Corporate culture Flashcards
Define corporate culture.
A company culture is the norms and values of a business.
What are the features of a strong culture?
Strong cultures have good communication with their employees
They have a focus on core values
The recruitment and training tries to find individuals who best fit the culture of the business
The culture is usually based around the history, tradition and founders of the business
What are the features of a weak culture?
A weak culture often leads to business failure
It will exhibit a demotivated workforce
There will be inconsistent customer service
It may be poorly managed
It will be very bureaucratic and lack flexibility to respond to dynamic markets
List the four different main company cultures.
Power culture
Role culture
Task culture
Person culture
Explain power culture.
Handy’s power culture is represented by a spider on a web, this symbolises a very strong owner or manager at the heart of the business
- In a power culture there is a central figure that will make decisions
- There are few rules and procedures
- There is a competitive attitude amongst employees to gain power
Explain role culture.
Handy’s role culture is represented by the drawing of a bank or Greek temple, this symbolises the bureacracy, red tape and paperwork systems in this very rigid organisation
- Decisions in a role culture are made through well established rules and procedures
- The power to make decisions in a role culture comes from the job title, for example marketing director (or Deputy Head)
- This is a very bureaucratic culture and may involve lots of paperwork
- The civil service is a good example of a role culture
Explain civil service as an example of role culture.
The Civil Service provides services directly to people all over the country, including:
paying benefits and pensions
running employment services
running prisons
issuing driving licences
They also have staff working on policy development and implementation, including analysts, project managers, lawyers and economists.
Explain what task culture is.
Task culture is represented by a matrix or grid diagram, this symbolises a series of work teams in a large organisation e.g. the Vectra team at Vauxhall might have a finance manager, a marketing manager and a representative from production on the design team
In a task culture the focus is a project that needs to be completed
The power in a task culture comes from those who can accomplish the tasks and have the expertise, for example a car designer, or an oil rig engineer
This involves teamwork on a project, a team of experts working together
Examples are scientific projects and car design
Explain person culture.
Person culture is represented by a petri dish, or a circle filled with smaller circles
This symbolises employees in an organisation that are all autonomous, skilled individuals e.g. web designers
Person culture
In a person culture there are grouping of similar skilled people to share expertise and knowledge
These all work on a client by client basis rather than on a project by project basis such as in task culture
How is corporate culture formed?
The role of the founders and owners, are key decisions still based round their ethos or influence?
The nature of the business and the products it sells
The degree to which products sold have changed over time
The business environment when it started (war time / 80s dot com)
The recruitment and process of key staff
Working hours
Attitude to customer service
What are the difficulties in changing established culture.
Strong cultures are hard to change, because a culture consists of interlocking:
Set of goals Roles Processes Values Communications practices Attitudes Assumptions
