I'm kind of confused by your comment. What's the difference between talking about values and talking about culture?
There's an overwhelming disparity in quantity.
and I don't believe people can introspect sufficiently to TRULY discover their values. But part of the problem is how they're presented in certain media - as if they were just things people choose to adopt. "I value family" is code for all sort of odious behavior. "I value fairness" alike ( trying to be.. balanced/bipartisan there ).
In truth, they're working abstractions, but when people start giving them an operating place in the construction of governance, it can be a real problem.
As goes the koan - "I cannot understand myself."
What do you mean by this? If you use them as guidelines for establishing processes and encouraging/discouraging behavior?
Suppose we say transparency is a value. Well, it's extremely easy to have too much transparency. Suppose it is collaboration. Then you can easily run into costly processes that serve no purpose in value.
I've seen "values competitions" before in organizations, where an escalation of commitment to them sort of generates a positive feedback loop.