Tip 6 Get your corporate culture right

The culture in an organisation is made up of things such as environment, atmosphere, processes, rewards, hierarchy and behaviours.


"The culture of an organisation refers to the unique configuration of norms, values, beliefs and way of behaving that characterises the manner in which groups and individuals collaborate to get things done." (Eldridge and Crombie, 1974)


The culture of an organisation needs to support innovation for this to be successful. Culture is a very difficult thing to change and needs time to establish. If there isn't a positive innnovation culture then employees will not engage in innovation activities and will be less willing to get involved and take risks.


Values and norms underpin culture and for an innovative culture there need to be values around teamwork, the importance of new ideas and delivery of new products and services to customers. The values and norms influence how an organisation is oriented and its focus.


Johnson and Scholes develop the Culture Web to provide a model of capturing elements of culture. They used the culture web to capture elements of existing culture and future and to develop plans to help change from one to another. For example, for the NHS and in banks. It would be possible to use the web to map an innovative culture and develop a plan to close any gaps.

(Schloes, 1997)
  
I believe that a company should develop a culture that encourages the sharing of knowledge and to collaborate and promote team work. A possible way of doing this could be through Knowledge Management. Sharing knowledge is vital so that an organisation can function and gain expertise. Knowledge Managment can increase change and help improve and develop products and add value.

 "Knowledge management is a conscious strategy for moving the right knowledge to the right people at the right time to assist sharing and enabling the information to be translated into action to improve the organisational performance." (O'Dell & Grayson 1997)

A benifit of knowledge management is that it can be resused and recyced in the future and be used in different contexts if it is stored in a database by the company.  The most common approuch to knowledge management is codification strategy which is used for explicit information, codified and then recorded for future use and ease to access.

Although there can be challeneges as the data will need to be in a format that people can understand. e.g  people will need to learn how to use the database. Another could be that information may be overloaded and not simple as it can be in many different forms internet,e-mail and hard to track. Knowledge management is key to innovation as the people in the company are what make innovation work. The people need to knowledge to do this  

A culture i looked at from a  business case is Schneider Electrics. They are an automated electrics company that operates around the world. They are proud to have a different culture and try to stay competitive. There Reseach and development percentage is 5% which is high for an automation company like themselves. They

are a focused, well-managed, growth-orientated, global corporation,diverse company and encourage company focus to gain results.

"Every 3 years the company organizes around a growth and productivity initiative that drives the behavior and objectives of all groups and divisions for the following 3 years. We are just starting the 4th such program that I am aware of. This one is a 4 year program as opposed to the previous 3 year programs. As this is the 4th generation of this type of program the company is becoming more efficient and more organized around developing and implementing goals and objectives. It is well organized and it strongly drives focused behavior and results." (Schenider Electric)

 

References

Schloes, J. and Scholes K. (1997). Exploring Corporate Strategy. Prentice Hall Europe.

(n.d.). Retrieved January 20, 2012, from Schenider Electric: http://www.schneider-electric.com/site/home/index.cfm/uk/