Meanings of Work and Personal Values of Canadian Anglophone and Francophone Middle Managers

Abstract

The goal of this study was to see if the meaning of work and personal values of Canadian Anglophone public sector male middle‐managers would be more individualist (e. g., more achievement‐oriented in the business world) than those of Francophone managers, who were predicted to be more collectivist (i. e., more concerned with affiliation and family concerns). This was done using a modified version of Triandis's (1972) antecedent‐consequent method. Managers gave logical associations to 21 work and personal values, reporting antecedents (what leads to) and consequents (what results from) of progress toward each value. In Study 1, 86 Anglophone and 82 Francophone managers provided antecedents and consequents to the values in a free‐response questionnaire. In Study 2, a different but comparable group of 80 Anglophone and 94 Francophone managers completed a multiple‐choice questionnaire based on high‐frequency responses given in Study 1. Results from chi‐square analyses (no differences between groups for 86% of the value stimuli) and Pearson's correlation for profile similarity (r = 0.92, p <0.01) showed that, in general, Anglophone and Francophone managers in this study shared a similar individualist‐collectivist understanding of most of the 21 values. This overall similarity was discussed in terms of the social change that has occurred in Québec over the past 15 years as well as the growing similarity in business school curricula and the work experience of Anglophone and Francophone managers. Résumé Le but de cette recherche était de vérifier si la signification des valeurs au travail et personnelles de gestionnaires anglophones masculins de la Fonction publique canadienne est plus individualiste (i. e., plus orientée vers le succès dans les affaires) que celle des gestionnaires francophones posée comme étant plus collective (i. e., plus orientée vers les relations et les questions familiales). Une version modifiée de la méthode des antécédents et conséquents de Triandis (1972) a été utilisée. Les gestionnaires, par associations logiques, donnaient les antécédents (ce qui mène à) et les conséquents (ce qui découle) de 21 valeurs personnelles et au travail. Dans la première étude, 86 anglophones et 82 francophones ont exprimé les antécédents et conséquents à ces valeurs dans des réponses à des questions ouvertes. Dans la deuxième étude, un groupe différent, mais comparable, de 80 gestionnaires anglophones et de 94 francophones ont rempli un questionnaire à choix multiples construit à partir des réponses les plus fréquemment obtenues dans la première étude. L'analyse par la méthode du chi‐carré (aucune différence entre les deux groupes pour 86% des stimuli de valeurs) et le coefficient de corrélation de Pearson pour la similitude de profil (r=0.92, p<0.01) révèlent qu'en général, les gestionnaires anglophones et francophones, dans cette recherche, ont la měme compréhension individualistecollective pour la plupart des 21 valeurs. Cette signification similaire a été interprétée à la lumière des changements socia...

Seeking and explaining culturally meaningful within-country regions: A functional, institutional and critical event analysis

“…Lundberg and Peterson (1994) Examines if work goal differences can be attributed to country differences, to organizational, regional or hierarchical levels within local governments across two regions of the US (northeast and Southwest) and Japan 4. Major et al (1994) Work and personal values of Francophone and Anglophone societies of Canada were examined.…”

Making a life or making a living?

“…Donolo (2004) argued that there were increasing numbers of Bloc Quebecers aligning with the rest of Canada, and might be dropping their nationalist diatribes and focusing on implicitly Canadian‐value issues. Especially, the study of Major et al (1994) showed the profile similarity between Francophone and Anglophone managers in the individualist‐collectivist understanding of most of the 21 work and personal values. The author argued that this overall similarity was due to the social change that has occurred in Quebec over the past 15 years.…”

“…By contrast, in this paper a broader definition of work ethics is employed, which is considered in its most simplistic way as “a construct compose of two distinct parts: attitudes or values and the behaviours that outwardly reflect these attitudes or values” (McCortney and Engels, 2003, p. 134). A long list of scholars such as Major et al (1994) Dose (1997), Lebo et al (1995), Chew and Putti (1995) and Michael and College (1997) have also employed this broad definition in their work.…”

“…While on the outset, language is supposed to have an effect on values, the literature about the relationships is not conclusive. Major et al (1994) discovered that ethno linguistic membership had little impact on the meaning of work and personal values.…”

Cultural regions of Canada and United States

“…This is in line with previous findings (Kazemipur, 2006; Kornberg, 1988; Uslaner, 2002) that Quebeckers display less trust toward strangers, which could be attributed to a high proportion of French population in Quebec (Laroche et al, 2004) and its alienation from the other Anglophone regions (Anderson, 2010; Henderson, 2004). Quebec is also a relatively collectivistic society different from the individualistic culture in many other regions of the United States and Canada (Major et al, 1994). Collectivistic societies as such are found to display less trust toward strangers (Watkins and Lui, 1996; Huff and Kelly, 2005).…”