Chapter 3

• Corporate culture

  A set of key values, beliefs, understandings and norms shared by members of an organisation
• Elements of corporate culture

  • Symbols
  • Stories
  • Heroes
  • Slogans
  • Ceremonies
• Levels of corporate culture

  • Surface level (visible artefacts such as dress, office layout, symbols, slogans and ceremonies)
  • Below surface (invisible expressed core values and underlying assumptions and deep beliefs)
• Symbols

  An object, act or event that conveys meaning to others
• Stories

  Narratives based on true events that are shared among organisational employees and repeated frequently
• Corporate heroes

  Figures who exemplify the deeds, character and attributes of a strong culture
• Slogan

  A phrase or sentence that succinctly expresses a key corporate value
• Ceremony

  A planned activity at a special event that is conducted for the benefit of an audience
• Types of culture

  • Adaptability culture (external, flexibility)
  • Achievement culture (external, stability)
  • Involvement culture (internal, flexibility)
  • Consistency culture (internal, stability)
• Adaptability culture

  • Emerges in an environment that requires fast response and high risk decision making
• Achievement culture

  • Suited for organisations that serve specific customers in the external environment but without the intense need for flexibility
• Involvement culture

  • Emphasizes an internal focus on the involvement and participation of employees to adapt rapidly to changing needs
• Consistency culture

  • Use an internal focus and a consistency orientation for a stable environment
• High performance culture

  A culture that is based on a solid organisational mission, embodies shared adaptive values that guide decisions and business practices, and encourages individual employee ownership
• Quadrants of managing high performance culture

  • Quadrant A: High performance, low cultural values
  • Quadrant B: High performance, high cultural values
  • Quadrant C: Low performance, low cultural values
  • Quadrant D: Low performance, high cultural values
• Cultural leader

  Defines and uses signals and symbols to influence corporate culture, articulates a vision for the organisational culture in which employees can believe, and heeds the day-to-day activities that reinforce cultural vision
• Globalization

  The extent to which trade, investment, information, and social and cultural exchange occur between countries
• Global mindset

  The ability of managers to appreciate and influence individuals or groups that represent different social and cultural characteristics
• Types of international companies

  • International (importers and exporters with no investments outside their countries)
  • Multinational (investments in other countries but no coordinated product offerings)
  • Transnational (coordinated across countries with no home base)
  • Ethnocentric (place emphasis on their home countries)
  • Polycentric (oriented towards the markets of individual foreign host countries)
  • Geocentric (truly world oriented and favour no specific country)
• Bottom of the pyramid concept

  Proposes that corporations can alleviate poverty as well as make profits by selling to the world's poorest people