BNET Business Dictionary

Business Definition for: Corporate Culture

the combined beliefs, values, ethics, procedures, and atmosphere of an organization. The culture of an organization is often expressed as "the way we do things around here" and consists of largely unspoken values, norms, and behaviors that become the natural way of doing things. An organization's culture may be more apparent to an external observer than an internal practitioner. The first person to attempt a definition of corporate culture was Edgar Schein, who said that it consisted of rules, procedures, and processes that governed how things were done, as well as the philosophy that guides the attitude of senior management toward staff and customers. The difficulty in identifying the traits of culture and changing them is borne out by the fact that culture is not merely climate, power, and politics, but all those things and more. There can be several subcultures within an organization, for example, defined by hierarchyâ€"shop floor or executiveâ€"or by functionâ€"sales, design, or production. Changing or renewing corporate culture in order to achieve the organization's strategy is considered one of the major tasks of organization leadership, as it is recognized that such a change is hard to achieve without the will of the leader.
Also known as Organizational Culture

Additional Resources

Corporate Culture Redefined: How to Navigate Mergers: DaimlerChrysler AGÂ may soon be justÂ Daimler AG, signalingÂ aÂ separation fromÂ theÂ company's pre-Cerberus days -- before the private equity firm bought the U.S. Chrysler division for $6 billion -- and its future as a company not dependent on "the volatile North American market."Â In the wake ofÂ so many failed mergers, analysts are wondering why companiesÂ keep...; Tags: Lori Deschene, Strategy, Management, Globalization, Leadership, Financial Executive, Merger, Corporate Culture, Culture; Blog posts 2007-10-04
Cornell Tackles Ethics and Corporate Culture: Corporate scandals crop up in the news at such a pace these days it seems the breakdown in ethical behavior has permeated every rung of the corporate ladder. With mounting pressure from the current economic landscape, business people and lawyers may find the line denoting ethical behavior increasingly difficult to...; Tags: Corporate Culture, Lawyer, Ethics, Leadership, Business Ethics, Management, Stacy Blackman; Blog posts 2009-04-09
Corporate Culture and Expatriate Selecting Strategies in MNCs: Are They Related? - Some Empirical Evidence: The purpose of the study presented in this paper is to examine whether an organisation's corporate culture has an impact on the expatriate selection strategies including policies and criteria used in MultiNational Corporations MNCs. In an exploratory study conducted in this paper, sixty-seven recruitment and selection professionals (such as human...; Tags: Strategy, Corporate Culture, Selection Strategy, Leadership, Management; White papers 2005-07-01
What Is Corporate Culture And How Does It Affect Your Business?: The abstract concept that is "Culture" is a general term which covers many aspects of societal living, primarily focusing on the identity of population groups. When this abstract concept is applied to the business community, it changes into "Corporate culture" and thereby indicates the "Population groups" within companies. The broad...; Tags: Corporate Culture, Identity, Associated Content, Leadership, Management; White papers 2008-08-14
Uncovering A Company's Corporate Culture Is A Critical Task For Job-Seekers: What is corporate culture? At its most basic, it's described as the personality of an organization, or simply as "How things are done around here." It guides how employees think, act, and feel. Corporate culture is a broad term used to define the unique personality or character of a particular...; Tags: Corporate Culture, Quintessential Careers, Leadership, Management; White papers 2008-01-01

Evolution Of Corporate Culture: How Important Is It In Today's World?: "Corporate culture is how every employee knows she or he must act - even if no one is watching." Knowing your company's culture proves crucial for multiple reasons, including: + Only organizational changes that fit into your company's culture will succeed. Changes not fitting into the culture will fail and...; Tags: Culture, Corporate Culture, Articles Factory, Leadership, Management; White papers 2006-07-13
Culture and Customer Loyalty - But Will They Love Me Tomorrow? Thriving With Customers Through Corporate Culture: Leveraging corporate culture is the right next step in the evolution of sustainable success for many companies who are just past the initial growth spurt of establishing a market presence. While too many businesses think of brand identity only in terms of taking advantage of whatever opportunities the marketplace provides,...; Tags: Corporate Culture, Brand Identity, ManagerWise, Leadership, Branding, Management, Marketing; White papers 2003-01-01
Groups, Teams, And Corporate Culture: Groups are formed when two or more people come together and work in cohesion towards attainment of common goals and objectives. The group becomes a team when the individual members develop complimentary skills and develop interdependency towards attainment of the common goal. Corporate culture is the set of values, beliefs,...; Tags: Attainment, Pearson Education Inc., Team, Corporate Culture, Groups, Leadership, Management; Presentations 2003-01-01
The Role Of Corporate Culture In Change Efforts: Corporate culture refers to the set of values, beliefs, and behavioral dynamics existing in an organization. It is unique for a particular organization. The paper examines the role of corporate culture in managing change in organizations. The change needs to be fully institutionalized in the organization for its successful implementation....; Tags: Corporate Culture, Organization, Center For Organization Effectiveness, Leadership, Management; White papers 2003-01-01
Emerging Technologies and Corporate Culture at Microsoft: A Methodological Note: This paper explores factors important in the study and examination of corporate culture and change. The particular focus is on the technological methods used to conduct a study of accessible technology and corporate culture at Microsoft Corporation. Reasons for particular approaches are explained. Advantages and challenges of emerging technologies that...; Tags: Corporate Culture, Microsoft Corp., John Wiley & Sons Inc., Leadership, Management; White papers 2005-02-08
Corporate Culture: The dictionary meaning of culture is: "the moral, social, and behavioral norms of an organization based on the beliefs, attitudes, and priorities of its members." Every organization has its own unique culture or value set. Most organizations don't consciously try to create a certain culture. The culture of the organization...; Tags: Culture, Corporate Culture, Organization, Auxillium West, Leadership, Team Management, Management; White papers 2003-01-01
What Is My Company's Corporate Culture?: "The article discusses 'How can an employee determine what his company's corporate culture is?' The easiest way to get an idea about an organization's culture is to listen to what people inside and outside say about the company. Corporate culture is created by what people say and...; Tags: Corporate Culture, AllBusiness.com, Leadership, Management; White papers 1999-01-17
A Model of the Impact of Corporate Culture on Information Technology Adoption: When corporate culture is considered in conjunction with the relationship between the independent and dependent variables of information technology adoption, the culture of an organization may play a major role in the adoption of information technology. This paper describes a model that examines how the corporate culture impacts IT adoption.; Tags: Corporate Culture, Information Technology, Adoption, Leadership, Strategy, Management; White papers 2002-12-02
Mergers and Corporate Culture: It is widely recognized that cultural differences between the partners of a merger are one of the most common reasons for failure in mergers. This may happen during pre-merger negotiations or during post-merger integration. Despite all Due Diligence, the two partners of a merger fail to form a new successful...; Tags: Corporate Culture, Merger, Themanager.org, Mergers & Acquisitions, Investment, Finance; White papers 2001-01-01
Corporate Culture And Leadership: Corporate culture refers to the values, beliefs, behaviors, customs, and attitudes that help the members of the organization understand what it stands for, how it does things, and what it considers important. This presentation provides the importance of organization culture. Culture determines the overall ?feel? of the organization, although it...; Tags: Corporate Culture, Martsolf.com, Leadership, Management; Presentations 2003-01-01
Corporate Culture, Values, and Strategic Change: This white paper introduces the culture and values elements of strategic implementation that is based on strategy equation, which holds that financial performance is a function of both industry attractiveness and competitive advantage or position. It illustrates few strategic capabilities those were considered at the time of implementation. The ultimate...; Tags: Corporate Culture, University Of Virginia, Change, Strategy, Management; White papers 2003-01-01
Cultivating a Positive Corporate Culture: Corporate culture isn't something that one can define. It's intangible: a state of mind, a feeling, a collective consciousness that's infused in a business and its employees. If one were to ask 20 CEOs to define their corporate cultures, the person would get 20 different responses. The important thing isn't...; Tags: Corporate Culture, AllBusiness.com, Leadership, Management; White papers
Revitalization from withina new corporate culture takes root - ShopKo Stores Inc.'s works at retaining its corporate culture - Brief Article: A corporate culture is a tricky thing to develop and sustain. When carefully cultivated, however, it can prove to be a powerful force in achieving financial results, and in the case of ShopKo it has does just that.; Tags: corporate culture; Research articles 2000-10-01
Corporate culture: MRG adopts bigger firms' synergistic precepts: Reflecting a commitment to "winning every guest, every day, worldwide," Metromedia Restaurant Group's corporate culture is not based on buzz words thumb-tacked to bulletin boards. Instead, as a cornerstone of its corporate resurgence, MRG's intricate business culture taps a keen awareness that its customer service goals are a subtext...; Tags: brand, Branding, General Motors Corp., Leadership, MARKETING, team; Research articles 1999-08-09
Novak: corporate culture should be based on communication, support, recognition: Instilling a constructive corporate culture starts at the bottom -- with senior management -- according to David Novak, the president of Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. Novak told attendees at this year's MUFSO convention that instilling a strong corporate culture based on open communication, support for unit-level operations and...; Tags: KFC Corp., Pizza Hut, Taco Bell Corp.; Research articles 1997-10-27

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