An individual's value orientation may provide overriding principles that could affect his or her attitudes and behaviour and thus prescribe guideline for desirable and preferable actions.
Values have been conceptualized as the general societal standards about what is desirable,how things could be,and what ultimate goals are to be pursued (Stark,1975). Schwartz (1992) defines values as desirable goals,varying in importance that serves as guiding principles in people's lives. Specifically,what ever one regards as his or her guiding principle of life is what he or she values.
Values are personally held,internalized guides in the production of behaviour. Windmilled et al: (1980) maintains that values are cognitive units that are used in the assessment of behaviour along the dimension of good/bad, appropriate/inappropriate and right/wrong.
Rokeach defines cultural values as beliefs that some general state of existence is personally and socially worth striving for. Success or achievement is an example of a value. An individual may have been instilled with the value by family and society from birth,and as a result,much of day to day behaviour may be directed to personal success. Similarly, beauty,youthfulness,comfort,leisure,social recognition,security,individuality,love and happiness may all be regarded as cultural values directed towards desired end states.
Vinson,Scott and Lamoni (1977) distinguished between cultural values,consumption specific values and product specific values.
1) Cultural values: These refers to enduring beliefs concerning desired modes of behaviour. Examples include security,happiness,freedom,social recognition, pleasure and family security.
2) Consumption specific values: These refers to believes relevant to specific social,personal and other activities. Examples include, prompt service,accurate information,convenient store location,elimination of pollution, responsiveness to consumer needs,reliable advertising claims,no deceptive advertising and low price.
3) Product specific values: These refers to evaluative beliefs about product attributes. For example, consumers may value products that are quiet easy to use,durable or inexpensive.
