Business Culture and Etiquette
III YEAR BBA
UNIT I
UBU 6702
Corporate Culture
What Is Corporate Culture?
Corporate culture refers to the values, behavior
and working style of a company. It indicates
how a company treats its employees,
customers and community
Importance
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Employees often get attracted to companies with a culture they
identify with.
Corporate culture impacts the way a company treats its
employees, which in turn impacts employee retention, turnover
and productivity.
Corporate culture impacts the way a company deals with its
customers.
Corporate culture can help build a strong brand identity as it
creates a certain image and perception in the minds of the
customers.
Strong corporate culture can transform employees and
customers into brand advocates.
Good corporate culture can promote a healthy team
environment.
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Corporate culture is important because it
influences a company's policies, operations
and working style.
Elements
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4.
Vision
Values
Practices
People
Types of corporate culture
1. Team-first culture
2. Elite culture
3. Horizontal culture
4. Conventional culture
5. Progressive culture
6. Market culture
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Edgar Schein's Organizational
Edgar ScheinCulture
believed that
organizations take
Model
time to develop a culture as the employees go
through various changes and adapt to the
external environment and solve organizational
problems.
They learn from their past experiences and start
implementing practices, and collectively the
employee's attitudes form the culture within
the organization.
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Edgar Schein is a renowned professor at the
MIT School of Management who has studied
extensively in the field of organization
management.
• Schein believed that there are three levels in an
organization's culture
1. Artefacts
2. Values
3. Assumed Values
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The first level is the characteristics of the
organization which can be easily viewed, heard
and felt by individuals which are collectively
known as artefacts.
For instance, the dress code of
employees, office
furniture, facilities, behaviors of the
employees, mission and vision of the
organization all come under artefacts and go a
long way in deciding the culture of the
workplace.
A deeper level to the superficial artefacts that
contribute to the organizational culture is the
values of the company, the individuals that
work there and the coherent alignment of those
values.
The third level is the assumed values of the
employees which can’t be measured but do
make a difference to the culture of the
organization.
Ultimately, Schein stressed that cultures are
not adopted by organizations in one day.
➢ Rather, they are formed through the course of
time as employees undergo various changes
whilst adapting to their external environment
and solving problems.
➢ The culture of the workplace is formed as
employees gain from their past experiences
and put such learning into practice.
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Deal and Kennedy’s Organizational Culture
Model
Deal and Kennedy suggests that ‘People are a
company’s greatest resource, and the way to
manage them is not directly by computer
reports, but by the subtle cues of a culture’
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Deal and Kennedy concluded that there are six
interrelated elements which define
organizational culture. These are:
History
Values and beliefs
Rituals and ceremonies
Story telling
Heroic figures
Cultural network
Their four categorisations of culture are:
Work Hard/Play Hard Culture
Tough Guy/Macho Culture
Process Culture
Bet-Your-Company Culture
Work Hard/Play Hard:
sales-driven culture
Heroes in such a culture are likely to be highly
successful salesman, and employees are likely
to respond well to internal competitions as well
as being motivated by extrinsic rewards,
something which runs counter to certain
elements of motivation theory.
Tough Guy/Macho:
Financial traders
They expect to be recognized for what they
achieve, but are less likely to work as part of
the team as they are fiercely competitive and
can be difficult to manage.
It is often associated with a ruthless
organizational environment which can be
unpleasant and uncomfortable to work in
unless an individual has a very high degree of
self-confidence.
Process:
large retailers
Individual employees know that they have little
impact on organizational outcomes and there is
little to link individual organizational decisions
to overall goals and objectives.
Therefore, employees tend to focus on accuracy
in process and procedure believing that
ultimately it will deliver organizational goals.
Bet-Your-Company:
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innovation and development such as
engineering or pharmaceuticals.
long payback period
high degree of capital investment
high degree of teamwork
long-term planning and forward preparation
Creating and Maintaining
Corporate Culture
The factors that are most important in the
creation of an organization’s culture include
founders’ values,
preferences, and
industry demands.
Philosophy of Organizational
Founders
• A company’s culture, during its early years, is
tied to the personality, background, and values
of its founder, as well as their vision for the
future of the organization.
• The way they want to do business determines
the organization’s rules, the structure set up in
the company, and the people they hire to work
with them.
Case study
For example ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s
Homemade Holdings Inc
founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield.
Burlington, Vermont.
Their strong social convictions led them to buy
only from the local farmers and devote a
certain percentage of their profits to charities.
Selection criteria
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Organizational culture is maintained through a
process known as attraction-selection-attrition.
First, employees are attracted to organizations
where they will fit in. In other words, different
job applicants will find different cultures to be
attractive.
• competitive nature
• team-oriented workplace.
• Research shows that employees with different
personality traits find different cultures
attractive
• neurotic personalities were less likely to be
attracted to innovative cultures, whereas those
who had openness to experience were more
likely to be attracted to innovative cultures
• Google cool perks
• Just as candidates are looking for places where
they will fit in, companies are also looking for
people who will fit into their current corporate
culture.
• Many companies are hiring people for fit with
their culture, as opposed to fit with a certain
job.
• Southwest Airlines prides itself for hiring
employees based on personality and attitude
rather than specific job-related skills, which are
learned after being hired.
To avoid potential person-culture
mismatch.
• The Container Store Inc. ensures culture fit by
hiring among their customers
• Companies may also use employee referrals in
their recruitment process.
New employees who do not fit in.
organization is going to eventually eliminate
candidates who do not fit in through attrition.
Attrition refers to the natural process in which
the candidates who do not fit in will leave the
company.
Research indicates that person-organization
misfit is one of the important reasons for
employee turnover
New Employee Onboarding
Another way in which an organization’s values,
norms, and behavioral patterns are transmitted
to employees is through onboarding (also
referred to as the organizational
socialization process).
Onboarding refers to the process through which
new employees learn the attitudes, knowledge,
skills, and behaviors required to function
effectively within an organization.
Top Management
• Building a culture of productivity and
innovation requires some vision at the top – a
leader to understand the market dynamics and
to drive people in his or her organization to
change.
• Once the vision is set, managers have to be on
board to get the organization where it needs to
be, and to constantly reinforce that culture and
vision throughout the organization
Socialization process
Organizational socialization is the process by
which people learn about and adjust to the
knowledge, skills, attitudes, expectations, and
behaviors needed for a new or changing role
within an organization.
3 Stages of Organizational Socialization
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The Pre-Arrival Stage.
The Encounter Stage.
Metamorphosis.
Cultural Web Analysis: the six elements of
organisational culture
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The Cultural Web Analysis was developed by
Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes in 1992
• Johnson and Scholes distinguish two cultural
contexts:
1. The regional cultural context
2. The organisational context
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An effective organisational culture
Like-mindedness
among the employees
is characterized
by:
High level of adaptability and competence of
the employees
A concrete, clear mission, recognizable to
everyone, that arises from the objectives
and strategy
A high level of involvement of the employees
Six elements
1. Stories
2. Symbols
3. Power structure
4. Organisational structure
5. Control systems
6. Rituals and routines
Cultural Web Analysis summary
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Johnson and Scholes’ Cultural Web shows that
the organisational culture is related to both the
way in which employees interact with each
other and the way in which the organization
interacts with the outside world.
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Despite the fact that a strong organisational
culture stimulates unity, there are always subcultures that create division.
The benefits that a strong organisational culture
brings are difficult to replicate and provide the
organization with a strong competitive
advantage.
UNIT I Assignment Topic
Analysis of Five Different Corporate Cultures