Anthropology
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Values system and Management Behaviours of the Monotheistic Druze community's managers based on the Schwartz theory of human basic values

Radwan Mansour^{* *}Correspondence: Radwan Mansour, Department of Management, West University of Timisoara, Israel, Email:

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Introduction

Introduction

This article is discussing the values that are specific to managers belonging to the Druze community from Israel. The Druze community is an ethnic community having some very unique characteristics, possessing an identity based on a mystic emotional connection which originates from heart and soul, a cross-border connection that brings together the ancient past, the present and the future without territorial identity. When the value system is understood and accepted by the organizational members and managers, they are committed to it and bear responsibility for their actions. Therefore, there is integration, dialogue, nourishment, and balance between the particular desires for responsibility and the commitment to the organization. This research is based on model of Prof. Shalom Schwartz, using the PVQ 40 Value Scale [1]. The results indicate that the values of conformity, tradition, universalism, and security include preservative and survival elements that sustain the communal collective character. Also, the values of benevolence, achievement and self-direction are important to all managers in all age groups, in which benevolence values embody assistance to others, tolerance, integrity, loyalty and responsibility. Age-old practice of untouchability.

The Monotheistic "Druze" community is a unique group of ethnic, religious, cultural and geographic aspects. It is an ethnic community having some very unique characteristics, possessing an identity based on a mystic emotional connection which originates from heart and soul, a cross- border connection that brings together the ancient past, the present and the future without territorial identity. This community has a unique religious social infrastructure and its members live in a closed social circle without any option for outsiders to join it. Their lifestyle is usually characterized by a traditional lifestyle, distinctly primordial that strengthens social ties, mutual and social responsibility among its members while the religious infrastructure increases their hold on their culture and religion.

There is disagreement about the time and place of the formation of the community of the monotheistic "Druze", the "Druze", The Monotheists, “AL-Mohdoon A-Druz”, the development of their religion and beliefs; although there are the results of different oppinion of researchers from various fields who attempted to study the historical, anthropological, social, hereditary, Faith and heritage, but there is a lot of hidden and contradictory between these various aspects.

One of the various aspects is the historical approach points to the formation of the religion of the monotheists "Druze" in the eleventh century CE in Egypt. The monotheistic "Druze" is a group that it is impossible to belong to it, a cohesive religious minority, which is characterized by mutual trust among its members, multiplies the sense of belonging and identity among them. This group, as it shall discuss below, has a unique social religious infrastructure that expresses the identity of a minority. The religious infrastructure of the unique the monotheistic "Druze" strengthens their hold on their culture and religion and the social infrastructure strengthens their harmony among themselves. The social cohesion and responsibility of anyone to other community member, it is therefore clear that these the monotheistic "Druze" are an entirely independent ethnic political group that lives in a tightly closed social circle [2].

The Principle of the Monotheistics' religion that monotheism is the faith and recognition of one and single God who is complete and pure, this is the first and the most important commandment in religion. There is a clear distinction between the essence of God and His descriptions and a complete separation between Him and His Creatures. There is no comparison between God and His Creatures, and no physical or human traits to be attributed to Him.

The State of Israel did not make the monotheistic "Druze" equal to the Jewish residents in their rights even though they fulfill all their obligations because its being the state of the Jews. On the other hand, they do not see themselves as having an Arab identity, and the Arabs do not see them as part of the Arab nation in Israel, so they did not belong to either of them [3]. The consequence is that the identity of the monotheists "Druze" is not necessarily clear, it is an ambiguous and complex identity which has conceptual, psychological, and behavioral implications for the individual and the group [4].

This community is currently in a transitional period, from a traditional society that, willingly or unwillingly, became a patriarchal society and is now transforming into a modern or semi-modern society. This transition involves significant changes, placing this community under complex challenges and tests. This transition is accompanied by crises and an increasing distance between on one hand, the community, and its young members, who are the majority, and, on another hand, the religious, local and national leadership. The absence of a dialogue with the religious camp creates tension between the religious and the conceptual mind open to changes, to the environment and to modernity, which will all be examined in this article in relation to the current value system of Druze managers from Israel.

There is diverse and broad literature on the subject of values that include typologies that are found in research identified as having core values at different levels. Political core values such as equal opportunity, individuality, and free enterprise, personal values that affect daily behavior, social values and family values, traditionalism, equal opportunity, and moral tolerance [5, 6].

Different researchers converged between political values and personal values. Thus, positive statistical correlations were found between people's trust in governmental institutions and conformity and traditional values. However, self-direction as a value was found to be negatively correlated with trust in government institutions. Research showed that religious-oriented people consider supernatural leadership, divine power, God, while nonreligious / secular people considered tangible and material things. Researchers found significant correlation between personal values: security, conformity and tradition, and family-related values: blind patriots, law and order, and militancy. On the other hand, there was clear negative correlation between personal values and political values of equality, civil rights, and acceptance of immigrants. It was also found that personal values of universalism, self-direction and benevolence had negative correlation to patriotism. Family traditional values, law and order, and militarism were found to have a clear positive correlation to political values such as equality, civil rights, and acceptance of immigrants [7].

Management by values and value conduct is essential to keep a sustainable organization over time. When the value system is understood and accepted by the organizational members, they are committed to it and bear responsibility for their actions [8]. Therefore, there is integration, dialogue, nourishment and balance between the particular desires for responsibility and the commitment to the organization. The values create an organizational identity and give the organization uniqueness and meaning, a relationship of mutual influence, and commitment based on common norms and values, on the organizational level and as an organizational theoretical model and not as a historical event [9].

One of the major models in literature that developed the typology of personal values is the model of Schwartz. Prof. Shalom Schwartz is one of the most prominent theorists in the research of values who developed a theory of values and a scale for its measurement. This theory consists of two aspects: a content aspect, which maps the content world of values in ten different motivational categories, and a structural aspect, which defines their interrelationships [10]. In the content aspect, Schwarz's theory of values defines values as desirable super-goals. This is differentiated in its importance, which people use as guiding principles in their lives, when the main factor that distinguishes between values is their motivational purpose. These goals are divided into ten types of values: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self- direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. These values represent different goals that are summarized in three universal needs for human existence: biological needs, social interaction needs, survival and welfare needs.

The Power value is defined as: a search for status, prestige and control over people and resources. The Achievement value consists of achieving personal success by demonstrating abilities according to social expectations. The value Hedonism corresponds to a search for pleasure and personal delights. The value Stimulation is a search for thrills and challenges in life. The Self- direction value is defined by self-thought, autonomy, self-choice. The Universal value refers to understanding, acceptance, and tolerance for the wellbeing of others and of nature as a whole. The Benevolence value consists of the preservation and empowerment for the welfare of people with whom I have regular personal relationships. The value Tradition corresponds to respect, commitment, acceptance of leaders, ideas, traditional culture, and religious determinations. The value Conformity refers to self-discipline, avoiding actions that may hurt others or violate accepted social expectations and norms. The Security value refers to personal and collective security, harmony, social and national stability, stability in relationships and emotional stability.

The realization of a certain value is an attempt to achieve a goal that underlies it. For example, realization of the value of Achievement expresses the goal of achieving social recognition. The goals differ in importance, correspond to different situations, and serve as guiding principles in people's lives.

The values affect a person when they are relevant, important to one self and less affective when are of lesser importance. The theory points dynamic connections between the types of values and creates a circular structure of similar values and opposing values. While the values that reflect opposing goals face each other and matching goals are adjacent to each other. For example, self- promotion stands opposite to promoting the other and the conservatism opposed to openness to change. Hedonism and stimulation are adjacent to each other and represent a pursuit of pleasant emotional arousal. In contrast, the types of opposing values that appear in opposite directions from the center of the circle represent conflicting motivations. For example, the value of achievement, which emphasizes striving for personal success, is likely to conflict with the kindness value, emphasizing activities for the welfare of others.

Schwartz theory defines that each person has a hierarchy of more important and less important values. Therefore, human behavior will vary according to this hierarchy. However, all values can be cataloged and reduced to ten basic values. Despite the differences between cultures, there is a similarity in the hierarchy of values. These ten values have also been identified in other studies about different cultures around the world and are therefore the basic values that build human characteristics. These values represent different goals that can be divided into three universal needs essential to human existence: the individual's needs as a biological creature, the individual's need for social interaction, and the society's survival and welfare needs as a whole.

The values are defined in the literature as criteria that guide people according to appropriate behavior in different situations. Each person has a set of similar values, which differs in the level of importance of oneself. Due to the differences in the value scale, different people will act similarly to other people who act by the same values, and differently from people with other values. Since people differ from each other by the importance, they attribute to different values according to the hierarchy of values of each individual. This hierarchy reflects the temperament and personality of the individual life experiences, culture, and guides one's perceptions, evaluations, and behavioral choices. In many cultures there is a consensus about the priorities of various values, despite the similarity on a group level, there are many inter-personal differences in one's priorities when choosing values [11, 12].

Research Methodology

Mixed research methodology has been used, quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative part was based on a survey of the managers set of individual values. Two questionnaires were employed for the survey. The first questionnaire is the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), developed by Schwartz. The PVQ was designed to measure the same ten basic value orientations measured by the Schwartz Value Survey. It comprises 40 statements of person profiles, with 6 answers to each. See Table 1 for the Scoring Key for PCQ 40 Value Scale. The second questionnaire is a socio- demographic questionnaire, including personal details such as age, gender, place of residence, education, life style.

The score given to each value is embedded in the weighted mean of all the questions relating to that value based on the distribution listed above in the scoring key. However, individuals and cultural groups are not uniform and differ even in reference to the response scale, so this variability can distort the findings and lead to incorrect conclusions [13].

The PVQ uses short descriptions of 40 different people, gendermatched with the respondent [14, 15]. Each description expresses either an individual’s goals, personal aspirations, or wishes that relate implicitly to the importance of a value.

For each description, the respondents answer to the questions: “How much like you is this person? Responses can be chosen from the following six: very much like me, like me, somewhat like me, a little like me, not like me, and not like me at all. I have inferred the respondents’ own values from their self-evaluated similarity to the people in each description. The score for the importance of each value is the average rating given to these items, all of which were designated a priory as markers of a value (Table 1).

Table 1: The Scoring Key for PVQ 40 Value Scale.

To correct the scale and prevent discrepancies in the findings and results I did the following steps: I summed the values' scores and calculated the mean according to the index table above and examined the internal reliability of ten values. Second, I calculated the means of all 40 questions and prepared a MART for each item and thirdly, I centralized the ten value scores as they appeared in the first step due to the individual means of MART (i.e., I subtract MART from each of the 10 value scores) [16]. Next, I have analyzed the correlation, I used the centered value score as appears in step three above. In order to compare group means, variance analysis or correlations I used t-test and ANOVA. I calculated the centered value scores as a dependent variable.

I used the scores of the answers of the questionnaire's items or in ten values means for doing multidimensional analysis, canonical analysis, isolated analysis, factor analysis.

The sample population of the study is represented by 240 Druze managers belonging to the monotheistic "Druze" community in Israel. The participants in the research are from 19 villages with Druze population, belonging to 2 administrative districts and 5 different regions of Israel. The participating managers had diverse occupation areas and were a representative sample of the community's internal structure and its unique characteristics in Israel.

A great majority (99%) of the participants was born in Israel; this situation is explained by the fact that the Golan Heights were part of Syria until 1967 and were occupied by the Israel defense forces in the “Six days war” that same year. The monotheistic Druze population, who lived in the Golan Heights villages during the war, stayed at home and did not abandon their villages, that leads us to the conclusion that some of the responding managers were originally born in Syria and today live in Israeli territory. According to participating managers' age the results show that 60% of them are under the age of 50. This sample is consistent with the actual population structure, i.e., the young population is the largest mass, while the elder population is reducing over time.

Discussion and Results

Mixed research methodology has been used, quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative part was based on a survey of the managers set of individual values. Two questionnaires were employed for the survey. The first questionnaire is the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), developed by Schwartz. The PVQ was designed to measure the same ten basic value orientations measured by the Schwartz Value Survey. It comprises 40 statements of person profiles, with 6 answers to each. See Table 1 for the Scoring Key for PCQ 40 Value Scale. The second questionnaire is a socio- demographic questionnaire, including personal details such as age, gender, place of residence, education, life style.

The score given to each value is embedded in the weighted mean of all the questions relating to that value based on the distribution listed above in the scoring key. However, individuals and cultural groups are not uniform and differ even in reference to the response scale, so this variability can distort the findings and lead to incorrect conclusions [13].

The PVQ uses short descriptions of 40 different people, gendermatched with the respondent [14, 15]. Each description expresses either an individual’s goals, personal aspirations, or wishes that relate implicitly to the importance of a value.

For each description, the respondents answer to the questions: “How much like you is this person? Responses can be chosen from the following six: very much like me, like me, somewhat like me, a little like me, not like me, and not like me at all. I have inferred the respondents’ own values from their self-evaluated similarity to the people in each description. The score for the importance of each value is the average rating given to these items, all of which were designated a priory as markers of a value (Table 1).

Table 1: The Scoring Key for PVQ 40 Value Scale.

To correct the scale and prevent discrepancies in the findings and results I did the following steps: I summed the values' scores and calculated the mean according to the index table above and examined the internal reliability of ten values. Second, I calculated the means of all 40 questions and prepared a MART for each item and thirdly, I centralized the ten value scores as they appeared in the first step due to the individual means of MART (i.e., I subtract MART from each of the 10 value scores) [16]. Next, I have analyzed the correlation, I used the centered value score as appears in step three above. In order to compare group means, variance analysis or correlations I used t-test and ANOVA. I calculated the centered value scores as a dependent variable.

I used the scores of the answers of the questionnaire's items or in ten values means for doing multidimensional analysis, canonical analysis, isolated analysis, factor analysis.

The sample population of the study is represented by 240 Druze managers belonging to the monotheistic "Druze" community in Israel. The participants in the research are from 19 villages with Druze population, belonging to 2 administrative districts and 5 different regions of Israel. The participating managers had diverse occupation areas and were a representative sample of the community's internal structure and its unique characteristics in Israel.

A great majority (99%) of the participants was born in Israel; this situation is explained by the fact that the Golan Heights were part of Syria until 1967 and were occupied by the Israel defense forces in the “Six days war” that same year. The monotheistic Druze population, who lived in the Golan Heights villages during the war, stayed at home and did not abandon their villages, that leads us to the conclusion that some of the responding managers were originally born in Syria and today live in Israeli territory. According to participating managers' age the results show that 60% of them are under the age of 50. This sample is consistent with the actual population structure, i.e., the young population is the largest mass, while the elder population is reducing over time.

Conclusion

The Druze system of values reflects the changes that are taking place The Box Plot diagram cut results as presented in this research showed that the leading values among the monotheistic Druze managers may be sorted by level of importance into three value types.

The first type is the survival values that are expressed in two ways: the first, belonging to a broad and even universal collective and having benevolence and universalism values. The second way is personal empowerment through knowledge and status acquisition, including through values of achievement, self-direction, and security.

The second type of values is conservative values expressed in preserving collective uniqueness, solidarity, and social responsibility. These values are expressed in high level of conformity and tradition values.

The third type is personal and group satisfaction values along with stimulation and power values. It also appears that among women there is great importance to hedonism values, whereas the values of conformity and tradition are ranked on a relatively low importance scale. The hedonism values are on a high level on the importance scale among young managers aged 20-35. The conformity and tradition values, among monotheistic Druze managers, are on a high level on the importance scale, especially as managers grow older. Overall, I conclude that the managers of the monotheistic Druze community maintain the values they were raised and educated by even when they are in a managerial status. These results indicate that the Druze managers are still holding the values that preserve the unique character of the community and the values that characterize the survival elements.

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