THE BRITISH VALUES SURVEY
It is the decades of data we have collected through these surveys that form the root of all our knowledge, understanding and expertise in advising our clients on the impact of Cultural Values on their business area and interests. While the survey focuses on Britain, the insights it gives are transferable to other cultures.
As we would expect from the theoretical under-pinning of our work, the broad sweep of Values associated with each of our Maslow Groups and Values Modes has remained relatively stable in our latest update but we are able to discern some interesting changes.
Here's a little taste of a "headline" that we can uniquely address from a Values perspective, backed by quantitative evidence.
A New Polarization.
After decades of decline, there has been a resurgence in the Settler Maslow Group. This change in the balance of Values spells danger to corporations and institutions, including government, who apply past best practice to today's economic situation.
Here's what we said in mid-2008.
The Settler resurgence spells danger for a fragile social cohesion based on needs for individuality.
It also heralds a revival of the old blame game between "Us and Them". The clash of
an old morality and a new ethics will create a new political tightrope as the political
"centre" disappears. Now it isn't about IF Labour will lose the next General Election,
it's HOW it will lose.
In November 2010 ...
We found that Prospector support for ANY of the parties was evaporating into the "don't know" universe.
When asked about the desirability of an overall majority, 22% were for the Conservatives, 17% for
Labour and 16% for the Lib-Dems. When asked about the UNdesirability of an overall majority, 35% were
against the Conservatives, 43% against Labour and 29% against the Lib-Dems. The general pattern of
support, by values, was essentially unchanged. The Conservative heartland was Prospector/Settler (71%);
the Labour heartland was flat-ish but, fundamentally, Prospector/Pioneer (69%); and the Lib-Dem heartland
was rock-solid Pioneer (55%). On balance, given the relative growth of the Settler group, the country got what it "wanted" - a Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition.
Who's crying now? Those Prospectors who sat on the fence.
In addition, we have developed a number of innovative tools to examine the data. These take a
quantum leap beyond simple tabulation and provide ways to visualize the richness of this
multi-dimensional data set in easy-to-absorb ways.
Attribute Map |
SIMS Map |
T Map |
