Personal Values and Intragroup Relationship: The Case of the Police Tactical Groups in Brasília

Abstract

Objectives: This article aims to describe how the personal values of members of specialized workgroups impact their intra-group relationships based on professional and personal trust. Originality/value: The contributions of this study are threefold: 1. the consolidation that the analysis of trust in work groups has different results in the instrumental (professional or reputation trust) and the experimental (personal or friendship trust) relationship when verifying difference in the predominance of personal values for each type relationship; 2. the use of the functionalist theory of human values and to the use of social network analysis techniques and in conjunction with classical quantitative techniques such as ANOVA and multiple regression; 3. the verification of personal values that contributes to the organization and how trust relationships are structured in the group. Design/methodology/approach: The present study is characterized as descriptive field research with a quantitative approach. A survey was conducted with 171 participants from the two tactical groups of the Brasília police, using the Basic Values Questionnaire (BVQ) questionnaire of functionalist values and a questionnaire with eight questions about the instrumental and expressive relationship. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evidence the validity of the instrument, analysis of social networks (ASN) for trust relationships and ANOVA, and multiple regression for relationships between values and relationships. Findings: The tactical groups presented characteristics of more pragmatic personal values and with less appreciation of individualism, denoting characteristics of appreciation of execution and intragroup collectivism. The normative and supra-personal values were negatively related, respectively, to friendship and professional relationships, while the achievement value was positively related to both trust relationships.