The What, Why and How of Organizational Values

Are values necessary or even useful to young, growing companies? How do they form? And what are values anyway? This book examines the emergence of organizational values in a number of growth-oriented Australian companies through interviews with the founders and observation of how values are put into action. It finds that some founders start their business based on personal values, but that this is not essential. Companies can successfully uncover and embed their values years after founding. Digging deeper, the book attempts to draw distinction between different types of values. "Honesty", for example, is not the same type of value as "Fun". Different types of values serve different purposes within an organization and the book examines these purposes and offers guidance to founders in particular, but to business leaders in general about the role of values in their organization.