Resumo

Given that the pace of change around the majority of business environments has intensified, studies are needed to explain the phenomenon of greater or lesser openness to change among business leaders, notably in Strategy. This paper seeks to investigate whether Board Members (BMs) are axiologically more or less opened to change when compared to middle managers (MMs). Although many characteristics of BMs have been the subject of earlier analyzes, little is known empirically about board members´ personal values.

The conceptual framework of this paper is based on prior theoretical and empirical literature on BM´s composition and on the theories about Personal Values, particularly in respect to Openness to Change. The research problem of this paper is described as follows: What are the differences - with regard to openness to change in terms of Personal Values - between Board Members and Middle Managers in Brazil?

The Personal Values of Board Members can be considered determinant for the understanding of companies’ behavior. More particularly, understanding the PVs associated with Openness to Change (OC) - values related to “willingness to support change and positively influence the potential consequences of the change” - is relevant The authors hypothesized that BMs have values that advocate less openness to change than middle managers, mainly due to their superior average age and the significant connection – notably in Brazilian context - among BMs and the ownership structure.

This paper is descriptive with a quantitative approach. The data collection was built through the Schwartz´s inventory of values (SVI). The research had two samples: 121 BMs and 308 MMs in Brazil. Questions were closed-ended, seeking to obtain judgment through a scale. The answers attributed an increasing degree of intensity from -1 to 7 (extremely important) to each of the statements. The resultant Cronbach’s alpha index for the questionnaire was 0.923. It was firstly found that it was not normally distributed. To test the hypotheses it was used a Logistic Regression Analysis and M-W tests

According to the logistic regression, it was observed that our sample of BMs showed less openness to change than the MMs, confirming the hypotheses. Non-parametric Mann-Whitney test and Correlation Analysis also gave rise to significant results in the sample direction. The beta of -0.43 was shown to be significant, pointing out to the smaller slope of BMs at openness to change. So, giving priority to conformity and security values seems to indicate that the BMs emphasize control, preservation of social order and conservation.

Both hypotheses were confirmed. There are significant differences, in terms of Personal values, between BMs e MMs. Brazil, despite its high level of entrepreneurship in society, presents a corporate universe with a high concentration of power. In this sense and based on the results of the present paper, it is suggested that national business culture needs to change the mechanisms for selecting its board of directors to cope with the mutational manner of the contemporary society. Personal values are notably relevant in this context

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