Social desirability bias in measures of organizational values

The present study aimed to investigate the existence of social desirability bias in research on organizational values. 232 people participated in the survey, divided into two groups. Group 1 was composed of professionals that were invited to respond to the survey by the companies they worked for, with 147 people. They were informed that the company would receive a consolidated report on the results, without any individualized information. Group 2, with 85 people, consisted of professionals invited directly by a researcher and they were informed that the results would not enable their identification, neither the company they worked for. The instrument used was the Organizational Values Inventory (IVO). The results indicated the presence of possible bias in the responses of members of group 1, pointing to the need for procedural and statistical palliative care when running similar assessments in organizational settings.