ABSTRACT
Nothing is more important to human beings than their values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions. On a grand and profoundly important level, they determine our explanation for existence. They are the cultural glue of civilizations and the organizations within them, and the fundamental building blocks of culture. Whether national culture or organizational culture or subculture, values (beliefs and basic assumptions) drive the thoughts and actions of the people carrying the culture. Values form our broad, socially derived ethical standards for how the world should operate, and they blend together to make individuals and institutions unique. They even define the content of our individual characters. Yet on a humbler, more concrete, but nonetheless critical level, values are important because these beliefs and underlying assumptions ultimately drive our minute everyday actions. They provide the framework for our patterns of behavior and customs. Values even shape the physical world that societies, organizations, and individuals create, as well as the symbolic meanings given to material and linguistic artifacts.
