Corporate Culture

Question 1

What is corporate culture?

Answer 1

It’s shared values and beliefs of the people in an organisation. These can be real or official.​

Culture = the “personality” of an organisation or ‘how we do things around here’​

Positive culture ↑ productivity, quality + employee engagement​

Question 2

What is official corporate culture ?

Answer 2

The desired culture a business wishes to establish (i.e. what an organisation says it stands for)​

Visible through company documents – e.g. mission and vision statements or slogans and logos​

Question 3

What is Real Corporate Culture​?

Answer 3

The actual or prevailing culture that exists within a business – i.e. essentially how things ACTUALLY operate – e.g. how to managers communicate with employees? How to employees relate to each other? What is time and money spent on?​

​Often there is a gap b/w the official culture and the real culture – i.e. an organisation says they stand for x but day to day behaviour does not reflect this​.

Question 4

OFFICIAL corporate culture indicators:

Answer 4

Mission Statements​

Policies (e.g. equal opportunity, OH&S, environmental) ​

Stated priority areas in annual reports, CEO/management statements. ​

Question 5

REAL corporate culture indicators​:

Answer 5

Physical structure (office layout, solar panels, size of different offices, department areas) ​

Consistency in style of dress and language within the organisation​

Relations among staff ​

Management style​

Budgets​

Rituals and celebrations – what exist indicates what is valued​

“Heroes” – who do people “look up to” in the organisation (informal power)