Given the current state of the economy, one would assume that it would be critically important for all organizations to have their workforces tightly aligned and in sync with critical company values, right?

Well, you would be right to think that, but you would also be wrong.

A new study on “The Value of Corporate Values” that was conducted by Los Angeles-based ethics and compliance company LRN found that 87 percent of U.S. business leaders personally favor employees who are inspired by a company’s mission and values. Sounds good, no? What business leader wouldn’t want a workforce filled with people who are tightly aligned with the company’s mission and values?

Well, as high-minded as that 87 percent figure sounds, it breaks down in practice because the same business leaders say that when it comes right down to it, only 33 percent of their companies actually value inspired employees. The leaders said their companies really prefer employees who conform and do what they are told (35 percent) and are motivated by material rewards (32 percent).

“It’s good news that the leaders care about this, but it’s bad news that they haven’t been able to institutionalize what they care about,” said Kenneth Goodpaster, a business ethics professor at the University of St. Thomas’ Opus College of Business in Minneapolis who was quoted in LRN’s press release about the survey. He said that the survey findings suggest a troublesome gap in the process of translating leadership values into corporate structures and culture.

In other words, although U.S. business leaders talk a good game about placing a premium on workers who buy in to the organization’s culture and values, they frequently don’t reward workers who do. In fact, workers are better off, it seems, if they forget the mission and values, shut up and do what they’re told.

The LRN study also had some timely insight into how corporate values come into play in the current economic downturn. It found that:

• Fifty-two percent of leaders said that the downturn has their companies emphasizing the organizational mission and values to encourage greater performance from employees more than in the period before the decline. But 47 percent of leaders said their companies are stressing values and mission less (5 percent), the same (15 percent) or not at all (27 percent).

• Nearly half (49 percent) of the leaders surveyed said their companies weigh how aligned employees are with the organizational mission and values in making decisions to downsize teams and resources. Some 20 percent of their companies do not consider the mission and values when scaling back the workforce, according to these leaders.

• A majority of the leaders (56 percent) said their companies place a premium on workers who are aligned with the underlying organizational mission versus an equally skilled employee who may not be as aligned; 17 percent do not value such workers at all.

This survey seems to reflect a huge disconnect between what American business leaders say and what they do, but that’s not a big surprise. I mentioned this here last month when Lehman Brothers, a 150-year-old company venerated for its culture and values, didn’t even have the decency to tell its own workers that the company was going under. The workers had to hear it from media reports.

This LRN survey bluntly lays out its findings, but they’re hardly a big surprise. The survey simply quantifies what you probably already know: Lots of companies love to tout their mission and culture, but when it comes right down to it, mission and culture are usually the first thing to go when times get tough.