Organizational Values: Comparison of Organizational Features Across Different Types of Public Sector Organizations

Received September 01, 2017 Revised from October 02, 2017 Accepted November 2

In today's era of rapid changes in societies and increased competition organizational values cannot remain the same as before because of demanding work conditions and public expectations. Since 1990, during the period of restored Lithuanian independence, the essential changes took place in the activity of public sector organizations in point of view of both management and values. The principles of management and government, attitude towards work, discipline and organizational inter-relationship have changed and are still changing essentially. For our study, we selected three public sector organizations -the police, school and municipality, because the changes of values taking place in these organizations should reflect the achievements and progress of modern Lithuanian society most clearly. The goals of the current paper are: a) to examine which organizational features may be perceived as top values for employees of each organization, b) to examine whether there are some common organizational features that employees distinguish as most essential despite the nature of the organization, and c) to evaluate how different organizational values are rated in each organization. The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that all three organizations should have common organizational values that are common to all public sector organizations, but at the same time and solely their inherent values, shaped by the specifics of the activity and the mission of the organization.

INTRODUCTION
In the XXI century, public sector faced a dynamic environment in which changes are a constant phenomenon. Every country's civil service is oriented towards the fact that public interest should

ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES AND CULTURE
A. Bennet and D. Bennet (2005) state, that future organizations will be characterized by three characteristics:  constant learning,  creation, protection, application and transfer of knowledge, the main resource of the organization,  organization's wisdom that is expressed by its capability to realize, explain and respond to challenges of environment.
The fourth characteristic should be added to the previous three -organizational culture and professional values.
Organizational values are the essence of organizational culture, and united acknowledgement of these values makes it strong. Values are long-term belief, connecting members of the organization for common activity and striving for goal. Every member of the organization has to realize them, sustain them, and follow them. That's why the values are the main element of organizational culture.
Values are important in the organization because the resemblance in perception of the same organizational values makes an organizational culture effective and functioning (Weiss, 2001). Perceived organizational values refer to employees' beliefs about what practice are acceptable or appropriate in their organization. Organizational values are a long-term belief that connects members of the organization for co-operation and for implementation of the goals of organization. Values also serve as standards for evaluating employees' behavior and organizational success. Different studies show relationship between organizational values and individual values (Ros et al., 1999;Meglino and Ravlin, 1998;Martins and Coetzee, 2011;Adamonienė and Ruibytė, 2013), self-esteem (Naus et al., 2007), ethical behavior (Jin et al., 2007), organizational commitment (Finelgan, 2000;Abbot et al., 2005) and other important organizational factors (Mcnaughton, 2003, Hendel andSteinman, 2002;Verquer et al., 2003).
In today's era of rapid changes in societies and increased competition organizational values cannot remain the same as before because of demanding work conditions and public expectations. A. Bennet and D. Bennet (2005) state, that future organizations will be characterized by three characteristics: a) constant learning, b) creation, protection, application and transfer of knowledge, the main resource of the organization, and c) organization's wisdom that is expressed by its capability to realize, explain and respond to challenges of environment. These conditions can be successfully realized only in the case they will become a striving and value for organization and its members.

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES IN PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS
Since 1990, during the period of restored Lithuanian independence, the essential changes took place in the activity of public sector organizations in point of view of both management and values. The principles of management and government, attitude towards work, discipline and organizational inter-relationship have changed and are still changing essentially. For our study, we selected three public sector organizations -the police, school and municipality, because the changes of values taking place in these organizations should reflect the achievements and progress of modern Lithuanian society most clearly.
Since restoration of independence of Lithuania (1990), the changes are constantly taking place in Lithuanian police organization. "Law and legality" were two main value marks in restoring Lithuanian police organization and society. In 2008 a new slogan of police -"Defend. Protect. Help."revealed a new priority of police organization in striving to satisfy changed expectations of society. The values and organizational culture of police organization in Lithuania not so much explored (Laurinavičius, 2001, 2002, Adamonienė and Ruibytė, 2013, 2014, much more wider spectrum of this problem we can find in the works of Fielding (1984), Reuss-Ianni (1993), Christensen and Crank (2001), Lilley and Hinduja (2006), Glomseth et al. (2010), etc.
According to the Law of Education of the Republic of Lithuania (2007), education performs its mission best when its development coincides and prevails development of the society. Contemporary school is expected to act as a change agent, and therefore expectations for teaching and learning experiences are ever increasing. Therefore, at school, as one of the major actors for innovations in society, with the advancement in IT technologies, the educational practices must change. That is, teachers have to learn faster than ever; and the pace of learning is directly related to the environment, to the atmosphere at a school, as well as school organization values (Simonaitienė, 2001;Adamonienė et al., 2016).
Municipality as public administration institution is the closest to the citizens and must be able to assure main human rights and needs most rapidly. Municipality in striving to correspond citizens' needs, expectations of central governments and to be competitive between other municipalities, must plan its activity. Such public administration institution in a constantly changing environment is able to act more efficiently if its activity is oriented towards a long-term prospect, and by the prepared programs of actions and instruments there is a striving for implementation of foreseen goals and instruments. In modern global society, competitiveness of municipality as public sector's institution depends on its flexibility and ability to react to environmental changes by taking strategically correct decisions (Arimavičiūtė, 2010). It is important that, by taking strategic decisions, the institution would be not only passive in point of view of environment, but also would take an active role by finding the most optimal variant between institution's capability and environment in which it is acting. In modern world, competitive institutions or organizations consider employees' knowledge and abilities as their main advantage (Žmogaus studijų centras, 2012).

Research method
To achieve research objective, the questionnaire to investigate the values of the organization the questionnaire of Glomseth et al. (2010), who had classified police organizational values dimensions, forming the scale of 21 bipolar values, was used (Adamoniene and Ruibyte, 2013). We find it suitable also for study of school and municipality organizational values and used is purposely to get the data which could be comparable with data from different kind of organizations. Making the scale of values in school we added 5 statements reflecting learning organization issues (Adamoniene and Ruibyte, 2016).
For each group of values two propositions were formulated. Subjects had to evaluate in a 5point scale (1 -strongly disagree, 5 -strongly agree) the extent to which the statements about the values inherent in their organization.

Sample and methods
Participants of police institutions. The survey of police officers was conducted by web-based questionnaire distributed via Kaunas region police institutions email. Anonymity of the respondents was stressed.
The number of female respondents was 92 (46,0), male -107 (53,5). The respondents according to the type of work were distributed as follows: first line officers -70, specialists -23 and managers -7. The following employee age groups were classified as follows: less than 30 years old -83 respondents (including 1  of them were managers, 57  specialists, 26  first line officers), from 30 to 40 years -77 respondents (including 5  or them were managers, 53 specialists, 18  first line officers), more than 40 years -39 respondents (including 7  of them were managers, 30  specialists, 2  first line officers).
Participants of school institutions. The study involved 172 Kaunas school's personnel. Invitations with the reference to web-based questionnaire were distributed via Kaunas schools institutions email, Anonymity of the respondents was also stressed.

Statistical analysis and methods
Analyses were performed using SPSS 22.0 version. Statistical methods: descriptive analyses and Kruskal-Wallis test for multiple samples.
The particular organizational/occupational value was rated as top and one of the most important feature if its mean score exceeded 2/3 of possible theoretical score -3,67 points (maximum evaluation for every feature is 5 (=employees strongly agree that the feature is inherent in their organization), minimum evaluation is 1 (=employees strongly disagree that the feature is inherent in their organization), score range is 5-1=4. 2/3 of the possible theoretical score is 1+4*2/3=3,67).

Research questions
The goals of the current paper are: a) to examine which organizational features may be perceived as top values for employees of each organization, b) to examine whether there are some common organizational features that employees distinguish as most essential despite the nature of the organization, and c) to evaluate how different organizational values are rated in each organization.

RESULTS
Organizational values which evaluation exceeded 3,67 points were rated as top values (Table 1 -organizational values are presented in descending order by relevance; top values rating procedure is described above). Some top occupational features municipality, police and school organizations share in common. Employees stated what it is very important in their work and they try to meet these demands: achieve good performance and improve their professional skills, perform tasks in collaboration with co-workers, plan work time effectively and meet deadlines that are outlined, keep focusing on legal and ethical standards, as well to have clear definitions of what are the tasks and what/when/how are needed to be done. It is important to emphasize that school organizations distinguished much more top occupational values compared to others. Employees of school organizations 18 positive organizational values rated as most important and applicable at their workplace (compared to 6 and 10 in municipality and police organizations, respectively).
Also employees pointed that organizational features that are incompatible with their work principles and reveal rarely in school organizations are the ones that are incompatible with fundamentals of transactional management: employees should obey the leaders, management power is in hands of a few individuals, employees avoid to reveal their thoughts and true feelings, and communication at work is rather formal and standoffish (these statements gained the lowest ratings).
Professionals of municipality organizations distinguished only the same 6 top occupational features that are mutual for all organizations despite its nature (Table 1).
The bottom rated (these statements gained the lowest ratings) occupational features for municipality organizations are the ones that are not congruous with principles of optimum management system. Professionals stated that it is rare practice to obey leaders unconditionally, conform only with a single leader or executive, work under pressure, restrictions or control.
Similarly to municipality organization, employees in police institutions excluded general to others top work-related features. However strict management and obedience to authorities are inherent occupational features in police organizations according to our research results. Professionals stated that often there are many restrictions and control in their work, they should obey the executives, only a few individuals have a power of decision making and leadership (these values also gained the highest points when evaluating the work-related features). Comparison of the results of the three researched organizations presented in Table 2 and Table 3. revealed that most organizational values rating mean scores were the highest for school organization compared to municipality or police institutions (or the rating mean score was the lowest if the valued organizational feature may have the negative direction and may not reflect present and modern management; results in Table 4).
In school organization significantly more than in police and municipality organizations people are open to change and new activities, initiative and personal contribution are supported, people are given freedom in their work and stimulated creative thinking, collaboration, sharing of information, trying to achieve or exceed personal results, leader's openness to employees prevails (Table 1).
Rigid and control based management methods as well stiff and formal work-place communication were more specific for police organizations ˗ evaluation mean scores for expressions that represent obedience for authorities, formal communication, increased devotion to work were the highest compared to results of other institutions (Table 4). Also employees of police organizations tend to apply ordinal and experience-based task management methods instead of new and creative ones.
Results concerning police organization are not so surprisingly. In the studies of Norwegian police organization by Glomseth et al. (2010) we can find the similar tendencies: the most important organizational values for Norwegian officers are clear time limits, safety and integrality, orientation towards practical experience and standard methods of activity. Glomseth et al. (2010) conclude that such organization is rather handcraft organization than knowledge organization. Hierarchy of values of employees of the researched police organization shows that this organization is formalized and its activity is controlled and foreseen. It can be seen as rather bureaucratic, oriented towards stability organization than the knowledge one. Municipality type representatives may be perceived (Table 2 and Table 3) as at least changing and adaptive to new methods, initiative supporting persons as they gained the most conspicuous scores on ideas that initiative and personal contribution are not supported in the organization, employees do not have a clear definition of what needs to be done (Table 2).
Municipality organization does not apply constant changes in order to overcome the challenges, organization does not observe a clear vision and priorities, employees are not objectively, fairly and adequately evaluated according to the results (Table 3), employees and executives do not show their real thoughts and feelings, leaders are not open to employees of all levels, people need to devote more of their time for work than other activities (Table 4).
According to results, we may assume that such organizational factors as organizational commitment, ethical behavior, work satisfaction and others may be the weakest for police and municipality organization professionals compared to school institution. CONCLUSIONS Professionals may distinguish the list of work-related features and occupational values that are general to public sector organizations: outline clear deadlines and requirements for tasks, effectively plan tasks and time management, achieve excellent results and improve professional skills, achieve goals in collaborations with others, keep focusing on legal and ethical standards.
Employees of school organizations distinguished much more top positive occupational values compared to municipality and police organizations. Also the highest positive and outstanding occupational values are inherent for education institutions.
Professionals of municipality organizations distinguished only the same 6 top occupational features that are mutual for all organizations despite its nature. Municipality type representatives may be perceived as at least changing and adaptive to new methods, initiative supporting persons.
Members of police institutions excluded general to others top work-related features. In addition, they pointed that often there are many restrictions and control in their work, police officers should obey the executives, only a few individuals have a power of decision making and leadership. These findings support the idea that management in police organizations is still authority, control and obedience based. Employees of police organizations tend to apply ordinal and experience-based task management methods instead of new and creative ones.