the 2/3 of the sample. Less than the half of the Hotel companies with the corporate values showed in their website, publishes in order frequency of appearance values related to Market (47%), Economy (41%), Training and Development (38%), Organizational Climate (34%), Ethics (28%), Sustainability of the environment (28%), and hard-Working (28%).

Graph. 1. Percentage of websites with a related corporate value of the category published in the Hotel"s sector

Graphic 2 shows the percentage of websites in the Food business sector that publish values related to the category. Quality is again the value more representative in the description of the corporate culture of the companies which in 30/31 publish it. The second value in frequency of appearance is Innovation (94%), followed by Sustainability of the environment (65%), Market (58%), Organizational Climate (55%), Customer"s orientation (52%), Safety & Health at work (45%), Ethics (39%), Training and Development (39%), Economy (32%) and Motivation at work (29%).

Graph. 2. Percentage of websites with a related corporate value to the category published in the Food business sector

Graphic 3 shows a comparison between the two sectors. It"s seen that quality it"s representative of both, it appears more than the 90% of the websites analyzed in both sectors. In values that there is a poor level of appearance, there are a similar use in Autonomy (6% and 13% in food business and hotels respectively), Creativity (16% and 9%), Social (19% and 16%), professional Interest (19% and 16%), Change (16% and 25%), Cooperation (23% and 19%), Responsibility (26% and 16%), Motivation (29% and 19%), hard Work (26% and 28%), Ethics (39% and 28%), Economy (32% and 41%), Development (39% and 38%) and Market (58% and 47%). However there are a few values that there is a big difference of use depending on the sector, they are Innovation (94% and 66%), Customer orientation (52% and 88%), environmental Sustainability ( 65% and 28%), organizational Climate (55% and 34%) and Safety & Health at work (45% and 13%). It suggest, but not confirm, that these values could be considered as specific from the own sector. It"s checked statistically the hypothesis of different structure of values depending on the sector by the correspondences analysis a few pages next.

Graph. 3. Percentage of websites with a related corporate value to the category published in the Food business and Hotels sector separately.

Graphic 4 shows the priority of use of values in the website by the companies without taking in account at which sector it pertains. This data has to be interpreted with caution because it"s just the sum of the results of the hotels and the business sectors. Even the data is not related to one concrete sector, it cannot be supposed to be generalized to all sectors. Of the 436 values categorized in the analysis of 63 websites, 59 were related to quality, 50 to innovation, 44 to costumer orientation, 33 to market… It"s important to recall that only one time was categorized a value in the same Website, even it would have appeared more times.

Graph. 4. Number of websites (of the 63 total analyzed) that use that specific corporate value in the Food business and Hotels sector s without distinguish the sector

Related to the questionnaire of social desirability, the results are described below:

When the Spanish society were asked about the preference of corporate values for all companies with not taking in account to which sector the company pertain, they answer a preference as the Graphic 5 shows. Quality was the value perceived as more desired, followed by responsibility, ethics, organizational climate, training-development, motivation, safety & health at work, economy…

Graph. 5. Preference level of the Spanish society of each corporate value in general companies (any sector) measured by the questionnaire of social desirability

Graphic 6 shows the preference of corporate values but related to the Tourism sector, in which there are different results than when it"s in general companies. The order of preference by the Spanish society is customer orientation, quality, environmental sustainability, responsibility, creativity, social, motivation…

Graph. 6. Preference level of the Spanish society of each corporate value in Tourism sector measured by the questionnaire of social desirability

Graphic 7 show the preference of the Spanish society in the corporate values related to the sector of Mass Consumption. Quality is the one with a big difference in comparison to the others, second is Safety & Health at work with a significant difference related to the next ones also, followed by market, environmental sustainability, ethics, responsibility, economy…

Graph.7.Preference level of the Spanish society of each corporate value in the mass consumption sector measured by the questionnaire of social desirability

To answer the first research question with statistical significance it will be done a chi-square analysis a few pages below, but it"s interesting to have some graphics that illustrate in a descriptive way the results from the content analysis of the websites in comparison with the results of the questionnaire.

In the case of the Hotels sector, it"s compared the data with the results of the questionnaire of social desirability values in the tourism sector. It"s found a match in the 2 values that appears in most of the corporate websites, and the 2 values considered as more desirable by the Spanish society. There is not such consistency in other values (not so frequent), as innovation and market, which the Spanish society don"t consider so desirable in the corporate culture of the companies in the tourism sector. The opposite effect is shown in the values of creativity, responsibility and environmental sustainability in which the companies don"t publish as frequent as a corporate value, however for the society they are considered desirable in this concrete sector. To check that relations explained, see graphic 8.

Graph.8. Comparison between the frequency of use of specific values in the corporate websites of Hotels with the results of the questionnaire of social desirability values in the corporate culture of companies operating in the tourism sector. The data is been converted to relative numbers by dividing the score of each value with the highest score, and multiplied by 100, in the aim to get data from 1 to 100 in both scales.

Graphic 9 shows the comparison between the frequency of publication of each value in food business with the social desired values in the mass consumption sector. As in the graphic before, there is a match in the more representative value of the food business websites, quality, that is declared as the more desired by the Spanish society in the mass consumption sector. In less representative values, it"s found a match in safety and health at work, market, ethics, economy responsibility, social, creativity and autonomy, which only appears published as corporate value just in a few websites, but is consider as not desirable. By the other hand, there are some values published by many of the companies as own in their corporate culture, but are not considered by the Spanish society as very desirables. These are: Innovation, environmental sustainability, organizational climate, customer orientation, training and development…

Graph.9. Comparison between the frequency of use of specific values in the corporate websites of food business with the results of the questionnaire of social desirability values in the corporate culture of companies operating in the mass consumption sector. The data is been converted to relative numbers by dividing the score of each value with the highest score, and multiplied by 100, in the aim to get data from 1 to 100 in both scales.

Graphic 10 shows the comparison between the frequency of use of each value taken together the measures done in hotels and food business with the results of the questionnaire of social desirability values in general companies not depending in any specific sector. The matches between the two measures are values of quality, organizational climate, training-development, economy, environmental sustainability, and work. This data has to be interpreted with caution because food business and hotels are just a minimum sample of the total business sectors there are. In the questionnaire of social desirability it was asked for companies in general sector, and not in hotels and food business only. To make a correct analysis would be needed to introduce a content analysis of the websites of companies operating in every sector.

Graph.10. Comparison between the frequency of use of specific values in the corporate websites of the total data collected (food business hotels) with the results of the questionnaire of social desirability values in the corporate culture in general (not depending in any sector). The data is been converted to relative numbers by dividing the score of each value with the highest score, and multiplied by 100, in the aim to get data from 1 to 100 in both scales.

Up to this point, in the results section it has been shown them just by descriptive analysis, which is very interesting as a way to summarize the results. But it"s important to make some test of statistical significance as a more rigorous method.

Below it"s shown the results of the chi-squared analysis between the values found in the websites with the values desired by the Spanish society, with the objective to answer with statistical support the first research question.

A chi-square test is done between the data from the values desired by the society with the frequency of publication of those values in the websites. One comparison is done between the values found in the hotels websites with the values desired by the society in the tourism sector. The chi-squared value obtained for the 3 corporate values more desired is 3,8264. Looking in the tables of chi-square (2 d.f.); a: 0,05; the theoretic value is 5,9915. So because the value observed is smaller than the theoretic one, it can be concluded with a risk of 5% of error, that both distributions pertains to the same population, so they are related.

Table 1. Summary of the results of the Chi-square test between the 3 more desired values in the tourism sector and the frequency level of that values in the websites of hotels.

The same analysis is done comparing the values desired by the society in the mass consumption sector with the frequency of values found in the food business. The chi-squared value obtained for the 3 values more desired by the society is 9,3561. Looking in the tables of chi-square (2 d.f.); a: 0,05; is 5,9915. So because the value observed is bigger than the theoretic one, it can be concluded with a risk of 5% of error, that both distributions pertains to different populations, so there is not a relation between them.

Table 2. Summary of the results of the Chi-square test between the 3 more desired values in the mass consumption sector and the frequency level of that values in the websites of food business.

Other chi-square analysis is done between the values desired in general companies, with not taking in account the sector that the organizations would pertain , and the frequency of that values published in the food-business websites. The observed chi-squared value for the 3 values more desired is 37,7965 while the theoretic chi-square value (2 d.f.); a: 0,05; is 5,9915. So because the value observed is bigger than the theoretic one, it can be concluded with a risk of 5% of error, that both distributions pertains to different populations, so there is not a relation between them.

Table 3. Summary of the results of the Chi-square test between the 3 more desired values in general sectors and the frequency level of that values in the websites of food business.

These results permit to answer the first research question. In the case of the hotels companies, the corporate values more desired by the society are related with the values published in the websites of the hotels sector. In other words, the values more desired are the same as the more frequent values published in the websites.

In the case of the food business companies it"s not found that relation. The corporate values more desired by the society in the mass consumption sector, and in general companies, are different compared in both cases, than the more frequent values published in the websites of food business sector.

Results of the correspondences analysis

In the annexes is the table of contingencies of the values found in the analysis of content of the websites in the hotels and food business companies, which has been used to make the correspondences analysis.

Table 4 shows the result of the test of independency between rows and columns of the contingency table, which is a requisite that the correspondence analysis need, to have a statistical significance. The result obtained is not significant, which implies that, with a probability of error of 5%, rows and columns are not related. This data invalidates the statistical significance of the test, but nevertheless this analysis is very useful as a descriptive level.

Table 4. Test of independency between rows and columns

With these results, it"s able to answer the second research question, and conclude that in the analysis of hotels and food business companies, it is not shown a clear differential structure of values depending on the sector.

The total inertia level is 0,798, which is not high, but is moderated. Table 5 shows that the data of the table of contingencies can be reduced to 18 factors. The desirable results for a rigorous data interpretation with the analysis of correspondences would be that a few factors concentrate a high percentage of inertia. But it"s not the case, because the inertia is shared in a lot of factors. To have a rigorous analysis it would be needed around 10 factors which accumulate more than the 80% of the inertia. For that reason, as only descriptive intentions, in the dimensional graphic, it"s not important which factors are used to see the distances between values, companies and sectors. It"s taken the factor 1 and factor 2, because even if they don"t have a high accumulation of inertia, they are together the group of two factors which concentrate the higher amount of it.

Table 5. Own values and percentage of inertia of each factor

Below is shown the graphic that illustrate the inertia distribution by factors:

Graphic 12. Own value and the percent of inertia accumulated by each factor.

Next, in graphic 13, it"s shown the graphic representation of the correspondence analysis between values, companies and sectors.

Graphic 13. Graphic representation of the distances between values, companies and sectors explained by F1 and F2.

Highlighted in yellow color appear the two sectors: Hotels and Food business. Words with letters in red are the values. Words with letters in blue are the hotels companies, and words in green are the food business companies.

The distance between the balls (values and companies), show the differences between them. Two companies with similar values would be close to each other. A value close to the sector means that is very frequent; as more far it is, less frequent is published that value in the specific sector. The size of the balls (the diameter) is based in the own inertia of that value or company.

If there would be a clear differential structure of values between sectors, it would be expected that hotels is in one side of the graphic and food business in the opposite side. But as it was explained there is not statistical difference. So, both sectors are very close, and it"s not possible to say that there is a clear distinction of values depending on the sector.

The values of quality, orientation to costumer and innovation are very close to the centroid. It means that most of the companies publish and share those values not depending on the sector. By the hypothesis of the study it would be expected that these values are the ones more desired by the society in general companies. But as it was shown before in graphic 5, social desirability questionnaire answers only matches with quality as the most desirable values.

There are other values that are clearly differentiated for one concrete sector. This is the case of safety-health, environmental sustainability and ethics, which are positioned in the side of the food business sector. But they are not very closed to the sector, so they are not really frequent.

In the side of the Hotels the values more positioned to this sector are, cooperation, motivation and change, but occurs the same situation as before, even they are clearly situated in the area of Hotels, they are quite far, so they are not very frequent.

It can be observed that the companies of hotels (cloud of points with blue letters) are quite concentrated in an area. It means that values published in different hotels companies are very similar, so it could be found a particular structure of values in the hotels sector. Just there are three hotels that have different values, which it could be interesting in other research to be analyzed particularly what characteristics they have to find a reason for that differences in the values published.

The companies of food business are more disperse. It"s not possible to find a structure of values representative of the food business sector, because there are so high differences. Even there are some food business companies that publish values more typical from the hotels than it would be expected for food business. It suggests that food business is a too general label for a sector in terms of corporate values. It"s possible that if it"s made an analysis more focused in a concrete product it would be found a more standardized structure of values.

So, by the visualization of the graphic it can be supposed that it hasn"t been found a differential structure of values depending on the sector, because the values published in food business are too disperse, and if the analysis would have been focused in a more concrete sector, as canned products or pastries for instance, obtaining a data similarly concentrated as the one obtained in hotels, the analysis of correspondences would have found a significant result.

As summary, the correspondence analysis shows that taking the data globally, no statistical differences can be found between the values published in the sector of hotels and the values published in the sector of food business. By the observation of the graphic, it"s found that the values of quality, orientation to costumer and innovation are representative of both sectors and published very frequent. There are other values not so frequent but more representative of one concrete sector. The hotels companies have a structure of values more similar between different companies, than the food business companies have.

Discussion, limitations and future research

As summary of the results obtained, there is not a simple answer to the research questions. The corporate values that companies publish in their website are related to social desirability values in the case of hotels, but not in the case of food business. It"s not been found a clear differential structure of values depending on the sector in general terms, but it"s suggested that hotels have a similar structure of values, whereas food business don"t.

The values more frequently published in the corporate websites of Hotels are related with the values that Spanish society expressed as more desired for companies operating in the tourism sector. It was not found a similar relation between the values published in the food business websites and the values desired by the Spanish society in companies operating in the mass consumption sector.

The correspondence analysis showed that there is not a clear differential structure of values depending on the sector having analyzed hotels and food business. Although the descriptive analysis suggests there are some values specific of the sector, the chi-squared test resulted in not significant. The correspondence analysis graphic has permitted to see the distribution of distance between companies and values, showing a concentrated structure in the majority of hotels and dispersion in the food business companies. That suggests that food business is not well labeled as a homogeneous group. It seems that if it"s taken companies from a more concrete group it would be found more homogeneity.

In the analysis made to the social desirability questionnaire results depending on the age and the gender, it was found some interesting differences. There are some values more desired depending on gender, and depending of the age differences.

All that results have important implications for both research and practical sources.

It"s found that values published are related to social desirability in the case of hotels sector. That can be made in the aim of the companies to connect the values desired of the costumer with their corporate values to build in the costumer a positive feeling to the corporate brand, as an strategy of marketing. The problem would be if those published values are not in congruence with the real culture inside the company. As Gotsi, Andriopoulos and Wilson (2008) said corporate brand values needs respect the organization"s culture, i.e. the internal values, beliefs and basic assumptions that encapsulate the way things are done in a firm and guide employees" behavior. It"s needed then to make new research focused in find if there is congruence between the espoused values (corporate values published in the website) and the real values of the company"s culture.

It"s not been found a specific structure of values depending on the sector. The present study has focused in amplify the sample in two concrete and specific "subsectors", studying hotels and food business companies. Three ways of improving the findings could be done. One would be to explore high samples of companies of all different sectors to analyze their values published with the social desirable values in a way to check the same relation studied in the present research, but in general companies, not in some specific sectors . The second would be to explore the values in more concrete subsector, to check if the not differentiation of values between sectors in the present study is because Food business is not a well limited sector, maybe if it would have been selected other well defined sector, significant differences would have been found. The third one would be to explore if there are differences in the values published between companies of different subsectors that are considered of the same general sector. There is a line of research already working in this objective, in which the present study will contribute with the data obtained. It will be analyzed the values published in the sector of tourism, in three different types companies (subsectors): hotels, travel agencies and leisure & entertainment companies. The same will be done in the sector of mass consumption, which the subsectors that are being analyzed are: food business, drink business and beauty & hygiene products. If after more research it"s concluded that companies that operates in the same sector publish the same corporate values, there could have some practical negative consequences. One company would not be distinguished from other. Differentiation requires positioning, not products, but the whole corporation. Accordingly, the values and emotions symbolized by the organization become key elements of differentiation strategies (Hatch and Schultz, 2003). So it"s important that companies publish their own key values, and that values are different compared to the ones of the competence companies.

It would be interesting to study the fluctuations in the values published and relate it with social, economical, cultural…characteristics of the epoch to see if there is a possible congruence on it.

In this study it was analyzed companies operating in Spain, and the social desirability of Spanish people. It would be interesting to make this type of study in different countries and societies to see the cross-cultural differences.

In the analysis of the websites, it has been counted only one time by each web the same value. It would be interesting in future research to see the results by counting all times that the values appears, as a sign of the importance of that value, and analyze the results, they might be quite different.

One big limitation was that the sample of the Spanish society obtained was 238 participants. To be a representative sample it would have been needed around 1500 people, but the resources, and limits of time to make this study didn"t make possible to have a higher one.

As conclusion, the results are very positive. It"s been accepted partially the first hypothesis; as well it"s been suggested that it"s needed more research to answer the second hypothesis, and opens many options for the future research to continue analyzing the corporate values that the companies publish.

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Anexes

CUESTIONARIO

VALORES DE DESABILIDAD SOCIAL EN LAS ORGANIZACIONES

Mediante este cuestionario se pretende explorar la preferencia de la sociedad española como consumidores, sobre los valores deseables dentro de la cultura corporativa de las organizaciones. Para ello se debe seleccionar del listado de 19 valores, en primer lugar los 3 que considera más deseables en cualquier empresa independientemente del sector. Seguidamente los 3 que considera más deseables en empresas del sector turismo (agencias de viaje, hoteles y empresas de ocio y diversión), y los 3 que considera más deseables en empresas del sector consumo masivo (alimentación, bebidas y productos de higiene y belleza). Utilice números del 1 al 3, donde el 1 es el más deseable, hasta el 3 que sería el 3º más deseable del listado. ¡Muchas gracias por tu colaboración!

Sexo del encuestado (H/M):

Edad del encuestado:

CONTINGENCY TABLE

EXAMPLES OF PHRASES OR WORDS FOUND IN THE WEBSITES AND THE CATEGORY OF VALUES ASSIGNED.

Autor:

Jose Martinez Ferrando

Home Tutor:

PhD. Ricardo Blasco

PhD. José Manuel Cornejo

Facultad de psicología: Universitat de Barcelona

Host Tutor:

PhD. Todd Lubart

Institut de Psychologie: Université Paris Descartes