‘Some Have Ideologies, We Have Values’: The Relationship Between Organizational Values and Commitment in a Political Party

This paper seeks to advance the study of organizational values byanalyzing the role of values in a Danish political party called TheAlternative, a party claiming to be guided by values rather thanideology. Inspired by recent work in organizational psychology, I groupThe Alternative’s values into two categories: vision values and humanityvalues. Through an empirical investigation, I show how the vision valuesencourage members to take initiative in realizing their own politicalideas, while the humanity values encourage them to remain morallyinclusive towards people with different views. The combination of visionand humanity values allows The Alternative to maintain commitmentfrom members who might otherwise feel marginalized by theemergence of dominant ideas within the party. The paper’s contributionconsists in highlighting the importance of using qualitative methods tostudy how values influence commitment and to expose the politicaldimension of this relationship.