The word culture is known as the beliefs, attitudes, customs, values, language, religion and also history and origins that people share because feel part of a group that is different from another group. But it is necessary to avoid stereotypes and do not generalize, thinking that always a nation is similar to a culture, because nations also have subcultures that share different beliefs, attitudes, values, language, etc. (Mead, 2005).
In order to have successful business in other cultures, it is important to be aware of the cultural components mentioned before, because there are many cases of companies’ failures doing business in other cultures that were consequences of the ignorance or lack of sensitivity.
A good example that reflects the importance of knowing and taking into account the culture is when Wal-Mart went to Germany and did not know about the customers and employees culture, among other problems; at the end, Wal-Mart had to sell its 85 stores to a German retailer, losing a lot of money because of the mistakes. To read more about this, go to the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/business/worldbusiness/28iht-walmart.2325266.html
Business week, (December 27, 2006)
Each organization has its own internal culture that employees must understand and follow in order to achieve the company´s goals, to have synergy and cohesion in the organization and to create successful strategies based on the organizational culture.
In conclusion, there is a relation between the national culture and the organizational culture, because since culture is learned in the childhood, an entrepreneur will start a business taking into account the values and assumptions learned years ago. (Millman, 2007)
Part 2: In this part, it would be answered the following question:
Corporate culture in organizations: is it possible to change it?
The following is a definition of the corporate culture. According to the definition of corporate culture it would be easy to say that it is better to avoid changing a culture, but what happen if it is important to change it in order to keep valuable employees and have a great working environment?
“Corporate culture describes the whole collection of assumptions, practices and norms that people in an organization adopt over time. That means that employees have to buy into them, eventually getting to the point where they take them for granted and pass them on to new hires.” (Millman, 2007:1)
According to the definition, it is understand that each organization has its own corporate culture that was created by employees over time and that is based on many non-observable aspects as the background of the company (which is difficult and near impossible to change), but also based on observable aspects as the racial, language, dress and symbols. The corporate culture is created throughout the time with the role models, rituals and stories that the company has.
There are cases when the corporate culture apparently is working because support the goals of the company, but sometimes the goals (for example profitable goals) are well accomplished and the company is trying to change their culture because employees don’t feel right with stories, role models and rituals that define the culture.
A disadvantage that faces a company that is changing the organizational culture is that managers can forget about the main issues in business and try to change the culture of an organization without any success, because it is very difficult and almost impossible to change the culture. (Millman, 2007).
And also, in many cases when companies are doing mergers, acquisitions and outsourcing agreements, managers think they can be able to change the organizational culture, but this ends in costly mistakes, because it is not a quickly process and it is very difficult to change it in few time. (Millman, 2007)
But in the other hand:
“We tend to conform to the behavior of the people around us. Which is what makes culture change particularly challenging because everyone is conforming to the current culture. Sometimes though, the problem contains the solution”. (Bregman, 2009:1)This means that employees of a company can start changing a behavior; try to improve a performance and implement new strategies. This is accomplished changing to new stories and rituals that represent the culture that the company wants to create, and also finding people that act as the role model that the company wants and needs (Bregman, 2009).
In conclusion it is very difficult to change the corporate culture, but it is possible to change slowly to new behaviors, new strategies and new performances through the careful change of stories, role models and rituals.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Business week, (December 27, 2006), “Private-Label Goods, Favorite Big-Box Brands, Wal-Mart", [Online] Permanent URL: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/12/1227_inhouse_brands/source/8.htm. Last accessed: February 16, 2010.
Harvard Business review, (June 25, 2009), “A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture”, [Online] Permanent URL: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2009/06/the-best-way-to-change-a-corpo.html. Last accessed: February 16, 2010.
Millman, Gregory J. . 2007. "Corporate Culture: more myth than reality? ." The Free Library 23:44-47. Millman, Gregory J. (2007, July 1).
Mead, Richard. 2004. International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions London: Blackwell Publishing. Chapter 1.
New York Times, (July 28, 2006), “Wal-Mart gives up Germany - Business - International Herald Tribune”, [Online] Permanet URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/business/worldbusiness/28iht-walmart.2325266.html. Last accesed: February 16, 2010
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