Economics Seminar Economics (ESE) - 2023/2024

Interviene: Alexia Delfino, Università Bocconi

Titolo: Value Misalignment at the Workplace

Abstract: We measure employees' personal values and perceptions of colleagues' values in a large multinational bank. Using detailed data on organizational hierarchies, we construct measures of actual and perceived value misalignment between employees, and between employees and their line managers. We find that employees' misalignment in values with their manager is negatively related to individual performance and increases exit likelihood. Value misalignment with peers has a weaker impact on performance, and mainly affects exit likelihood and intent to stay. Perceptions of misalignment have a similar impact on performance as actual misalignment, suggesting that limited information about peers' and subordinates' values contributes to the negative impacts on performance. To test this channel, we show that teams with better communication are able to mitigate the negative effects of misalignment.