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on the congruence between the values implied by the company actions and those of the social
system (Dowling and Pfeffer, 1975). In this paper, we analyze the perceptions of stakeholders about
the organizational core values of the world’s most admired companies, according to Fortune’s
2013-2017 rankings. We present an analysis of data extracted from Twitter regarding five
categories of stakeholders (customers, company communication teams tweeting on behalf of top
management, employees, associations and media). The methodology we use could also be
replicated for an almost real-time assessment of the importance of core values considering social
media other than Twitter and other categories of stakeholders. In addition, a single firm could
analyze stakeholders’ perceptions about its own core values.
In order to categorize the core values of different organizations we referred to a classification of
core values. A classification is an arrangement of entities into taxonomic classes or groups
according to their common characteristics. The aim of a classification is, on the basis of precise
criteria, to separate into diverse categories the entities used for the same purpose, following a
logical order. For example, Agle and Caldwell (1999) classify values according to five levels of
analysis (individual, organizational, institutional, societal and global); while Cording et al. (2014)
refer to two dimensions of values, the espoused and the realized ones and to four combinations of
these two dimensions (weak, under-promising, over promising and strong values). Depending on
the research purpose and the logical order used, a classification might be more functional than
others. Although in literature there are numerous classifications of core values (e.g., Agle and
Caldwell, 1999; Cording et al., 2014; Hitlin and Piliavin, 2004), we chose to refer to the one
described by Barchiesi and La Bella (2014), as it comprises six relevant stakeholders’ orientations,
and has a specific focus on corporate social responsibility, which is studied both in terms of
citizenship and social responsibility. In this core value classification, core value orientations are the
exemplifications of the nature of beliefs and thoughts that are subtended in core value expressions.
For example, core value expressions such as “safety and health at work” and “a fun and rewarding
