Values and Work

During decades much empirical research has been devoted to the study of values in relation to work. Many studies have treated work-related values as expressions of more general life values, and interpreted the differences between groups an cultures in terms of broader cultural patterns, historical trends, and adaptation to changing economic and technical environments. Work values have also been investigated at the level of occupations and the individual. In this case they have been related to interests and other motivational notions, and used to explain differences in people's occupational behavior, in particular vocational choice. A general assumption underlying most of the research and theorizing on values, has been that shared values (as expressed at the collective level on the one side and individual values as operating in daily occupational behavior on the other side) are somehow interrelated, although their causal relationships are still to be uncovered. This special issue deals with the theory and research on the relationship between peoples' values and work behavior. It presents a review of the sociological and psychological research literature on values and work, shows some typical findings from large scale research projects, and identifies some major theoretical and practical issues. More importantly, an explicit effort is made to interlink the different approaches by offering an integrative multilevel framework model. The contributions to this special issue, written by leading researchers in the field, underline the continuing importance of values for understanding what happens in the world of work.