THE RELEVANCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES: AN ANALYSIS OF SOME PORTUGUESE SMES

Abstract

We are presently living in a globalized society ruled by Technologies of Information and Communication (TIC). This fact has had impacts, often negative, on the organizations, due to the enormous velocity non filtered (and frequently speculative and lacking factual confirmation) information circulates. This is the reason why it is important that companies communicate their culture in a consistent manner, guarantying their differentiation and survival in the current context of such saturated markets. It is then urgent that they go through a process of self-analysis, in order to identify and highlight their values, central elements of the organizational culture. These values operate as a guideline to corporate actions and are most relevant for allowing the alignment of the workers’ culture with that of the organization, resulting in an increased motivation for work, and therefore potentiating the performance of the organization to the maximum level.

In the current worldwide scenario, we have been witnessing the growing bet on strategic corporate communication by organizations and the progressive parting with the previously reigning paradigm that privileged marketing communication instead. In Portugal, however, and more accurately in Small and Medium Enterprises (PMEs), there is still a lot of work to be done in the area of Corporate Communication. In fact, a high rate of PMEs does not have an online website, and of those which do have one, only a small number uses it to expose corporate values. Thus, there is an incisive contrast in comparison to the international reality, where the value of Corporate Communication has already been recognized.