Corporate Culture

Question 1

Corporate culture

Answer 1

Describes the norms, values and beliefs of a business

Question 2

Strong culture

Answer 2

A culture where the values, beliefs and ways of working are deeply fixed within the business and its employees.

Focus and reinforces core values
Recruitment and training involves finding individuals best fit for the culture
Provides sense of identity for employees
Increases commitment and motivation
Makes workers identify with each other
Prevents high labour turn over

Question 3

Weak culture

Answer 3

A culture where workers are not fully aligned to the values, beliefs and ways of working of an organisation.

Often leads to business failure 
Will show a demotivated staff 
Poor management 
Very bureaucratic and lack of flexibility 
Inconsistent customer service

Question 4

Classification of company cultures

Answer 4

Identified by Charles Handy :

Power culture
Role culture
Task culture
Person culture

Question 5

Power culture

Answer 5

Central figues who makes decisions
A few rules and procedures
Competitive attitude amongst workers
A single owner is at the centre and in control of the organisation

Question 6

Role culture

Answer 6

Decisions are made through established rules and procedures
Bureaucracy- power is associated by job title
Often have tall hierachy structure with long chain of command

Question 7

Task culture

Answer 7

Power is given to those who can complete tasks required
Power lies with employees with expertise rather than a certain job title
Teamworking is common
Teamwork of expertise

Question 8

Person culture

Answer 8

Involves autonomous employees
Individuals have expertise but dont work closely or in groups
The business with typically have workers of similar backgroung and skill sets
Examples are firms of lawyers, doctors, architects etc..

Question 9

How corporate culture is formed

Answer 9

There are several factors that contribute to how corporate culture is formed:

The role of founding members of the organisations and their beliefs- often a strong leader’s attitudes will affect the organisation.

Well established values

Policies and rules

Nationality

The environmental factors when a business is first formed can impact its culture- the history and traditions of a business may control certain values and norms because they form part of what employees ‘buy into.’

The success of a company will play a big part in setting the values and expectations of staff.

The type of product- how technically complex a product is may determine the skill and expertise of the workforce and the speed of change or need for innovation.

Question 10

Difficulties in changing an established culture

Answer 10

A problem is that although the culture is easy to describe, identifying the factors that contribute towards that culture as well as their significance is hard. This means even changing one of these factors may not have much of a significance.

Some aspects may be easier to change than others- tangible factors such as policies and rules can be easily changed however it is much harder to manipulate people’s attitudes and beliefs.