A CO-RELATIONAL ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL VALUES AND CORPORATE STRATEGY

Company executives hold personal values which guide them in decision-making at individual and organizational level. These values, when heterogeneous, impact on the organisation’s ability to adopt (easily) a consensus strategic orientation. Previous studies have focused on Nigerian banks, while the linkage of strategy to performance was mainly reviewed from qualitative perception of respondents as well as through secondary data. None of the reviewed studies focused on the conflict that results from divergent strategic choices due to differences in personal values, neither was there a robust theoretical framework to provide perspectives on the different dimensions of the interrelationship of the three constructs. This paper adopts a review of literature to identify: empirical findings on the relationship between personal values, strategy orientation, and performance in Nigerian organisations; possible conflicts and mechanism for resolving the conflict; the role of the CEO as the head of top management team (TMT), in understanding how organisations arrive at a corporate strategy; and additional theories to explain the interconnectedness between personal values, strategic orientation, and performance.This study propositions that organisations that emphasise balanced values, and spend significant time creating alignment will develop values needed to support the key strategic goals and vision of the organization. Differences in values (owner and workers) are much more visible and have more negative impact in SMEs than in bigger organization; while strategic orientation impacts on performance, but has to be a result of the alignment of internal factors (such as processes, CEO’s role, structures) and external factors (environment).