MEANINGS OF WORK AND PERSONAL VALUES OF CANADIAN ANGLOPHONE AND FRANCOPHONE MIDDLE MANAGERS

The goal of this study was to see if the meaning of work and personal values of Canadian Anglophone public sector male middle-managers would be more individualist (e.g., more achievement-oriented in the busines s world) than those of Francophone managers, who were predicted to be more collectivist (i.e., more concerned with affiliation and family co ncerns). This was done using a modified version of Triandis's (1972) a ntecedent-consequent method. Managers gave logical associations to 21 work and personal values, reporting antecedents (what leads to) and co nsequents (what results from) of progress toward each value. In Study 1, 86 Anglophone and 82 Francophone managers provided antecedents and consequents to the values in a free-response questionnaire. In Study 2 , a different but comparable group of 80 Anglophone and 94 Francophone managers completed a multiple-choice questionnaire based on high-freq uency responses given in Study 1. Results from chi-square analyses (no differences between groups for 86% of the value stimuli) and Pearson' s correlation for profile similarity (r = .92, p < .01) showed that, i n general, Anglophone and Francophone managers in this study shared a similar individualist-collectivist understanding of most of the 21 val ues. This overall similarity was discussed in terms of the social chan ge that has occurred in Quebec over the past 15 years as well as the g rowing similarity in business school curricula and the work experience of Anglophone and Francophone managers.