Over the past few years, companies have learned the language of values. They have learned how to speak about empathy, diversity, mental health, and community, or more precisely, how to make it visible that they are speaking about them. The question today is no longer whether these topics are present in organizational discourse, but what they meant when they functioned as an internal compass, and what they mean now that they have become part of structured measurement systems, KPIs, employer branding strategies, and reputational risk management models.
In this new environment, performativity is not a deviation but a consequence. In a business and HR ecosystem where almost everything becomes visible, scalable, and comparable, values inevitably become objects of analysis, optimization, and communication. The real question, therefore, is not whether performativity exists, but where real impact is generated, who it reaches, at which organizational layers it takes effect, and which economic, cultural, and power structures shape it.
The modern company now offers identity. It does not only define what it does, but also what it believes in, or at least what it claims to believe in. This “belief,” however, appears less and less as an internal conviction and more and more as a response to external expectations. Social sensitivity, ethical operation, and human-centeredness have become norms whose absence generates reputational risk, labor market disadvantage, and investor distrust. The problem is not that these values appear. The problem is that disproportionate emphasis is placed on their visibility, while their actual organizational impact often remains narrow, fragmented, and difficult to measure. A campaign can be communicated globally; a structural change, by contrast, is slow, conflict-ridden, and rarely “aesthetic.” One fits neatly into brand logic; the other strains its boundaries. This is where reach and impact diverge. The narrative travels far, while in everyday operations values often apply only partially, on a project basis, or sporadically. This is not necessarily deliberate deception, but rather a systemic distortion: what gains advantage is what can be communicated quickly, visualized, and measured, as opposed to what would require genuine transformation.
Within this process, the role of HR is central. Over the past decade, HR has gradually become one of the core infrastructures of corporate identity. It not only manages people, but also meanings, narratives, and symbolic gestures. Recruitment, internal communication, wellbeing programs, and diversity initiatives simultaneously serve operational and representational purposes. Mental wellbeing is a clear example of this ambivalence. Many organizations introduce trainings, apps, internal campaigns, and “wellbeing frameworks” that can undoubtedly provide individual-level support. At the same time, these initiatives often do not address the structural roots of the problem: overload, constant availability, performance-contingent security, or a culture in which exhaustion is normalized. In such cases, HR operates within a system where solutions must fit the existing business model. Care thus often becomes compensation rather than transformation. It remains visible, measurable, and communicable, as long as it does not challenge the system’s underlying logic.
A similar dynamic can be observed in the area of diversity and inclusion. Diversity today is rarely the subject of ideological debate; instead, it appears primarily as a question of data, structure, and reporting. Ratios, targets, dashboards, and annual reports define what is considered progress. This is, in itself, an advance, as invisibility always protects the status quo. At the same time, measurement can easily replace lived experience. An organization can be statistically inclusive while its decision-making mechanisms remain unchanged. Visual communication can be diverse while cultural norms continue to reward a narrow, implicit set of expectations. Context becomes critical here: the industry, the geographic and cultural environment, and the market and financial pressures under which an organization attempts to represent values. Inclusion is not a universal recipe, but a practice shaped by environmental conditions.
Leadership roles are not untouched by this process either. Modern leaders are expected to display empathy, self-reflection, social sensitivity, and public engagement. These expectations are progressive in themselves, yet they can easily become roles to be performed. When authenticity takes form, it loses its spontaneity. When vulnerability is planned and timed, it acquires a communicative function. Leadership thus becomes not only decision-making, but continuous self-representation, where authenticity itself turns into a measurable expectation, another KPI.
Criticism of performativity is often misunderstood, as if it presupposed an idealized past in which companies were “more sincere.” In reality, the issue is not temporal but one of focus. It concerns what we define as success: visible reach or internal impact that is often slow, contradictory, and fraught with conflict. Values are not always compatible with the logic of communication. Sometimes they do not look good. Sometimes they are not scalable. Sometimes they are felt only within a narrow circle. Yet it is precisely these characteristics that make them real.
In the coming decade, the organizations that will be truly credible are not those that become more sophisticated in presenting values, but those that embed them structurally. Where the first question is not “how can this be communicated,” but “where, for whom, and under what conditions does this have an effect.” Perhaps this will be one form of a new kind of business maturity: recognizing that not every value needs to become a performance in order to matter.