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2005 8: 410Organizational Research MethodsHumphrey Bourne and Mark Jenkins

Eliciting Managers' Personal Values: An Adaptation of the Laddering Interview Method  

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10.1177/1094428105280118ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODSBourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES

Eliciting Managers’ Personal Values:An Adaptation of the Laddering Interview Method

HUMPHREY BOURNEUniversity of Bristol

MARK JENKINSCranfield School of Management

The authors describe an adaptation of the laddering method that allows interpre-tive researchers to uncover informants’personal values during the course of a sin-gle interview where other subjects are also explored. The authors explain ladder-ing and illustrate its outcomes by means of case examples. The method allows theexploration of personal values to be integrated into a more flexible interviewmethod, providing greater scope for probing salient issues while optimizing the(potentially limited) time available with informants.

Keywords: interpretive; interviews; personal values; laddering

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the study of managers at the level ofthe individual in response to an increasing emphasis on researching the processes bywhich organizational actors generate, protect, and manage knowledge. This hasrequired greater emphasis on the informal and social mechanisms within organiza-tions (Nonaka, 1994) and within this, the role of individuals’values in embedding andconstructing such knowledge (Von Krogh, Ichijo, & Nonaka, 2000). Similarly, recentdevelopments in the area of micro strategy (Johnson, Melin, & Whittington, 2003) haveturned attention from the study of managers by sampling large populations to the studyof individual managers and their activities in making strategy. To understand how thepersonal values of individual managers and other organizational actors impact upontheir subjective construction of knowledge, researchers need to employ interpretiveresearch methods that uncover the idiosyncratic meaning that values have for the indi-vidual. Furthermore, given the difficulty that academic researchers often experience ingaining access to interview senior executives, particularly when exploring somethingas personal, and therefore potentially sensitive, as their values, there is a need to estab-lish a means of eliciting the personal value priorities of individual managers and otherorganizational actors effectively and efficiently in qualitative research.

Given these methodological challenges, we argue that laddering methods offer anumber of potential advantages for dealing with these types of situation. We propose a

Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 8 No. 4, October 2005 410-428DOI: 10.1177/1094428105280118© 2005 Sage Publications

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development of Hinkle’s (1965) laddering method, allowing it to be undertaken duringa single interview. This enables researchers to explore the relationship between orga-nizational actors’ value priorities and other phenomena of interest. We describe thetheoretical roots of the laddering method and its development and briefly outline itsuse in consumer and management research before explaining the adapted version usedin a recent research project. We detail the process of laddering in the interview setting,illustrate the process with two case examples, and discuss the implications for quali-tative research in management.

Laddering

Laddering is a method for eliciting the higher level abstractions of the constructsthat people use to organize their world. The researcher taps into an individual’s per-sonal construct system and then follows it to the overarching values by exploringexplanations for preferences at ever higher levels of abstraction. At the uppermost lev-els of explanation—the most superordinate of personal constructs—lie the individ-ual’s personal value priorities. The method was originally developed by Hinkle (1965)and is based in Kelly’s (1955) personal construct theory. The laddering method wasfirst used in the field of psychology (Adams-Webber, 1979; Wright, 1970), and ver-sions have been developed for use in consumer research (Gutman, 1990; Reynolds &Gutman, 1988; Walker & Olson, 1991) and in human resource management (Jolly,Reynolds, & Slocum, 1988). Researchers have also used laddering to elicit managers’work values perceived as relevant to decision making in strategic management(Armstrong, 1979; Eden & Ackermann, 1998b), but it has not been widely adopted inmanagement research. One possible reason is that the laddering method, as used inconsumer and management research, is typically carried out in conjunction withKelly’s Repertory Grid Technique or Hinkle’s Implication Grid and when used in thisway can be overly structured for interview-based studies.

Kelly’s (1955) personal construct theory proposes people create their own way ofseeing the world by building a personal system of constructs or concepts. He arguedthat “man-the-scientist” generates and tests constructs through experience, adaptingand modifying them so that they provide a better means of anticipating future events.Constructs are implicitly or explicitly dichotomous, so that to describe a coat as red,for example, is to imply that it is similar, in the respect of its color, to other things thatare red (such as the setting sun, blood, or strawberries) and therefore different fromthings that are not red. Constructs can be descriptive or evaluative, and each personbuilds a unique system in which he or she groups constructs together in ways that mini-mize incompatibilities and inconsistencies and that are continually revised in the lightof experience. The system is hierarchical, with superordinate constructs subsuminglarger numbers of subordinate constructs, so that at the highest level, the constructs areabstract and encompass great breadth and depth. Superordinate constructs that areevaluative in nature represent the values by which an individual lives his or her life(Bannister & Fransella, 1986). Kelly argued that individuals create templates of theirworld by means of a finite number of dichotomous or bipolar constructs that are orga-nized hierarchically and that provide a basis for choice according to their preferencefor one pole over the other. The laddering method is based on the assumption that itshould be possible to find points of entry into a person’s template or construct systemand follow a pathway up the hierarchy to the most superordinate constructs.

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 411

Hinkle, a student of Kelly, devised the laddering method to reveal superordinateconstructs at ever higher levels of abstraction as part of his investigation into the impli-cations of a change in one construct on the rest of the hierarchical system (Hinkle,1965). The process begins by first generating a bipolar construct of similarity and con-trast using Kelly’s (1955) “triadic sort” from related “elements” familiar to the infor-mant. Three of these elements, which might be people, things, ideas, and so forth, areselected, and the informant is asked to state in what way he or she can identify how twoof them are similar to but different from the third. So, for example, an individual in ourstudy considered his work colleagues and selected three for a triadic sort. He was ableto state that two colleagues were similar because they were honest, as opposed to thethird, who was deceitful (see Figure 1). This reveals a construct, the poles of which inthis example are honest-versus-deceitful. The informant is then asked to indicatewhich end of the resulting bipolar construct he or she prefers, and why. This revealsone end of a second construct that encompasses the first. In our example, the informantstated that he preferred “honest,” because it “generates trust.” The contrasting pole ofthis construct is revealed by asking the question “As opposed to what?” Our informantanswered “uncertainty,” thus completing the superordinate construct, trust-versus-uncertainty. The process is repeated, revealing higher level constructs, until the infor-mant is unable to explain why he or she has a preference, except in terms already elic-ited or in the most general of statements that indicate that there is no further reason.The superordinate construct at this level will be an overarching basis for evaluation—a personal value priority—for the person concerned. In our example, the informant

412 ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

They are honest Deceitful

Generates trust Uncertainty

Enables openness Political agendas

Colleague B & C are similar Colleague A is different

In which way are two colleagues similar, and different to the third?

Similar because

Preferred because

It is wholesome and complete Politicking

Preferred because

Preferred because

As opposed to

As opposed to

As opposed to

As opposed to

Figure 1: An Example Ladder

stated he preferred trust to uncertainty because it enabled openness, as opposed topolitical agendas. When asked why he preferred openness, our informant was onlyable to state that it was “wholesome and complete” and was at a loss to provide any fur-ther explanation; for him, there was nothing more that could be said. This indicatesthat the top of the ladder had been reached and that a superordinate construct had beenelicited.

Laddering and Personal Values

The laddering method was developed to access a person’s superordinate constructsconcerned with his or her preferred self. If ladders follow pathways concerned withevaluative judgments, then it follows that the most superordinate constructs corre-spond more or less with values. When it is the individual’s preference that is beinginvestigated, rather than that of a social group or third party, then it should follow thatsuch superordinate constructs correspond with personal values. In his elaboration ofpersonal construct theory, Kelly (1955) argued that an individual

builds his life on one or other of the alternatives represented in each of the dichoto-mies. That is to say that he places relative values upon ends of the dichotomies. Someof the values are quite transient and represent merely the convenience of the moment.Others are quite stable and represent guiding principles. (p. 65)

The correspondence between superordinate constructs and values was also identifiedby Hinkle (1965), who stated that subjects were asked to “delineate some of their mostfundamental commitments” and that they were “rank ordering these commitments interms of a scale of values—or overarching principles of choice” (p. 34). The bipolarnature of constructs reflects Frondizi’s (1971) view that “a basic characteristic of val-ues is polarity” (p. 10) and is consistent with Rokeach’s (1973) definition of a value “asa mode of conduct or end-state of existence that is personally preferable to an oppositeor converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence” (p. 5).

The two principal streams of research that use the laddering method to elicit valuesare those following the work of Gutman (1982) in “means-end chain” analysis andthose that make use of laddering to build cognitive maps in organization research fol-lowing the work of Eden, Jones, and Sims (1979). The means-end chain model is anadaptation of Hinkle’s (1965) laddering method designed for use primarily in con-sumer research. Its principal applications are in segmentation studies, assessment ofproduct and brand values, and developing advertising strategies (for example,Reynolds & Gutman, 1984; Reynolds & Rochon, 1991; Walker & Olson, 1991). Inthis approach, constructs are categorized into three levels representing attributes (atthe most concrete level), consequences, and values (at the most abstract level). Themeans-end chain model has tended to develop away from Hinkle’s method as usershave been largely interested in seeking commonalities amongst the consequences andvalues in large populations. This has resulted in versions that can enable qualitativedata to be analyzed in a quantitative way but that do so with some loss of depth. Typi-cally, only the preferred end of each dichotomous construct is elicited at superordinatelevels during interview, and individuals’ ladders are then amalgamated into collective“chains” that represent commonalities within groups. This is normally done by codingattributes, consequences, and values into common categories, discarding all those

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 413

chains shared by relatively few individual ladders, typically those recording less thanthree to five relations (Reynolds & Gutman, 1988). The resulting “hierarchical valuemap” is therefore a reflection of some of the more general linkages identified in agroup but not representative of the value system of any one individual.

The other research stream is exemplified by Eden and Ackermann (1998b), whomade use of personal construct theory and Hinkle’s (1965) laddering method in devel-oping shared cognitive maps so that management teams can better incorporate thisunderstanding into their creation of strategies. Laddering is an important part of theelicitation, and the method followed is closely related to Hinkle’s, developed largelyfrom Armstrong’s (1979) study on values and decision making. However, both thephrasing of the questions, which direct the informant toward group values, and theanalysis of the maps, which again focuses on commonalities, make this version unsuit-able for personal value elicitation. Furthermore, its use in conjunction with repertorygrid work precludes its use in a single interview format.

Adapting the Laddering Method

The incentive to develop a version of the laddering method different from thosedescribed above arose from our interest in understanding the relationship betweensenior managers’ personal value priorities and their interpretation of their organiza-tion’s corporate values. For this purpose, our focus is on the differences, rather thancommonalities, in personal value systems. Furthermore, the subjects of our study aresenior managers and vice presidents in commercial organizations, and to enroll theirsupport in our research, it was important that we respected limits to the time they couldspend in interview. In short, we needed to develop a means of eliciting personal valuesthat could be implemented as part of a single interview of some 60 to 90 minutes. Theresulting modification to the laddering method developed for this research workremains close to the original developed by Hinkle (1965) and to Kelly’s (1955) per-sonal construct theory, but it differs from those described above in three key ways.

First, the elements in each of the ladders are not defined a priori but are drawn fromthe informant’s own experiences, which may have been identified in a preladderingpart of the interview. We also purposely mix work and nonwork groupings of elementsin the exercise; thus for a first ladder, we might ask informants to generate a constructfrom three positions they have held in the organization, but for the second, we mightask they generate them from three places visited on vacation, and then use anothersource for the third, such as three movies they had seen recently. Although it is impor-tant to work with closely related elements if the researcher’s interest is in the natureof constructs elicited, or the consequences of, say, product attributes, this is not thecase when the researcher’s interest is in the values that the laddering method reveals.Bannister and Fransella (1986) argued that laddering “can start with any type of con-struct, be it about kinds of soap, opera, television program or work of art—the endproduct will be some superordinate construct to do with one’s philosophy of life”(p. 51). A variety of constructs have been used to elicit personal values in various stud-ies, including people known to the informant (Hinkle, 1965), policy decisions(Armstrong, 1979), breath-freshening products (Reynolds & Gutman, 1984), ciga-rette consumption styles (Valette-Florence, 1997), greeting cards (Walker & Olson,1991), and infant feeding methods (Gengler, Mulvey, & Oglethorpe, 1999). Each ofthese constructs has laddered to values, the difference between them being that they

414 ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

tap into the informant’s personal construct system at different places. Where theresearcher’s interest is in values, or superordinate constructs, the point of entry is notof particular importance except in allowing access. Our reasons for breaking from thetradition of related elements were twofold. First, in our initial piloting of the tech-nique, we noticed that our informants appeared more confident and relaxed when lad-dering from relatively benign elements, such as places visited or movies seen, than wasthe case when all constructs were elicited from work-related elements. By using a mix-ture of sources for elements, we signaled that this was not a work-related test. Second,the pilot work made us confident that we were able to elicit the personal values of thoseinterviewed, not those perceived to be the correct values for the role that they per-formed. A manager is less likely to be able to answer questions regarding preferenceswhile “in role” with consistency when elements are self-selected from diverse butsalient sources.

The second way in which the laddering method presented here differs from othersused in management research is that we elicit the opposite poles of constructs at everylevel. We argue that an individual’s personal values are better understood when theopposite pole is elicited, for we are then provided with a description of what they arenot, as well as what they are, which aids understanding. Investigations concerning theinterpretation of value terms have shown that they can have different meanings for dif-ferent individuals (e.g., Bumpus & Munchus, 1996; Kitwood & Smithers, 1975).There is also a risk, pointed out by Fransella and Bannister (1977), that the researcherwill apply his or her own contrasting pole to the construct elicited, thus altering itsintended sense. The risk of misinterpretation of values is reduced when the oppositepoles of constructs are elicited at every level of a ladder.

Our third development of the laddering method is to analyze the resulting “valuemaps” holistically at the level of the individual. Value maps are typically analyzed forcommonalities across informants, which require data reduction rules to manage thelarge number of different constructs and relationships that result. The normal processis to set a “cutoff” point whereby constructs that appear fewer than a predeterminednumber of times across all respondents’ ladders are rejected (Eden & Ackermann,1998a; Reynolds & Gutman, 1988). Although this allows for the aggregation of valuemaps and has its purpose for certain types of research, we argue that it removes theidiosyncrasies and individual differences that this method captures. Instead, we pro-pose that comparing value maps is best carried out by interpreting the direction of thevalue priorities, using general categories provided by, for example, Rokeach (1973) orSchwartz (1996).

Laddering in the Interview Situation

In this section, we describe how the laddering method was used to elicit the per-sonal values of senior managers during the course of a single interview lasting be-tween 60 and 90 minutes and where the laddering exercise occupied approximatelyone third of the time spent with informants. First, we outline the process of the inter-view, including the use of the laddering method, and the outcome of the ladders. Wethen use two case examples to demonstrate the outcomes of the exercise and to illus-trate the relationship between the values elicited through laddering and those implicitin informants’ accounts of their career histories.

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 415

The interviews took place in two large, multinational organizations: a U.S.-basedhigh-technology corporation and a U.K.-based consumer goods corporation. Ourinformants were senior managers, some with the title “director” or its U.S. equivalent“vice president” and the remainder reporting directly to a manager at this level. Accessat this level in commercial organizations can be problematic, particularly in studiesthat do not have clear tangible benefits for informants who have to be able to justifytime spent with researchers. It was clear in our research that time was a limiting factorand that access was made easier by our assurance that interviews would take no morethan 90 minutes. All informants were aware of the nature of the research we wereundertaking, and at the start of the interview, we explained the structure of the inter-views, which were divided into three parts. In the first part, we asked managers todescribe their career history and explored reasons given for career choice, job changes,attitudes toward issues in their organizations, and other points of interest that we con-sidered revealing of their value priorities. Career histories are likely to reveal choicesmade on the basis of personal values (Watson, 1994) and would thus provide a meansof verification. In the second part of the interview, we turned our informants’attentionto the organizational issue that we were investigating in relation to their personal val-ues, their subjective interpretation of corporate values, and spent some time probingthe reasons they gave for their responses. We then introduced the laddering exercise,its placement at the end of the interview being intentional. Informants can quickly findthey are revealing deeply held personal preferences, and it is important that both theyand the interviewer are at ease in the interview setting, and so we used the first part ofthe interview to build rapport with our informants. We introduced the exercise by invit-ing informants to “do some ladders,” the wording purposely employed to maintain thesense of informality built earlier. The content of the interview had been outlined at thestart of the interview, but we now explained the laddering exercise in more detail. Toillustrate the process, we showed a previously prepared example so that informantsknew what to expect from the exercise and more fully understood their role, and weanswered any questions.

The elements for the first ladder were typically drawn from an informant’s accountof his or her career history. We found that the interview flowed more naturally whenwe began with a group of elements that had been part of the earlier discussion. Someinformants had described working for three or more organizations; others had heldthree or more positions within a particular organization or had worked in three or morelocations. Any of these provided the elements for the first construct, but for the secondand third ladder, we suggested that informants draw elements from some area outsideof their work environment and offered a prompt list of possible triads, such as placesvisited on vacation, nonwork interests or activities, family members, or homes livedin. All were suitable elements for eliciting a construct, and their selection by the infor-mants ensured that they were salient and meaningful to them.

When an informant had chosen three elements, such as three positions held, werecorded them on the bottom of a sheet of paper in full view, so that the process couldbe observed. We then followed the triadic sort format described earlier, asking theinformant to identify any way he or she considered two of the elements to be similar toeach other, but different from the third, to elicit the first bipolar construct. We recordedhis or her answer on the sheet of paper, then asked the informant to consider the elicitedbipolar construct and to indicate which of the two poles he or she preferred. We drew avertical line on the paper from the preferred pole upwards, to indicate a move to the

416 ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

next level, and asked the informant to explain why he or she preferred that pole to theother. We recorded the response above the vertical line and, at the same time, posed thequestion “As opposed to . . . ?” to elicit the opposite end of this construct, thereby pro-ducing a superordinate bipolar construct. This pattern of questions was repeated untilthe informant was no longer to able to say why he or she had a preference except interms already elicited. This marked the completion of a ladder.

After three ladders had been completed, we recorded the preferred pole of the mostsuperordinate constructs—values—onto a fresh sheet of paper and asked the infor-mant to comment, using a very open question: “What do those look like?” Thisallowed us to receive immediate feedback and provided the informant an opportunityto agree or disagree with the outcomes of the exercise. Each one of those we inter-viewed recognized at least something of himself or herself in the most superordinateconstructs elicited. None disagreed, and typically our informants’ responses werevariations of “It looks like me” or “That’s very me!”, often said with some awe, reflect-ing their surprise that the exercise is able to reveal something as personal as values withease in a short time. Several expressed astonishment that something as benign as a con-struct arising out of positions held or places visited on vacation could so quickly ladderup to personal value. A number of informants said they found that they had revealedmore about themselves than they would normally feel comfortable doing. Althoughnone expressed any particular regret about this, it did highlight the potential that theladdering method has for accessing that part of a person Hinkle (1965) described as“their most fundamental commitments in their present life” (p. 34) and confirmed theneed for sensitivity in using the laddering method.

After recording their responses to seeing their ladders, we asked informants if theyconsidered there to be anything obviously missing. By highlighting the values elicited,any value an informant considered himself or herself holding with a similar level ofimportance is likely to become more apparent. When such a value was suggested, werecorded it and probed for meaning when that did not seem clear. Several managerswere able to find one or more values to add to those elicited, although in most casesthese extra values had already appeared as a construct in one of the ladders. The inter-view was then brought to a close.

We elected to carry out three ladders and then probe for any obviously missing val-ues not revealed by the method. The question of how many ladders should be com-pleted to reveal a good enough insight into an individual’s personal value priorities isnot easily answered and may vary according to the research being undertaken.Researchers have suggested that there is a finite number of values that an individualcan hold, and whereas survey instruments may include upwards of 50 value items, it isaccepted that only a small number will be of central importance to any individual(Rokeach, 1979; Schwartz, 1996). The number of core values an individual can hold islikely to be limited because the greater the number of superordinate constructs, themore complex his or her construct system will be, and the more difficult it would beto use it to anticipate events. In developing the method for use in interviews, weattempted to make some assessment of the number of superordinate constructs byfinding the saturation point of one volunteer. We carried out a total of 21 ladders over aperiod of 5 days, drawing from a wide variety of elements, and we elicited just 4clearly different superordinate constructs.

In our research, we opted for three ladders after experimenting with four. Werejected doing four for a number of reasons. First, the time needed to carry out four put

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 417

pressure on the rest of the interview, and this limited the extent we were able to explorerelated matters. Second, on those occasions where four ladders were attempted, therewere signs of interview fatigue, apparent through an inability to select suitable ele-ments to work with, outward displays of frustration, and a tendency to circumvent theprocess. Finally, we found that in nearly every case the fourth ladder, when attempted,resulted in a superordinate construct already elicited. In some cases, this construct hadbeen the uppermost of a previous ladder, but more often it was one or two levels fromthe top and indicated that it might be subsumed into another, more superordinate, con-struct. The combination of asking for obviously missing values at the end of the exer-cise, and analyzing the map in its entirety for the overall direction of the values elic-ited, meant that we were confident that the resulting picture would be as accurate arepresentation of the individual’s value set as could be achieved in an intervention ofthis type.

Personal Values and Career History:Two Case Examples

To illustrate the laddering method and its outcomes, we report in brief the case oftwo informants from our study. First, we present transcripts of one of the ladderingexercises in each case to show the pattern of responses, highlighting some of the inci-dents that occurred in the process. We then reveal the full ladder map for each infor-mant and comment on the constructs elicited in the process. Finally, we report on keymoments in the early part of the interview when the informants described their careerhistory to show the relationship between the values elicited by the laddering methodand those implicit in the stories told.

The first informant, known here as “Catherine,” is a senior project manager workingin the research and development division of a large, multinational, high-technologycompany. Catherine had been employed there since completing her master’s degreesome 12 years before the interview took place. The interview was carried out at herplace of work and was one of eight that we undertook within this division of thecompany.

The transcript, shown in Table 1, illustrates the pace at which one can move fromdiscussing the similarities between three elements to reaching a point where the infor-mant is describing a “deep value thing.” In this example, the move occurred in threesteps, although it is common to find it taking four or five. It also shows that, whereassome constructs are relatively easily identified, others may take longer to isolate. Inthis example, Catherine identifies the first construct easily enough but finds the secondmore difficult as she is able to identify more than one superordinate construct and isthus faced with the difficulty of making a choice. To help Catherine identify the nextlevel construct, the interviewer reminds her of the previous construct and encouragesher to select one almost at random. It is not unusual for a construct to be subsumed intomore than one superordinate construct, and each will ladder to a value. The interven-tion appears to have been ineffective, and Catherine’s urgent response implies contin-uing confusion. This prompts a further, apparently directive intervention from theinterviewer, who asks, “Is it that you prefer working with people, or is . . . ?” The pur-pose behind this response, however, is intended to help Catherine find her own con-struct using a variation of the “contrast principle” (Spradley, 1979). The result is thatshe is able to identify her own construct more accurately, and the ladder proceeds

418 ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 419

Table 1Transcript of a Ladder, Catherine (interviewer in italics)

OK, can you tell me in any way which two are similar, and different to the third?

These two are more people oriented—they demand that you take people into account.

So, people oriented, versus—the other one is?

I was going to say “abstract,” but that’s not what I mean. It’s “impersonal.”

OK, so that generates a construct. My next question, then, is do you have a preference for oneover the other?

Yes, that will be people oriented.

Why do you prefer people oriented?

Aah! Oh, gosh, there are so many reasons for that—variety, a sense of wanting things to makea difference, to have an effect in the real world, which is something that—I am not the kind ofperson who could sit and be a librarian, you know, one of those terribly academic librarianswho patiently sort through lots of very abstract—I mean I want to research but that would driveme absolutely nuts, so it has got to have some kind of connection to the real world, grounded.

I think we’ve got lots here! I’d like you to go for one of them that feels right for you, and bear inmind that it’s “people oriented” versus “impersonal” and why you prefer the people oriented . . .if in doubt, just go for one.

I can’t think! . . I like the social, and . . .

Is it that you prefer working with people? Or is . . .

No, it’s more than that, because I worked with people when I was working with [a project]. It’ssomething about seeing the ideas make a difference . . .

OK, seeing the ideas make a difference, as opposed to . . . ?

I suppose in this context, it would be research for research’s sake.

OK, so can you tell me why you prefer seeing ideas make a difference, over research for re-search’s sake?

Hmm. That’s quite a deep value thing. That’s about wanting to make the world a better place.

I didn’t say that it would be about shallow values! The idea was to get . . .

No, I was thinking that was getting very fundamental.

Wanting to make the world a better place?

Of course, this is very interesting because many people who do abstract research do it be-cause they think it is going to improve the world.

Yeah, as opposed to?

(continued)

quickly to the most superordinate construct, which she recognizes as being funda-mental to herself. At the same time, Catherine realizes that her own construct system isdifferent to others who might favor abstract research for the very same reason sherejects it. She tries to be more inclusive of other possibilities in describing the oppositeto “making the world a better place,” and the interviewer has to remind her that theexercise is about her own constructs. An indication that the top of the ladder has beenreached is her reaction, indicative of a personal value: “It’s so deeply ingrained, I can’timagine not wanting to.”

Figure 2 shows the results of the three laddering exercises carried out withCatherine. When shown the most superordinate constructs of the three ladders, sheresponded by saying,

That’s very me! They are very core values and they have a big effect on—they have alot to do with why I like being here with [this organization], and a lot to do with theway that I work here.

In response to the question of what, if anything, might be missing from her values,Catherine responded, “Something about collaborative working,” which was thenadded to the value map. The overall result reveals a picture of a person who valuesmaking the world a better place, personal development, working collaboratively, andenjoying herself; someone who prefers to be challenged in order that she might be ableto grow herself; and one who rejects indifference and stagnation. In her account ofher career history, Catherine described her entry into the organization as a juniorresearcher, working on a number of projects in the U.S. and Europe before being madeproject leader for the first time, collaborating with health professionals in developing ahigh-technology solution to a common ailment. She reflected on the experience,which she considered one of the most rewarding in her career:

So, that was great because it was a combination of having to get inside the heads ofpeople who suffered from illness, learning about the illness, and talking to profession-als who deal with the people, and then designing software interfaces that potentiallymet needs.

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Well, the opposite is . . . OK, put it as indifference, because that is not as strong as . . . well,nobody would . . .

No, it is the opposite of how you construct it; it doesn’t have to be the antonym, as it were. OK,can you tell me why you want to make the world a better place?

[Laughs] I mean that’s just so . . . it’s so deeply ingrained, I can’t imagine not wanting to, so . . .

That just is “because it is”?

Yeah, absolutely.

OK. That’s a very—that’s a ladder done.

Note. In this ladder, the original elements were three projects the informant had been involved with.

Table 1 (continued)

In this excerpt, her values of making the world a better place, collaborative working,and, by implication, personal development and growth, are all represented in the pro-ject. Similarly, her description of how she likes to build a project team reveals her valueof enjoyment in the course of a challenging project in bringing together a new team todevelop a new technology.

I’ve just finished coordinating a little investigation team to look at another potentialnew technology that we might focus on in our lab, which was a bunch of people, mostof whom I’ve never worked with before, some very awkward customers as well. It wasgreat fun to actually bring all those people together and get to grips with a new techni-cal area, and get that group working effectively, and having fun and making progress,and most, if not all, being very happy with the outcome and the recommendations weare making.

The descriptions that Catherine gave of her career history—her values-in-use—wereconsistent with the values elicited by laddering, suggesting that the method gets be-yond that which is simply espoused. This is also illustrated in the second example.“Colin” heads a division within the corporate headquarters of a large, U.K.-basedmultinational consumer goods company. The interview was carried out at his place ofwork and was one of eight that we undertook within this organization. Before takingup his current position, Colin had held senior marketing management positions in dif-ferent parts of the world, and these became the elements of the first ladder.

The transcript of the first ladder (Table 2) shows again how quickly the processleads to the informant’s revealing aspects of himself or herself that would not normallybe discussed, but it also shows how this can be quite confusing for the interviewer to

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 421

Seeing ideas make a difference

Research for research’s sake

Make the world a better place

People oriented Impersonal

Preferred because

Indifference

First Ladder

Constructs elicited from projects managed by the

informant

Preferred pole

Opposite pole

Preferred because

Challenging Straight-forward

Fun

Contemplative Active

Preferred because

Boring

Second Ladder

Constructs elicited from nonwork activities

Preferred pole

Opposite pole

Preferred because

Developing what I already know

Opposite pole

Discovery of new places & people

Challenges my worldview

Travel Activity

Sticking where I am

Third Ladder

Constructs elicited from places visited on vacation

Preferred pole

Preferred because

Preferred because

Preferred because

Personal growth & development

Sticking where I am

Additional value in response to seeing the value map: Collaborative working

Figure 2: Ladder Map, Catherine

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Table 2Transcript of a Ladder, Colin (interviewer in italics)

You’ve talked about different places, different parts of the world you’ve worked in—I wonderwhether that might be a good one to start from?

If you want.

Because you’ve mentioned Russia, and you’ve also mentioned working in the Middle East andin Africa, can we put that? So, what I do is write them out . . . Russia . . . Middle- . . . Can youtell me . . . can you see in any way in which two are similar and yet different from the third?

Yes, Africa and Russia, I had real, tangible success, the Middle East was—we had marketshare growing and things like that, but it wasn’t startling, and . . . the time when there was com-plete chaos around, who was responsible for what, actually. Whereas in Russia and Africa,after the initial few weeks, you had—both times there was a team of people who were abso-lutely clear about the mission they were on.

OK, so tangible success as opposed to?

Tangible success, as opposed . . . it’s more significant—tangible success—as opposed to akind of status quo, really.

OK . . .

Marketers always like to say it’s successful, but you know, you’re often struggling to—somethings are a bit tenuous at times . . .

So, given this, and not necessarily related to the thing that generated it, but between tangiblesuccess and status quo, do you have a preference?

Yes, tangible success.

Can you tell me why you have a preference for that?

Recognition of . . . it’s giving, for the effort you put in, there’s a clear return, and I think it’s bothpersonal—it’s personal recognition initially, of the fact that you put your effort into it, either asan individual, or part of a team, and it’s been successful.

OK. What I’m picking up there is there’s the . . . the bit about payoff, as it were, in the sort ofreturn on effort, and there is bit about recognition—does one come before the other?

I think it’s the—I think it does, yeah, first of all comes the personal satisfaction that you get fromhaving addressed the challenge, which in the case of marketing, in the case of these things, it’susually a strategic challenge, so involves some intellectual effort, putting yourself right, really?

I’ve written down “personal satisfaction from challenge” in trying to find the words somewhere,as opposed to . . . the other end of that thing that was coming out of tangible success versusstatus quo, so I was just wondering if there was another end to that pole?

Failure, isn’t it?

OK, OK. Now, I’ve got a funny feeling that finding the preference in there is not . . .

Yes, that one!

(continued)

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Can you say why you like personal satisfaction from challenge?

The obvious one is that it drives the recognition of others for what you have done . . . but I amnot sure it’s that simple. I think . . . I mean, I would consider myself quite driven to succeed, andI don’t think that’s about money or status, because I think lots of people want that. I thinkthere’s something a bit deeper . . . and . . . it goes back to my childhood, I expect, the way Iwas potty trained, or something! So why personal satisfaction from challenge? . . . Is it some-thing to do with proving yourself . . . because every time you are faced with a challenge, it’s sortof . . . all your self-doubts come to the fore, often reinforced by others, and being able to provethat you’ve got the courage of your convictions and the ability to manage the people you needto manage, either in the team or the people that are trying to influence you . . . doing things toshow that you can handle that, and that each time you’re successful, you get an opportunity ofanother challenge, so it’s kind of seeing how far you can go. I always remember one boss say-ing to me—he was a bit like me in many ways, and I feel the same—that you are waiting for thetime that you get found out.

What is the opposite to this, proving to yourself versus failure?

It’s what it is, actually. Why is that important? Because it means something to myself . . . don’task me why that’s important to me.

Maybe it won’t go further . . .

I don’t think it does actually.

Table 2 (continued)

Recognition Failure

Proving yourself

Personal satisfaction

Failure

Failure

Preferred because

First Ladder

Constructs elicited from regions in the world the informant has worked

Preferred pole

Opposite pole

Preferred because

Second Ladder

Constructs elicited from homes lived in1

Preferred pole

Opposite pole

Feeling uncomfortable

Opposite pole

Looking good

Relaxed

Fit and healthy Tired and not well

Stressed

Third Ladder

Constructs elicited from homes lived in1

Preferred pole

Preferred because

Preferred because

Preferred because

Cope with people

Being stressed

Additional value in response to seeing the value map: Recognition

Preferred because

Tangible success Status quo

Seeing opportunities

Feeling tension

Challenge

Fit and healthy

Tired and not well

Worry

Preferred because

Preferred because

Preferred because

No pressure Respons-iblity

1This ladder split at the second level, and so both parts were followed to a conclusion

Figure 3: Ladder Map, Colin

follow. When asked for the reason for his preference for tangible success over the sta-tus quo, Colin finds it hard to explain and begins to identify three—recognition, returnon the effort made, and success. This presents a problem for the interviewer, whoattempts to clarify the first construct, which results in Colin analyzing the causes of hispersonal drive. The passage illustrates the importance of accurate listening, and it isarguable whether the resulting ladder map, shown in the first column of Figure 3,depicts the order of the superordinate constructs accurately, a point reinforced later byColin, who, when asked if there is anything missing when shown tops of each ladder,immediately responded with, “recognition.”

The second and third ladders in the exercise with Colin both originated from thesame three elements. He is able to identify two different constructs in giving his rea-sons for his preference for “fit and healthy” over “tired and not well,” and in this case,the interviewer opts to split the ladder and follow each construct up to its conclusion.In both ladders, interestingly, the opposite pole remains essentially the same, relatedto stress and worry, whereas the preferred pole in one elicits the value of a challengeand in the other to being able to cope with people. All the values elicited from Colinfall into the category described by Rokeach (1973) as “competence values” and bySchwartz (1996) as “self-enhancing” values.

Colin’s account of his career history reflects the values elicited by the ladderingexercise. At one point, he tells the story of an occasion when he, as marketing manager,and an operations manager took responsibility for a region that had a recent trackrecord of falling market share:

As we got to know each other, we got on very well and we realized that actually, here isan opportunity where there are very low expectations of what we can achieve, becausethe business has been going like this [pointing downwards] for 8 years now. A succes-sion of well-known management had been through and had managed to screw it upeven further, and had moved on to better things. We thought, let’s see what we can do,and let’s really milk—if we’re successful—let’s really milk the publicity of what weare doing. So, we did that, and it just so happened that we hit on a formula that turnedthe business around and about 18 months later, we became the leaders again, and wewere letting everybody know what a fantastic job we’d done. And it became a bit of acase study, I took every opportunity to write it up in all of our internal marketing mag-azines and things. . . . So that was a great success, and great fun with no pressure at all,because nobody had expected anything.

Many constructs elicited by the laddering exercise are revealed in this account: a lackof pressure, of proving himself, a challenge, and gaining recognition. Throughout hisaccount of his career, the central themes are those of success made out of difficult situ-ations and of the resulting praise he receives. Colin summed himself up as “somebodywho seeks reward and recognition.”

Discussion

The laddering method is an alternative way of accessing an individual’s personalvalue priorities. It allows the researcher to tap into an individual’s personal constructsystem and to elicit ever higher abstractions concerned with his or her preferred self.The method has been adapted so that it may be used during the course of a single inter-view. It is noteworthy for its ability to reveal personal value preferences fundamentalto the individual in a relatively short time, as the case examples illustrate. Whilst the

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adapted laddering method described here is not, in itself, new to the world, its specificapplication in eliciting personal values is an important and timely development inmanagement research. It combines the freedom for generating constructs from diverseelements with careful elicitation of bipolar constructs derived from personal prefer-ences, leading to personal value priorities, while being consistent with the principlesof personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955) and with Hinkle’s (1965) original work.

Laddering from a diverse range of elements has a number of advantages to the re-searcher in the field. First, because it no longer involves the somewhat laborious taskof generating a full list of elements drawn from a narrow field, the method does notdisrupt the flow of the interview. Second, because most constructs are generated fromelements that are essentially benign, informants find the process less threatening orintrusive than when the focus is entirely on work-related matters. This is particularlyimportant when informants hold senior positions in their organization, as was the casein our research. Lowering the perceived threat level has the effect of relaxing the infor-mants and lowering their defensive barriers, which is crucial in the interview contextas it helps encourage honesty in answers (Douglas, 1985; Spradley, 1979). Further-more, we suggest that eliciting constructs from elements that are not work-related hasthe advantage of reducing the likelihood that managers will describe their valuessolely from the perspective of their role in the organization. Katz and Kahn (1978)stated that role expectations of any given office exist in the minds of organizationalmembers and represent standards of behavior that holders are expected to display.When constructs, and subsequently values, are elicited entirely from elements that arework-related, managers may identify preferences from the perspective of the role. It is,however, more difficult to remain in role when eliciting constructs from elements thatare unrelated to their work, which means that the ladder is more likely consistently toreach individual personal values.

We found, like Bannister and Fransella (1986), that laddering can start with manytypes of construct and results in a superordinate construct that appears to be, and isseen by informants as being, concerned with one’s philosophy of life. Our informantsrecognized themselves when presented with the outcomes of the laddering exercisesand considered them to be fundamental values. The practice of eliciting the oppositepole of each construct helped define its meaning, reducing the likelihood of misinter-pretation by the researcher, whereas analyzing the resulting ladder map holisticallyallowed idiosyncratic constructions to be retained. The overall location of an individ-ual’s value priorities can be understood by interpreting their general direction accord-ing to categories suggested by models such as those of Rokeach (1973) or Schwartz(1996). The values elicited by the laddering method were consistent with those indi-cated by the accounts that managers gave of their career histories through the storiesthat they chose to tell and their reflections of what they considered to be good and badin their work experiences.

Laddering, when adapted as described here, has the potential of opening up a sig-nificant new avenue for research in organizations. The adapted version can be incorpo-rated into a single interview research format where other topics related to personalvalue preferences can be explored. In this form, the method optimizes the potentiallylimited time available with informants, often a limiting factor in gaining access tosenior managers in organizations. Importantly, this provides the scope for researchersto link informants’ interpretations of knowledge, actions, and activities to their per-sonal value preferences, resulting in new insights regarding the relationship between

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 425

individuals and their organizations. In our research, we were able to compare seniormanagers’ interpretations of their organizations’ corporate values with their own per-sonal value priorities, which resulted in new insights concerning the role that corpo-rate values play in organizations. Applications in, for example, strategy research mightinclude the relationship between personal value priorities and managers’environmentscanning priorities, as well as managers’ interpretation of alternative strategic initia-tives and of the outcomes of past strategies.

There is one caveat concerning the laddering method, which comes from its effec-tiveness in accessing deeply held personal preferences. The case studies describedabove illustrate the speed at which the method uncovers fundamental commitments.This can mean that informants can find themselves making public that which is nor-mally held quite private. Furthermore, the method reveals preferences that might becontrary to acceptable norms, so it is important that the interviewer adopts a neutral,nonjudgmental attitude to the responses given by informants. The method requires adegree of sensitivity on the part of the interviewer, a point also expressed by otherswho have discussed its use (e.g., Fransella & Bannister, 1977; Grunert & Grunert,1995; Reynolds & Gutman, 1988).

Conclusion

The modified version of Hinkle’s (1965) laddering method offers the interpretiveresearcher an effective and efficient means of eliciting managers’ and other organiza-tional actors’personal value priorities in a way that adds richness by drawing out theiridiosyncratic meaning. This opens up the opportunity for investigating the impact ofindividuals’ personal values on the generation and management of knowledge and onthe interpretation of organizational actions and activities. Furthermore, the modifica-tion to the laddering method optimizes the potentially limited interview time available,thus providing opportunities for probing interpretive research with elite informantsunable to consider long meetings.

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Humphrey Bourne is a lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Bristol, United King-dom. He completed his Ph.D. in strategy at Cranfield School of Management, United Kingdom.

Bourne, Jenkins / ELICITING MANAGERS’ PERSONAL VALUES 427

Mark Jenkins is a professor of business strategy at Cranfield School of Management, United Kingdom,where he also completed his Ph.D. His teaching and consulting activities focus on the areas of competitivestrategy, knowledge management, and innovation. He is the author of several books on strategic manage-ment issues and has published numerous journal articles.

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