Page 110 - (DK) The Business Book

108 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Japanese businesses, for example, maintaining unified business decisions, big and small, then they
think very much in the long-term: cultures, whether operating across start to feel unloved and removed
Toyota Motor Corporation has a multiple national or international from the business and its success.”
100-year business plan. cultures. The challenge is to balance
the promotion of “one culture” within Cultural benefits
Why culture matters an organization against the Strong cultures give staff a sense
Every organization’s culture has influences of local cultures in of belonging, which in turn brings
varying degrees of these different the external world. benefits, such as job satisfaction and
dimensions. The best leaders know Companies with strong staff retention. At Nike, staff are
which cultures operate within cultures, such as Nike and India’s considered rookies if they have been
different parts of their organization Tata Motors, are intensely aware of at the company for less than a
(and within different parts of the their history and image. At Nike it decade. Moreover, culture defines
world), and adjust their leadership is not unusual for employees to “the rules of the game,” simplifying
style to suit—valuing collective have the company’s “swoosh” logo priorities. Decision making is faster
approaches, for example, when tattooed on their body. At these and easier if everyone understands
dealing with Asian subsidiaries. businesses, culture encompasses company values, beliefs, and vision.
Today, organizational culture is an internalized sense of “who we Deeply embedded cultures also
more important than ever before. are” and “what we stand for” to improve the customer experience; if
Increasingly competitive markets, such an extent that many of the staff believes in the product, they
globalization, the prevalence of staff are able to recite corporate will transfer this belief to customers.
mergers, acquisitions, and alliances, maxims from memory. Similarly, Culture also protects an
and new modes of working (such as the UK smoothie company Innocent organization from the whims of
teleworking) require coordination has worked hard to create a charismatic leadership and the
across vast numbers of staff and corporate culture based on fickleness of fashion. A leader may
huge geographic distances. communication. Dan Germain, the influence corporate culture, but a
Hofstede’s observations highlight brand’s Head of Creative, explains: successful culture should endure
the difficulties that leaders face in “if people aren’t involved in all even when management changes.

Features of culture
Visible aspects of culture, such as Strong organizational cultures can
an organization’s rituals, stories and
symbols, are only the tip of the iceberg. suffer from problems of groupthink
Its beliefs, values, attitudes, and basic (everyone is too like-minded),
assumptions are hidden but definitive. insularity (too narrow a vision), and
arrogance (a belief that everything
Symbols
the company does is right). Culture
Ceremonies can become a source of power and
resistance; necessary change may
Stories
be resisted simply because “that’s
Behaviors
not the way we do things.”
Terrence Deal and Allan
Kennedy’s 1982 publication
Values Corporate Cultures outlined a range
Assumptions of cultural phenomena. The authors
suggested that culture is composed
Attitudes of a framework of six interlocking
elements: a company’s history; its
Beliefs
values and beliefs; its rituals and
Feelings ceremonies; its stories; the heroic
figures whose words and actions
embody corporate values; and the
cultural network.