Influence of the entrepreneur’s personal values in business governance style and their relationship with happiness at work

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-05-2021-0197
• Published date: 05 November 2021
• Date: 05 November 2021
• Pages: 592-617
• Subject Matter: Strategy,Corporate governance
• Author: María-José Foncubierta-Rodríguez

Influence of the entrepreneur’s personal

values in business governance style and

their relationship with happiness at work

María-José Foncubierta-Rodríguez

Abstract

Purpose –Happiness managementis receiving increasing attention in business,and this is reflected in

the literature.But any business management option hasto be grounded in a true awareness or belief that

it will be a suitable and appropriatechoice. In this belief the personal values of thosewho have the power

to lead the way to weigh heavily. In this sense, thereare personal values that, when used as guidelines in

the management of a company, seem to promote the happiness of employees in the workenvironment.

The purposeof this paper is to find the personal values of the entrepreneur.As a secondary objective, the

authors also study whether thesevalues are associated with certain entrepreneurs’ socio-demographic

factors(gender and age).

Design/methodology/approach –The group to be studied is the Spanish business community. An

exploratory study is carried out, first, with the definition of value constructs according to Schwartz’s

personal values model and, second, with a relational analysis, measuring association effects through

logisticregression.

Findings –Two higher-order personalvalues of the entrepreneur are found that seem to contain all the

elements that would lead to management styles that would facilitate happiness at work. These values

emerge from a dimensionmodel of Schwartz’s theory of basichuman values. MVP which, however, does

not follow its four adjacent/antagonistic dimensions, but is composed of three dimensions adjacent to

each other and, therefore, complementary. Moreover, some stereotypes in the literature on the

relationshipsbetween personal values and certainsocio-demographic factors arebroken down and their

effectson happiness at work are revealed.

Research limitations/implications –One of the limitations of this work is the relatively small sample

size. In this sense, it would be useful to checkwhether the overall results are repeated in larger samples.

Another limitationis that this is a portrait of the group at a given time. Giventhe experimental nature of this

type of work, especially in the case of socio-demographic factors, it would be advisable to carry out a

follow-up longitudinal analysis with a time horizon. This would allowa more precise investigation of the

effects of the variablesmentioned above. In addition, a third limitationis that the authors are studying the

collective of Spanish entrepreneurs, and in the study of personal values, culture has a determining

influence (Schenck,2016; Boer and Boehnke, 2016; Perozo and Paz, 2016). It would also be worthwhile

considering this study by sector: are the values the same for entrepreneurs in different sectors?; or in

some specific sectors, forexample, are there differences between entrepreneurs with tech businesses

versus non-tech businessesor those who make the circular economy or the green economy a guideline

for their organizations?Thus, technology companies must be open to change.Openness and innovation

are for their entrepreneurs’key values to ensure their performance (Tseng, 2010;Van Auken et al., 2008).

However,in these organizations, there is a frameworkof conflicting values between therequired flexibility

and the values of powerand control that the entrepreneur needs, and wants, to have (Albarracı

´

net al.,

2014). On the other hand, personal values determine green self-identity and moderate itsrelationships

with ecological care and the moral obligation of the entrepreneur (Blankenberg and Alhusen, 2019;

Barbarossa et al., 2017). Therefore, it could be analysed whether these values are maintained in

entrepreneurs in these sectors, influencing, as discussed in this paper, greater happiness in the work

context; and whetherthey are conditioned by gender or age (Fotieva, 2021; Li etal., 2020). It would also

be helpful to study the socio-demographic influence further, to analyse the possibility of interaction or

confounding effects betweensocio-demographic variables and some other variables not addressedin

Marı

´a-Jose

´Foncubierta-

Rodrı

´guezis basedat the

Department of Business

Management, Faculty of

Economics and Business

Sciences, University of

Cadiz, Cadiz, Spain.

Received 9 April 2021

Revised 8 September 2021

Accepted 13 October 2021

PAGE 592 jCORPORATE GOVERNANCE jVOL. 22 NO. 3 2022, pp. 592-617, ©EmeraldPublishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 DOI 10.1108/CG-05-2021-0197

this paper. For example, does purchasing power or income level, affect personal values? And do the

valuesthat give content to F2, power and control, lead theentrepreneur to a higher level of income levelor

vice versa? Do other factors play a role? In fact, for Hirigoyen (2008), values such as altruism,

benevolence and universalism are considered as obstacles to the development of the company.

Subsequently, authors such as Salas-Vallina (2018) and Boubakary (2015) conclude that far from that

idea, these axiological elements would lead to more significant business development through the

satisfaction and happiness they generate in employees and stimulate their productivity, matching with

the conclusions. It would be interesting, as a complement to the approach of this work, to carry out a

study on the happiness at work of the entrepreneur’s employees, being the group of employees

surveyed. Knowing the profile of values of an entrepreneur through the scale proposed in this work, it

would be possible to analyse whether this is associated with greater or lesser perceived happiness

among his/heremployees. As mentioned above, from the methodologicalpoint of view, a risk of using the

multidimensional scaling modelling for the analysis of personal values is that the respondent reflects

more what he/she considerssocially desirable than his/her true perception. This bias is one of the main

limitations of psychological research. However, the fact that European Statistical Office surveys are

guided by experts, both in processing-knowing how to deal with social desirability in personal values

research(Danioni and Barni, 2020) –and in data collection, eliminatesthis limitation.

Practical implications –However, despite the above limitations, this paper makes important contributions.

On the one hand, at a theoretical and instrumental level, it shows that the higher-order values graph of Spanish

entrepreneurs follows the circumplex essence of the Schwartz value model but does not obey its number of

higher-order dimensions. In the case of entrepreneurs, it consists of three elements, three dimensions, adjacent

and complementary. None of them contradicts any other. A methodology is created to portray the Spanish

entrepreneur in an axiological way and, from this portrait, to reveal his/her tendency towards a leadership style

that promotes the happiness of his/her employees, through the importance given to these three factors or

dimensions. These dimensions are weighted, in turn, by issues such as gender or age group. For added

practical purposes, this information would be beneficial, in the first place, for all those who want to work in and

with a particular entrepreneur. The type of leadership or management expected is a factor or reason why a

person decides where he/she would like to work (Qing et al., 2020; Lee, 2016). This is not only for the potential

employees of that business but also for all those groups or stakeholders, who engage with the company to

perform their functions. Individuals make important decisions and choices about their relationships in the work

environment based on the alignment of their values with those of the party they want to engage with (Sagiv et al.,

2015). On the other hand, it can serve entrepreneurship educators. By knowing the value factors of

entrepreneurs, adjusted to the culture of the particular territory, they will be able to pass on this information to their

entrepreneurship students (Karimi and Makreet, 2020; Arieli and Tenne-Gazit, 2017) and teach them how they

could increase the happiness at work. It also serves to better understand the constructs of management values-

employee engagement-workplace happiness in the current environment (Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2020; Salas-Vallina

et al., 2017; Wang and Yang, 2016), by introducing the role of personal values on the entrepreneur’s governance

style into this construct (Figure 1).

Social implications –Finally, this studycan also have social implications,making its tiny contribution to

the SDGs throughthe study of personal valuesthat guide the behaviour of the entrepreneur.The decision

by international institutions for countries to implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs)

(UNSDG 2030 Agenda) as cross-cutting strands of their policies has boosted the idea of addressing

happiness at work. Thus, SDG 8 talks about Decent Work. In addition to the priority of improving the

conditionsof groups living in discriminatory workingenvironments (child labour, poverty,precariousness,

etc.), taken to its maximum expression,this objective encompasses much more. Workersspend a large

part of their livesat work. At the same time, a business needs its employeesto be productive. SDG 8 aims

to ensure that people have qualityemployment, increasing their productivity and consumptionpotential.

On the other hand, SDG 3 is about ‘‘Health and Well-being’’, i.e. ensuring healthy lives and promoting

well-being for all ages. It is also about health and well-being in the work environment. Issues such as

interpersonal relationships at work, environment and teams, organizational culture, role in the

organization, autonomy at work and fostering innovative spirit, can be factors that, if poorly managed,

reduce the feeling or perception of happiness at work, especially in today’s digital world (Foncubierta-

Rodrı

´

guez andMontero-S 

anchez, 2019; Lekaand Houdmont, 2010; Na

¨swallet al., 2008).

Originality/value –The role of certain higher-order personal values of the entrepreneur is highlighted,

which could make him/her tend towards the realization of happiness management practices.

Furthermore,through the methodology used,a model of the entrepreneur’s higher-ordervalues has been

established, which can be used as a tool to generate reasonable expectations about his/her way of

governance and to what extent it is close to a framework conducive to happiness management. This

information can be beneficial to all those people and groups that establish relationships with the

company, from managersand employees to external stakeholders.In this way, it also helps to anticipate

the company

´sresponse to corporate social responsibility.

Keywords Gender, Entrepreneurs, Age, Personal values, Corporate governance,

Happiness management

Paper type Research paper

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