Conceptual Similarities and Empirical Differences in Theoretical Approaches to Personal Values and Cultural Values Predicting Pro-Environmental Behavior in Hospitality and Tourism

Abstract

This conceptual paper is about the relationship between cultural value orientations and personal value systems in relation to predicting pro-environmental behavior in hospitality and tourism via a comprehensive literature review undertaken in the social sciences field. Based on the conceptual aspects of this topic, this paper demonstrates awareness of the wider literature and focuses on tourism and hospitality as special kinds of consumer products and behaviors, with consideration of the differences in approaches to the subject of personal values demonstrated by hospitality and tourism scholars. Based on the comprehensive literature review of research on personal values and cultural values, this study proposes conceptual differences and provides some recommendations for using cultural value orientations and personal value systems in the prediction of pro-environmental behavior in the hospitality and tourism study.

1. The Relationship between Cultural Value Orientations and Personal Value Systems

1.1. Brief Introduction

Social science scholars have studied cultural values and personal values to examine their impacts on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals [1,2]. First, as an abstract concept, cultural values refer to what a society and its members consider to be desirable, which idea is shaped generally by the members [3]. Hence, cultural values tend to play a critical role in distinguishing cultures and/or societies by encouraging the individuals within them to pursue good and right goals [1,4]. Second, personal values refer to individuals’ decisions which shape their personal and social lives, such as career choices and daily behaviors. For example, when deciding their behaviors, individuals employ value-based processes, which are shaped by both personal and cultural operations and interactions with others. Compared to cultural values, the role of personal values is to guide individuals to select particular actions, evaluate events and other people, and explain their actions and evaluations as desirable goals [5,6]. Hence, it is essential for scholars to comprehensively understand that although individuals within the same society and/or culture share significant values, such as cultural values, they may have different personal value systems (or personal value hierarchies) [1,7]. In spite of the conceptual differences between cultural values and personal values, several empirical studies in the hospitality and tourism field have addressed cultural values as personal values, and vice versa, without consideration of the differences between the two independent concepts [8]. If scholars in the hospitality and tourism field do not consider the conceptual differences between cultural values and personal values, there will be misunderstandings about the two different concepts, leading to mismatched conceptualizations and operationalizations of cultural values and personal values in academic research in this field. This conceptual paper attempts to avoid the negative outcomes that result from misunderstanding of these two independent concepts.

According to the existing literature on cultural values and personal values, cultural values may affect the formation of individuals’ personal values and moderate the impacts of personal values on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals in the same society and/or culture [1,9]. Therefore, via a comprehensive literature review in the social sciences field, this conceptual paper proposes that cultural values and personal values should be distinguished from conceptual and empirical standpoints in order to better understand how each kind of value system determines the attitudes and behavior of hospitality and tourism consumers. Therefore, the main purposes of this conceptual paper are: (1) to describe the theoretical frameworks of cultural and personal values and (2) to comprehensively demonstrate the association between cultural value orientations and personal value systems, focusing on their relationships to behavior based on the conceptual findings of the systemic literature review of personal values and cultural values in the social sciences field.

To achieve these purposes, the authors conducted the systemic literature review using keywords such as “personal values”, “cultural values”, “value orientation”, “Schwartz (who established a structure of personal value orientation)”, and “Hofstede (who established a structure of interrelationships among cultural values)” to search Google Scholar databases with screening criteria (e.g., “perceived value”). The authors carefully examined the titles, abstracts, keywords, and main texts of the selected academic articles. Only academic journals from social science fields—from psychology, business, sociology, and politics through to hospitality and tourism—were selected for the comprehensive literature review process to demonstrate the conceptual similarities and empirical differences between personal values and cultural values from a theoretical perspective.

1.2. Cultural Value Orientations

Culture is considered the rich combination of values, norms, symbols, practices, beliefs, and meanings prevalent among individuals within a society [10]. The values emphasized by a society’s members may be viewed as the most central characteristic of the society in question [11,12,13]. Schwartz [10] argued that studying prevailing value emphases is essential for measuring and characterizing cultures. Prevailing values express cultural ideals, which are shared conceptions among members regarding what is desirable and/or good within a culture. Hence, the prevailing cultural values form and justify goals and actions as well as beliefs and styles among individuals and groups within the same culture via the expectations and pressures to which the individuals are exposed [14].

In a society, everyday practices and institutional arrangements show the underlying cultural values (e.g., child-rearing practices that pressure children to accomplish goals, demonstrating ambition-focused and success-focused cultural values). Since cultural values represent ideals, they are consistent across a culture’s various aspects. Incompatible cultural aspects tend to not only generate more tension, but also to elicit more criticism intended to change the conflicting values expressed by others and persuade them to follow the prevailing cultural value orientations [10,14]. However, the prevailing cultural value orientations may change in accordance with shifting power relations between groups, as cultures cannot be completely coherent [15].

Since change tends to be slow, cultural value orientations also tend to be relatively stable compared with other cultural attributes [16]. Societal adaptation to contact with other cultures, economic development, and technological advances result in complex changes in cultural value orientations [14,17]. Additionally, such changes and a culture’s complex reciprocal relations with demography, history, ecology, and social structure make it more difficult for scholars to measure a culture [10]. In order to reveal a society’s unique culture, previous research has employed indirect indexes, such as socialization practices, systems of law, and ways of organizing economic exchange, which describe very limited components of cultural values [18,19]. Cultures form particular values, identities, and norms for their members [20]; therefore, to identify a culture, scholars have studied cultural value orientations directly to effectively capture the unique features of a culture. Two well-known scholars have identified and quantitatively distinguished cultures by establishing a theory of cultural value orientations, namely, Schwartz and Hofstede [21]. However, they have taken different approaches to cultural values.

First, Schwartz [10] identified cultural value dimensions by considering the basic problems or issues societies face. Each member in a society needs to recognize the issues, respond to them, and encourage others to confront them. The members’ ways of responding to basic problems or issues can be employed to identify their society’s cultural dimensions, which are different from other societies’ dimensions. Thus, three issues confronting all societies in regulating human activity are considered when comparing cultures: (1) the regulation of how an individual deals with his or her relation to the social and natural environment, (2) the guarantee of socially responsible behavior which preserves the social structure in terms of equal and hierarchical systems, and (3) the nature of and extent to which boundaries and relations exist and are embedded among group members and between individuals.

The theory of cultural value orientation specifies three bipolar cultural value dimensions which represent resolutions to these issues (“mastery vs. harmony”, “hierarchy vs. egalitarianism”, and “embeddedness vs. autonomy”) [10]. Each polar cultural orientation is paired with an orientation with which it is in conflict (e.g., American culture is likely to focus on autonomy and mastery but place little emphasis on harmony). Cultural value orientations may be interrelated due to their compatibility, as well. This is because certain orientations may have shared assumptions, which may be easier to simultaneously act on as well as affirm within cultures [22]. The opposing and shared assumptions which are inherent in cultural value orientations tend to create a circular structure. This circular structure may reflect incompatible cultural value orientations (distant within the circle) or compatible (adjacent in the circle). This view distinguishes Schwartz’s [10] approach from others in terms of the independency of cultural dimensions and non-orthogonal dimensions [4,11].

Second, Hofstede [11] defined culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another” (p. 25) and studied it by investigating the factors that emerged from data, where each individual-level response was aggregated to the country level. More specifically, Hofstede [11] gained access to a database containing over 100,000 questionnaires about IBM employees’ values and sentiments from over fifty countries all over the world. Hofstede [11] found the influences of national differences among employees through the correlations. Then, factor analysis at the country level was performed with the database, and its results revealed four common issues that IBM employees in all societies should handle but indicated its own profile of resolutions. The four common problems helped Hofstede to label cultural dimensions (i.e., “power distance”: different solutions to the basic issues of human inequality; “uncertainty avoidance”: stress level in the face of an uncertain future in society; “individualism vs. collectivism”: individuals’ integration into a primary group; and “masculinity vs. femininity”: differences in emotional roles between men and women), since each dimension was a cultural aspect measured relative to other societies (or cultures). Later, the “long-term vs. short-term orientation” (i.e., selection of focus for efforts of individuals in terms of future or past and present) [4] and “indulgence vs. restraint” (i.e., control vs. gratification of a basic human desire associated with enjoying life) dimensions were added to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions [23]. Each culture was placed relative to the others based on numerical scores.

Compared to Schwartz [10], Hofstede’s [11] approach to cultural value orientations cannot provide a value structure at an individual level or provide individual scores for scholars [24]. Hofstede [11] focused on survey items’ mean scores at the country level through correlations that indicated patterns different to those that existed at an individual level. Later, however, Hofstede [25] admitted the limitation of this approach, since it did not recognize differences between individual and societal levels. According to Kirkman, Lowe, and Gibson’s [26] review, for example, among 180 studies employing Hofstede’s [11] study, over 50 percent of the studies did not distinguish between differences in individual and societal cultural levels, resulting in several errors of application as well as interpretation.

After identifying cultural value orientations, the dimensions and country scores established by Hofstede have been validated by other scholars who employed similar or identical questionnaires in cross-cultural studies [25]. However, this research is not completely free from a statistical issue. Although some measures were negatively correlated at the individual level, they emerged on one dimension when aggregated at the country level. For example, in the study of Hofstede [11], a correlation analysis revealed that a measure for stress and responses to the question of how long an employee wanted to continuously work at a company were negatively correlated. This means that the more stressed he or she was, the less likely he or she planned to stay with the company. However, both measures were positively correlated and emerged on “the uncertainty avoidance index” at the country level. The reason for the counter-intuitive result was that the measures were about how societies deal with stress (compared to how an individual deals with stress). Focusing on longer tenure and rule adherence are mechanisms that reduce uncertainty in societies. Through aggregation, the argument regarding cultural value orientation is that scholars can understand only how latent cultural procedures unfold [16,24].

In addition, Hofstede’s fundamental cultural dimensions were developed nearly fifty years ago, so a more sophisticated psychometric framework for cultural value orientations needs to be developed [24]. Based on the limitations of Hofstede’s work, several scholars have employed Schwartz’s cultural value dimensions given their convergence at country and individual levels and their being better validated compared to other cultural value instruments [24,27,28,29]. Thus, for value research, an individual-level value dimension (or personal value) needs to be assigned to cultures and/or societies and employed in country-level analyses as well [30]. Responding to this suggestion, the next section will explain values at the individual level (or personal values).

1.3. Personal Value Systems

Compared to cultural values, personal values focus on individuals’ trans-situational objectives which serve as guiding principles in their lives [6]. The definition of and the approach to personal values assume that “values are structured in similar ways across culturally diverse groups” [16] (p. 3). Personal value theory suggests a universal system of human values [31]. It also proposes that, although cultural values are shared among members within a culture, individuals and groups within the culture may possess different value hierarchies or priorities [32]. Schwartz [6] introduced personal value theory, establishing a two-dimensional structure for values at the individual level. His study insisted on two points: (1) that cultural values consistently cluster in a two-dimensional space and (2) that the clusters can be separated into eleven distinctly ordered types in the circular structure, following two compelling aspects based upon their mutual conflicts and compatibilities (i.e., “self-direction”, “stimulation”, “hedonism”, “achievement”, “power”, “security”, “conformity”, “tradition”, “spirituality”, “benevolence”, and “universalism”). Forty-five (later, forty-six) values emerged among the anticipated types in at least 75 percent of the samples [6]. The naming of the aspects was dependent upon rotation, and they were labelled as “openness to change versus conservation” and “self-enhancement versus self-transcendence”.

The works of Schwartz [10,33] aggregated the same data at an individual level based on individual-level discrepancies and insisted that the mean scores at the country level reflect latent culture-level procedures. Through aggregation, individual discrepancies may be overlooked, and the country-level means reflect “assumptions about the desirables that are built into the institutions of the society and are passed on through intentional and unintentional socialization” [14] (p. 92). It needs to be noted that country- and individual-level value structures are statistically independent and are based on independent information [34]. Hence, from a theoretical perspective, it may be plausible that individual-level-based value structures may not be replicated in country-level-based value structures, even when using the same data. Hofstede [11] focused on the distinction between country and individual levels and set a precedent followed by Schwartz and other scholars [35,36]. Additionally, although the study of Schwartz [33] indicated a two-dimensional structure at the cultural level, it addressed three dimensions in the circular structure, each handling one of the societal issues cultures should address. Based on this, the present study focused on a different personal value structure at the country level.

1.4. The Relationship between Cultural Value Orientations and Personal Value Systems

This conceptual paper has suggested some differences between individual- and country-level values based on the distinct theoretical (i.e., fundamental notions and definition) and statistical approaches (i.e., mean scores) that can be taken in studying them. Next, this section will examine various kinds of relationships between cultural values and personal values: (1) causal relationships, (2) the moderating role of cultural values in the relationship between personal values and behavior, and (3) no relationship.

First, a causal relationship exists between cultural and personal values. Personal values have been conceptualized as an individual’s broad psychological beliefs about desirable modes of conduct formed via his or her socialization history in a culture [24]. Rohan [37] suggested that an individual’s personal values are formed by the value priorities of others within a culture, which are organized based on what they think about others’ judgements regarding the best possible functions or ways of living. Thus, an individual’s cultural values are organized in the same way as the personal value structures of other members of his or her culture. This view demonstrates the influence of the cultural level on the individual level in the formation of an individual’s personal values. For example, individuals in Western European cultures are more likely to place importance on universalism and benevolence than those in other cultures [38].

In the case of a culture with a high level of religiosity, as another example, individuals want a sense of certainty and safety in their personal and social life. This religious culture may have a positive influence on security, tradition, and conformity values and negative impacts on hedonism, self-direction, and stimulation (i.e., Schwartz’s personal value dimensions) [39,40]. Thus, the different functions of cultures lead to the formation of different personal value structures between individuals in different cultures. Roccas and Sagiv [1] argued that cultural value perspectives need to be integrated with personal values and behaviors to better understand the different meanings of personal values and behaviors across cultures.

Personal values are viewed as a form of an individual’s self-expression, since they serve as a guide for his or her behavior [1]. However, the form of expression may not be valued at the same level of importance across cultures. For example, expressing feelings, preferences, and thoughts may be more valued in Western cultures than in African and Asian cultures [41]. In other words, cultural values may affect forms of individual self-expression, which are attributes of personal values [10]. Accordingly, some scholars have proposed that cultural values need to be considered when predicting behavior using internal attributes (e.g., personal values) [1,42].

Empirical studies that have investigated the influence of cultural values on personal values have been less frequent. However, similar approaches have been used to explore the causal relationship between the two levels. Empirically, Ralston et al. [43] conducted research on the influences of country- and individual-level values on the tactical behavior of managers from 49 countries and considered that the country-level values affected individual values and the behavior of managers. In addition, Fu et al. [44] postulated that cultural values affected managers’ strategies at an individual level.

Second, cultural values play a moderating role in the association between personal values and behavior [45,46]. Cultural values may determine particular situations by forming strong behavioral norms among members of a culture [1,14]. In other words, situational strength (both strong and weak situations) is determined by cultural values. Hence, the relationship between personal values and behavior may vary in particular circumstances based on the influence of cultural values as moderators. For example, in strong situations, when a normative behavior is considered appropriate to all, personal value is less likely to be expressed in a person’s specific behavior; however, in weak situations, where there is little clear standard for a behavior, an individual’s behavior can be predicted by their personal values. This means that societal (or normative) variability across cultures may result in different strengths of correlation between behaviors and personal values among members of the cultures in question.

For example, Goodwin et al. [45] conducted research to find a pattern of association between personal values and actual behavior (i.e., “the average number of sexual partners each participant had had during a fairly short period of time”) in Central and Eastern Europe. The behavior was correlated negatively with the importance of conformity, security, tradition, benevolence, and universalism and positively with the importance of stimulation, hedonism, achievement, and power. However, the sexual behavior varied greatly across cultures due to the differences in the cultures’ acceptance of the behavior. People could have various partners in some cultures, while other cultures permitted only strict monogamy [46]. Personal values cannot determine a certain behavior in a culture with strong norms prohibiting it.

In certain cultures, regardless of personal values, people do not want to have multiple partners. The strength of a circumstance is associated with the level of identifiable cues creating clear expectations about behavior in a certain culture among its members. Cultures tend to vary greatly in respect of the behavioral cues offered in different circumstances. Therefore, cultural values may serve as significant moderators of the associations between personal values and behaviors in various cultures [1,47,48].

Third, there is no significant relationship between the two value levels, so differences in personal values are much larger than differences in cultural values [24,26,49,50,51,52,53]. Previous research has argued that our societies are a complicated mix of religious affiliations, cultures, and languages [54]. Due to the growth of global work environments and duties that involve international travel, as well as immigration, multiple cultural values may co-exist, which can weaken the influence of cultural values on personal values [55].

For example, in the study of Fischer and Schwartz [49], across three studies on value orientation that included samples representative of sixty-two countries, the country-level value discrepancies did not exceed thirty percent for all personal values for all countries’ averages (i.e., no more than twelve percent of variability was explained). The study of Poortinga and van Hemert [51] also indicated that a range of six to twenty-one percent variability in personal value scores in thirty-four countries was ascribable to country-level values. Furthermore, Gerhart [50] reviewed previous research at the cultural level and found very small differences between countries in a large number of cross-cultural studies widely cited by scholars. Differences in personal values may account for the variability in responses as psychological constructs [24].

Previous research has insisted that personal value systems have a larger share than cultural value orientations in explaining variability in individuals’ behavior [51]. On the other hand, another perspective has argued that the structures of personality ratings at both the cultural and individual levels had high similarity [56]. Since personality is relatively similar to personal values from a conceptual standpoint [24], it may also be possible to merge individual and cultural values based on their structural similarity at the individual and cultural levels. Although previous research (i.e., Hofstede and Schwartz) developed and studied each independent dimension for cultural and personal value, these scholars argued that the similarity between cultural and personal value points to the methodological limitations of previous research, such as the influence of country-level sample size [28]. For example, Fischer and Poortinga [24] found that the divergence between culture- and individual-level value structures was influenced by sampling fluctuations at the country level (differentiating the sample proposition consisting of number of countries). Thus, based on these methodological issues, previous studies have also concluded that the interdependence and independence of cultural and individual values might exist across two levels, indicating that the value constructs should be consistently studied [52].

1.5. Conclusions

This conceptual review paper provides frameworks of cultural value orientation and personal value systems established by several value theorists (i.e., Schwartz, Hofstede, and so on). Before demonstrating the frameworks of each of the two value types, it was assumed in this conceptual paper that cultural values would have influences on personal values and behavior as drivers and/or moderators. Cultural and personal values are conceptually and empirically distinguished from each other, and the empirical results of previous studies have demonstrated the independent influences of values on individuals’ attitudes and behaviors [57,58]. However, this review found that only a few studies have empirically investigated the causal relationships between the two value types, although a number of scholars conceptually and/or theoretically advocate causal relationships. Of course, cross-cultural studies are required and involve significant time and effort being spent in distributing questionnaires to cultures and in collecting enough data from each culture (i.e., to avoid confounding effects due to sample size) [28]. However, research collaboration among scholars from various cultures and longitudinal studies may resolve these issues.

Another interesting stream of literature concerns the ways in which cultural values can moderate the relationship between personal values and behavior. In particular, it is important to consider cultural influences in studying the effects of personal values on specific behaviors. When conducting research, scholars need to recognize how a particular behavior is perceived by a culture and/or members within the culture. For this approach, scholars can not only refer to each culture’s score based on “Hofstede’s cultural dimensions” and “Schwartz’s cultural value orientation dimensions”, they can also use their items to measure cultural values. Scholars can also refer to other clues from the members of a culture, such as personality [56] and norms [20]. In addition to behavior, the type of product (e.g., hedonic vs. functional products) should also be considered with cultural value orientations.

The other interesting finding of this paper is that several empirical studies have suggested no relationship between cultural and personal values. The studies have argued that personal value structures are similar to those of cultural values, across cultures [59]. One of the reasons for this non-significant relationship may be globalization, which has made the boundaries of each culture or country much weaker. However, a methodological issue may be another reason for the non-significant association between cultural and personal values. The studies of Poortinga [60], van de Vijver and Leung [61], and Roccas and Sagiv [1] agree on the methodological challenges: even in cases of great care with the translation process, measurements cannot always perfectly transfer the psychometric properties of each value dimension from one cultural setting to another. If in one culture, a construct was proven to be reliable and valid, it may be less valid and reliable in other cultures, resulting in lower correlations between personal values and behavior [62]. Therefore, to investigate the moderating role of cultural values in the relationship, scholars need to take care when developing measures and rigorously test measures’ psychometric properties.

Lastly, it is proposed in this conceptual paper that personal values may be better determinants of consumer behavior within hospitality and tourism contexts rather than cultural values because of the complexity of cultural aspects. Compared to personal values, cultural values have a broad range of cultural and social aspects that scholars and practitioners cannot easily control and completely understand [10]. Thus, above all, scholars and practitioners in hospitality and tourism need to understand their target populations’ cultural perspectives, from their histories to the ongoing trends in their societies, which requires that scholars and practitioners invest more time, money, and effort in conducting research and implementing marketing strategies. However, personal values enable scholars and practitioners to deeply understand basic human motivations compared to cultural values, where moral, social, and even political motivations are at play [16]. In addition to the complexity of cultural values, cultural aspects cannot be easily manipulated and changed by scholars and practitioners, because cultural values have been formed over long periods of time. Based on the findings of this conceptual paper, the authors propose that consumer behavior research in the hospitality and tourism context needs to employ personal values rather than cultural values in relation to the consumption process.

2. Personal Values in the Consumption Process in Hospitality and Tourism

2.1. Brief Introduction

Social science and marketing scholars have recognized the significant role of personal values in the consumption process. Personal value theorists have taken Rokeach’s view of values, which focuses on personal motives and attitudes (i.e., a value is “a central held, enduring belief which guides actions and judgments across specific situations and beyond immediate goals to more ultimate end-states of existence”, [63] (p. 161). In social science, personal motives, such as pleasure and a comfortable life, may trigger consumers’ desires for specific brands and products (e.g., furniture that connects to motives via new designs and comfort features). Hence, marketing scholars have considered values to be conscious and unconscious factors in the consumption process [64,65]. In addition, scholars and practitioners have used personal values to categorize consumers with respect to products based on the attributes most strongly connected with their values (e.g., marketing a certain product to consumers with a high level of self-expression), because each product needs to be tailored to consumers’ individual needs, motives, and/or values [66,67].

Scholars have focused on the effects of attitudes and attitude formation and change to understand and predict consumer behavior [68,69,70]. As critical drivers of consumers’ attitudes and attitude change, personal values ultimately affect consumer behavior in terms of the selection of products/service classes, categories, and particular brands [65,71,72] (see Figure 1). Tourism and hospitality scholars have also indicated that consumption processes are affected by consumers’ attitudes and that individual factors (e.g., desires and needs) and situational factors (e.g., time and funds) influence the associations between attitudes and behavioral intentions (e.g., the desire to visit a destination) [73].

Scholars in hospitality and tourism have also made attempts to understand the consumption process among consumers/tourists by applying personal value theories from the fields of marketing and consumer behavior [74,75,76]. Based on well-developed frameworks, personal values in this discipline have been used to explain and predict responsible consumption patterns for the natural environment and/or society among consumers/tourists (e.g., choice of sustainable hospitality enterprises and group ecotravel packages) [77,78]. However, compared with other industries, the hospitality and tourism industry has unique characteristics (e.g., intangibility, inseparability, experience, etc.), so the role of personal values in the consumption process of hospitality and tourism products is distinguished from that of other industries. Therefore, the second set of purposes of this conceptual paper are: (1) to review the role of personal values in consumption processes in the general marketing and hospitality/tourism fields and (2) to illustrate the similarities and differences between the two disciplines.

2.2. The Role of Personal Values in the Consumption Process in General Business

According to the conceptual and empirical literature on personal values in the marketing and consumer behavior fields, the consumption process has been explained in terms of the interrelationships among personal values, attitudes, and behavior [79,80,81,82,83,84]. Personal values underlie attitude formation as global beliefs about desirable modes of behavior or end states [81]. Compared to personal values, attitude is the overall evaluation of or orientation towards an object or behavior emphasizing specific products, brands, or situations [70]. In other words, the attitudes of a consumer are formed by the way the consumer applies his or her general values to certain situations or objects [79]. Attitudes are expressed as affective, cognitive, and conative orientations toward particular situations and objects (e.g., products or a brand) [70]. Finally, consumption behavior is the manifestation of a consumer’s basic values and is influenced by attitudes [79]. Thus, attitude measurement (including instrumental and experiential aspects) has been employed to predict behavior [85]. However, compared to attitudes and behavior, personal values are less observable, since they are very abstract. To resolve this challenge, Schwartz [6] established the personal value system reflecting the prioritization (or systemic ordering) of personal values. Schwartz [6] used fifty-six statements that expressed individuals’ personal values to identify value dimensions, creating a universal continuum of their motivations.

Based on the consumption process (values–attitudes–behavior) and Schwartz’s personal value system, previous research has investigated the influence of personal values on consumption behavior in terms of ethical consumption [86], fair-trade product consumption [67], use of energy-efficient products [72], sustainable food consumption [84], and use of public transportation [87]. In particular, each value within the dimension of Schwartz’s personal value system plays a significant role in forming a consumer’s attitude towards a product. For instance, the self-enhancement value leads to consumers’ favorable attitudes towards a product offering benefits for themselves, whereas the self-transcendence value results in consumers’ positive evaluations of a product providing benefits for others. In addition, the conservatism value determines consumers’ preferences for a traditional product, while the value of openness to change predicts favorable attitudes towards an innovative product [72].

Personal values have good explanatory power when it comes to explaining consumption processes in various contexts, but they also play an interesting role in the consumption process itself, especially for social and/or environmental products, based on their characteristics [5,6,72,88,89]: (1) since personal values are associated with broader orientations and are more general than views of the world, a personal-value-related approach can help to comprehensively understand fundamental motivations and demonstrate preconditions for products (e.g., considering the influences of products on the natural environment as well as society), (2) since consumers form personal values early in life and are socialized through learning experiences, their values can be relatively stable over their lifetime and so are good indicators of product consumption (e.g., the products may not provide consumers with an immediate benefit, and consumers need much time to receive the benefits, as in the case of purchasing a hybrid vehicle), and (3) since values have abstract and general characteristics, they are more suitable for environmental and social research beyond specific situations (e.g., economic conditions and degrees of seriousness of environmental issues).

Based on the development of Schwartz’s personal value system and the above unique characteristics, personal values have been studied to explain the dynamic relationships among environmental concerns and beliefs as well as environmental attitudes within the green consumption process [71,72,88,90,91]. Previous studies have found a general consumption process pattern in the relationship between personal values and environmentally or socially responsible behavior (e.g., green product consumption), along with attitudes toward the natural environment or society as a mediator [90,91,92]. More specifically, consumers who give priority to self-interested values (or individual values) are less likely to have favorable attitudes towards the natural environment and society, making them less inclined to purchase social and green products. On the other hand, consumers who give priority to altruistic, universal, and collective values (or values beyond their immediate interest) tend to have favorable attitudes toward the natural environment and society and in turn purchase and use social and eco-friendly products. In addition to general consumption contexts, therefore, previous research in social and environmental contexts has confirmed the personal values–attitudes–behavior hierarchical consumption process, reflecting that “the influence should theoretically flow from abstract values to mid-range attitudes to specific behaviors” [81] (p. 638).

2.3. The Role of Personal Values in the Consumption Process in Tourism and Hospitality

Previous research has examined the significant association between personal values and a wide range of hospitality and tourism product consumption processes, such as restaurant [93], food [94], leisure travel [95], nutritional food [81], destination [96], and genetically modified food choices [97]. One of the reasons hospitality and tourism research focuses on the role of personal values in the consumption process is that consumers/travelers tend to express their personal values (or value orientations) through consumption [98,99,100]. For example, tourists may purchase a green tour package due to their stimulation values (i.e., adventure) and/or universalism values (i.e., love of nature), or they may visit a commercialized destination rather than an emerging destination because of their security values (i.e., concern for their personal safety). Since personal values show consumption patterns among consumers and tourists, some research has used this construct to segment potential markets for service and product development as well as advertising strategies [78].

In the hospitality and tourism fields, much research has empirically examined the influences of personal values on consumption behavior in addition to market segmentation. Scholars in these disciplines have used the personal value construct for their studies due to its relative stability (i.e., compared to beliefs and attitudes), generalizability across situations and contexts (i.e., compared to motivation), and concrete theoretical framework for explaining consumer behavior (e.g., the values–attitudes–behavior model, etc.) [101,102]. This paper will look at the four roles of personal values in the consumption process within hospitality and tourism: (1) as a determinant of motivation (i.e., personal values–motivation–attitudes–consumption); (2) as a driver of attitudes (i.e., personal values–attitudes–consumption); (3) as a direct predictor of consumption behavior (i.e., personal values–consumption); and (4) as an outcome of attributes of product choice (i.e., attributes–consequences–personal values).

First, some research has considered personal values as drivers of motivation in consumer/tourist consumption processes, such as choice of destination [103], choice of festivals [104], choice of museums [105], and cultural tourism [106], by proposing the personal values–motivation–attitudes–consumption model. In the hospitality and tourism fields, motivation has been viewed as a driving force behind all of tourists’ behaviors [103,107]. However, previous research has argued that, compared with personal values, motivations tend to be induced as a consequence of person–situation interactions (see Figure 2).

Thus, motivations contain motives that are affected by tourists’ personal values and perceptions of certain situations [103,105]. Previous studies have also argued that an analysis of the influence of tourists’ motivations may be limited to understanding visitors’ behaviors (e.g., lack of cultural diversity for international festivals) [104] and have concluded that research on personal values transcends such limitations (i.e., situation-basedness and diversity) and provides a greater understanding of motivation and tourist behavior [105]. However, the link between personal values and motivation with experiential factors (i.e., one of the tourism and hospitality industry’s characteristics), such as authentic experience and experience quality, should be considered for this discipline [106].

Second, previous studies have applied the values–attitudes–behavior model to hospitality and tourism contexts, such as consumption of food products [108], consumption of organic foods [109], healthy food choices at restaurants [101], and consumption of fish products [110]. For example, Kang et al. [101] employed and expanded the values–attitudes–behavior model to a restaurant context and found an influence of personal values on the consumption of healthy food at restaurants due to interest in healthy food (i.e., a mediator). In this context, personal values had an impact on consumers’ attitude formation by guiding them to seek certain products (i.e., healthy foods), satisfying their personal values. However, Kang et al. [101] and Shin et al. [111] suggested that the emotional and functional aspects of consuming food products (i.e., motivations) also need to be considered to predict consumption patterns for “special” food products (e.g., healthy or organic foods). Some previous studies have found an empirically low association between personal values and attitudes and suggested additional mediators (e.g., beliefs) to explain much of the variance in the “special” consumption process (e.g., organic foods) [112,113].

Third, in hospitality and tourism contexts, some research has reported the direct influence of personal values on consumption instead of their indirect impact through a mediator [102]. Perkins and Brown [102] argued that personal values can be better drivers of tourist choices and consumption behavior within “particular” contexts (i.e., those which involve inherent ethical or social consumption) than attitudes or beliefs. For example, universalist values (i.e., strong feelings about preserving and protecting nature) were influential in the consumption of fair-trade coffee [66]. According to Bardi and Schwartz [98], if an individual’s behavior is related to personal values when it is the result of a careful and conscious choice, the influences of personal values on the behavior may be stronger in certain situations. Furthermore, personal values may have a strong, direct impact on an individual’s behavior only when the behavior involves conscious decisions [114]. For example, the empirical results of Perkins and Brown’s [102] study indicated that ecotourists’ biospheric values (i.e., a combination of benevolence and universalism) were more significant determinants of support for ecotourism than environmental beliefs.

Fourth, personal values have been considered as the outcomes of the attributes of a product choice based on the attributes (intangible/tangible features of a service and/or product)–consequences (negative or positive results related to experiencing or using a service and/or product)–values hierarchy (or a means–end chain) [115]. Personal values are cognitive representations of the most fundamental and basic goals and needs among consumers and are considered intangible, high-order ends or outcomes [116]. In this theoretical framework, a consumer makes a choice since he or she believes that the choice’s specific attributes will help to fulfil his or her (desired) personal values via the benefits or consequences of the choice [117]. This framework has been applied to tourism research that investigates personal values and tourism behavior (i.e., tourism services and products, in particular) in terms of accommodation choice [118], nature-based destination visiting [119], heritage and museum visiting [120], choice of package tour [115], and destination choice [121].

2.4. Similarities and Differences in Approaches between Tourism and Hospitality Scholars and Personal Value Theorists

This review paper presents the theoretical framework of personal values and its role in understanding the consumption process in both marketing/consumer behavior research and the hospitality/tourism field. From a theoretical perspective, there are a few similarities and differences between the approaches to personal values taken by tourism and hospitality scholars and personal value theorists in marketing and consumer behavior research. First of all, scholars in both disciplines have referred to Rokeach’s standpoint of personal values to develop research frameworks that explain the consumption process (or behavior). In other words, they considered personal values as the most influential motive that guides principles in the lives of consumers (or tourists) [64,76]. In addition, both groups of scholars have used some features of Schwartz’s [6] personal value theory: (1) personal values transcend consumers’ specific situations and actions, (2) personal values serve as consumers’ criteria or standards, and (3) the relative importance of multiple personal values guides consumers’ actions (the multi-dimensionality of personal values) [67,72,122,123]. Based on the characteristics of personal values, both groups of scholars have argued that personal values ought to be regarded as core factors in the consumption process (or behavior) in terms of their relative stability and generalizability compared to other psychological factors (e.g., motivation and personality).

Second, scholars in both disciplines have used concrete theoretical backgrounds to explain the association between personal values and the consumption process, regardless of their research contexts. From a measurement perspective, since the personal value construct has abstract characteristics, for empirical research, well-developed personal value scales have been created by scholars in the social science fields, such as “Rokeach’s Value Survey (RVS) by Rokeach [5]”, “Values and Lifestyles (VALS) by Mitchell [124]”, “a List of Values (LOV) by Kahle [125]”, and “the Norwegian Monitor Approach (NMA) by Dalen [126]”. However, these personal value scales have some limitations regarding psychological perspectives. For example, the RVS lacks an association with respondents’ daily lives, and VALS heavily relies on demographic data. Schwartz’s [6] personal value system (or structure), consisting of several value dimensions, was then developed, and it has been considered the most useful personal value measure and theory with which to categorize and measure a consumer’s values across contexts, such as choice of ecotourism [127] and green product consumption [90].

In terms of theoretical frameworks, both groups of scholars have basically used pre-existing, well-developed models to explain the consumption process. For example, some research has examined the association between personal values and consumption behavior with attitudes as a mediator (i.e., the values–attitudes–behavior model) in both the tourism/hospitality [101,109,110] and marketing/consumer behavior arenas [79,81]. However, some previous researchers extended the model to their contexts by adding additional mediators to enhance the explanatory power respecting consumption behavior (e.g., subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) [76].

As another example, other studies in both fields have referred to the means–end model to investigate the influence of personal values on consumption behavior [115,116,120,123]. However, some of the tourism research centered around this model has employed qualitative interviewing techniques and data analysis (i.e., laddering) [115]. The researchers have not used predetermined dimensions of personal values and have employed the laddering technique to find connections between personal values and product attributes as well as demonstrate the abstract meanings and structures of consumers’ personal values. Thus, even though scholars in both disciplines have referred to the same model to explain the consumption process, their approaches to the development of the personal value model differ (e.g., in terms of adding potential factors and using different methodological techniques).

Third, scholars in tourism and hospitality have provided an indistinct justification for why they focus on personal values to explain consumption behavior in their own field. In other words, there has been little justification for why personal values should be used particularly in the tourism and hospitality contexts. Here are some examples of justifications from tourism and hospitality scholars: (1) “It is widely understood that values are activated and likely to guide behaviors when they are brought into conflict in a decision-making process. As many decisions, including tourism decisions, are likely to activate both congruent and conflicting values, it is crucial to understand people’s values systems, rather than the priority given to a single value” [76] (p. 107); (2) “Given their role in determining people’s attitudes and responses towards specific aspects of the environment [128] personal values need to be integrated into the analysis of decision-making processes [129]” [123] (p. 875).

As can be seen, tourism and hospitality scholars have emphasized “the role of personal values” as predictors of consumers’ attitudes and behaviors rather than focusing on their role in the consumption process for products and/or services in the hospitality and tourism industry. Although the tourism and hospitality industry has products with different features to those in other industries (e.g., intangibility, inseparability, perishability, experience, etc.), scholars have not clearly justified the relevance of personal values to the consumption process for products and/or services.

Lastly, some hospitality and tourism scholars have selected only some personal value dimensions instead of all dimensions to explain the consumption process. According to Schwartz [6], however, all the dimensions of personal values act as guides to individuals’ attitudes and behavior. For example, the studies of Choi et al. [122] and Han [127] were based on Stern’s [130] value orientation reflecting egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric aspects of personal values. However, the study that employed only biospheric value argued that this value dimension was the most important predictor of green product consumption behavior without any appropriate justification. This approach may generate confusion regarding the aspects of personal values among hospitality scholars and readers.

For a greater understanding of personal values to explain the consumption process, tourism and hospitality scholars need to see the whole picture of personal values and then examine the independent influences of personal value dimensions on the consumption process. For example, the study of Ye et al. [76] was based on Schwartz’s [6] four dimensions of personal values. The study empirically analyzed the influence of each personal value dimension on the consumption process (e.g., attitudes and behavioral intentions). However, according to Schwartz [6], the four dimensions are comprised of aggregated value dimensions (i.e., benevolence + universalism = self-transcendence; power + achievement = self-enhancement; hedonism + stimulation + self-direction = openness to change; security + conformity + tradition = conservation), and previous studies in the marketing and consumer behavior fields have empirically indicated that each sub-dimension (e.g., benevolence, power, self-direction, etc.) has an independent influence on consumption behavior [67,72]. They have insisted that this approach enables scholars to clearly understand how particular personal values form consumers’ attitudes towards and result in behaviors involving products and brands.

3. Conclusions and Suggestions for the Era of COVID-19

In the past, demographic characteristics and socio-demographics were used to distinguish consumer groups and explain their consumption patterns. However, such information might make it difficult to derive recommendations for motivating and encouraging consumers to purchase a product. Consequently, more recent research has highlighted consumers’ psychological aspects, such as values, beliefs, and attitudes, as significant predictors of consumer behavior. To empirically demonstrate the interrelationships, several measures for personal values and theoretical frameworks have been developed by personal value theorists in psychology, sociology, marketing, and consumer behavior research. Based on the development of scales and theories, scholars in tourism and hospitality have conducted research on the ability of personal values to explain consumption patterns. Through a comprehensive literature review, this paper found some similarities and differences between scholars in tourism/hospitality and marketing/consumer behavior research, as well as some limitations to the tourism and hospitality scholars’ approaches to personal values.

In terms of similarities, scholars in both disciplines have referred to similar perspectives on personal values (i.e., Rokeach’s) to explain consumption processes and formulate research models. In addition, both groups of scholars have employed well-developed scales (e.g., Schwartz’s) and theoretical backgrounds (e.g., the values–attitudes–behavior model and the means–end model). However, both groups of scholars have extended the fundamental models to their particular contexts (e.g., green consumer behavior and consumption of green hotels) by taking different approaches or by adding new variables to the models. These efforts show the progress in the development of personal value theories in explaining the consumption process and/or patterns in both fields. Regarding differences, tourism and hospitality scholars have not provided enough justification for why their research should employ personal values as core determinants of consumption processes. In addition to research contexts (e.g., ecotourism and green hotels), some characteristics of the hospitality and tourism industry may be considered to justify the important role personal values play in the consumption processes within this discipline. Lastly, some hospitality and tourism research has limited the approach to personal values (e.g., using only one dimension of personal value). Therefore, to deeply understand the personal value construct, scholars may need to separately study the multiple dimensions of personal values and their independent influences on the consumption process.

Prior research has expected and reported that there have been direct and indirect influences of the COVID-19 situation (e.g., based on outbreaks and pandemics in the past or based on perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic) on consumers’ responses, such as decision-making processes and psychological and/or emotional states [131,132]. Due to the negative outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic among consumers, including perceived unpredictability, ambiguity, and unsafety, consumers are more likely to change their personal values, cultural values, motivations, attitudes, and even actual behaviors, depending on how their society views and responds to the pandemic as well as how they consider and tackle the ongoing situation. For example, in the era of COVID-19, consumers tend to make decisions with particular errors and biases because of their perceptions or concerns about COVID-19 [132,133]. Specifically, the particular errors and biases of consumers result from their perceived uncertainty about when the COVID-19 pandemic will be over, leading consumers to be more concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impacts on their society as well as their daily lives [132,133,134]. Thus, consumers’ perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic should also be considered when formulating personal values and cultural values for future hospitality and tourism studies.