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Exemplification of GEICO Core Values
Order Instructions:
1.Describe how you exemplify 3 of GEICO’s core values: Integrity, Service, and Growth. (450-600 words)
2.GEICO incorporates certain values into its corporate culture and day to day operations that have made it a successful business. Do you, as a student, incorporate certain principles in your academic career? Explain those principles. (450-600 words)
3.Graduate school drives your career and insures your future. How do you hope that your graduate education will benefit you? (450-600 words)
Exemplification of GEICO Core Values
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Exemplification of GEICO Core Values
Integrity, service and growth have been my pillars from a young age. My parents taught me these values since they knew their importance. When it comes to integrity, I can confidently say that, I am a person of high integrity, both in my personal as well as academic life. When I was in high school, for instance, I always gave my best in academics and I never took shortcuts to pass examinations.
This was also the case when I was taking my undergraduate degree. I always prepared for my exams and assignments in advance to avoid compromising my integrity. Additionally, in my current course, I always seek the guidance of my seniors and they have helped me undertake my studies with integrity.
This virtue has developed within me over time and I always aim at passing it across to my colleagues. There is a time I was an intern in one organization and I realized some colleagues were not genuine in reporting the real numbers regarding expenses. I strongly stood on my ground and refused to participate in the action. This taught me that, at times, for integrity to hold, one has to make a lot of sacrifices in life.
As a person, I have sacrificed my time for watching television, for instance to work on my assignments and submit them on time. I have also been forced to take a different turn from the views of my friends since at times; they tend to corrupt my integrity. It is therefore important to hold the virtue of integrity as it provides self satisfaction as well as a guilty free mind (Bell, 2013).
Service to others also holds a great place in my heart. Helping others tend to give me satisfaction and happiness. In my personal life, I always volunteer in various children’s homes to offer my support. My contribution may not be considered to be that big, but to me, going out and helping feed the children, play with them and assist in cleaning services means a lot to me. Additionally, I have been involved in various forums whereby I was fighting for equality for my friends from different races. I understand that, we may come from different backgrounds, but we all are human. I always step up to help the weak in the society whenever I come across such issues.
I remember there is a time, I had gone out to take a walk in the park, there was this Muslim lady and people were avoiding her and some even talking loudly that she might be a terrorist. I didn’t really like what was happening, I talked to her and soon after, I realized that she was stranded as she had lost her phone and other items as she was new in the neighborhood where she had come to visit a friend.
I helped her out with the little that I had and soon after, some people changed their attitude and even offered to help her. I came to realize that, we should always not judge others and thus our small steps can mean so much to others and even influence the rest of the population to become better (Guiso,2015).
In terms of growth, I am a curious person and am looking forward to learn a lot. Even in the classes I attend, I always ask questions to help me understand and thus grow. I have taken up various volunteering work to enable me to learn about the corporate world. Additionally, I have developed my passions, especially cooking by moving out of my comfort zone and asking my friends from other backgrounds on how to cook. Currently, I can cook like 7 different cuisine dishes. I can therefore say that, I value growth both in my professional and personal life.
The implementation of values and development of habits relies on principles. Personally, I use various principles in my academic life to ensure my life runs smoothly without affecting the rest of the population. I hold the highest level of respect. I understand that, respect is gained and it should be practiced by all. I always respect my professors through various ways, for instance, when addressing them and asking their guidance. I also respect my colleagues and this has enabled me develop a positive relationship with them. We hold discussions from time to time and I practice this principle by giving them time to speak and also consider their opinions for this portrays respect……
Exemplification of GEICO Core Values
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Should Companies Monitor Their Employees Social Media?
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Should Companies Monitor Their Employees Social Media?
Select a topic not specifically discussed in class from the Unique Ethical Issues lists from weeks 3, 5, and 7. Write a brief one-to-two page paper that introduces the unique ethical issue
You will explore the readings for the unique ethical issue.
Identify one common ethical dilemma associated with the ethical issue and explain why it is so.
State the dilemma. Choose two traditional theorists from week 2 and use their principles to explain his or her solution to the ethical dilemma you have presented.
Should Companies Monitor Their Employees Social Media?
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Should Companies Monitor Their Employees Social Media?
The advent of social media has provided individuals with an avenue through which they can communicate, interact and create connections. Social media also provides a platform through which individuals can express themselves by posting their views and opinions, which they can then share with their connections. In recent times, employers are taking advantage of social media to understand the potential and existing employees’ personalities and hence make employment decisions based on such information. This has led to the question of whether companies should monitor employees’ social media. Monitoring employee activities on social media are considered an ethical issue, mostly based on its potential to infringe on employee privacy.
Social media has both positive and negative employees in the workplace. A notable aspect if social media is that it has given employers a platform through which they can assess potential and existing employees to understand their personalities and thus determine their strengths, weaknesses, interests and their relevance to the current job (Vroman et al., 2016). Social media has notably been used in the recruitment process, where companies are going through individuals’ social media pages before deciding to employ.
This presents various ethical implications, which may affect both the employer and the employee. Privacy infringement is considered a major ethical implication. Given that social media is a private space where individuals share and interact with their social connections, monitoring employee activities on social media can be equated to privacy infringement (Mello, 2012)…..
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Race To Bottom Effect
Introduction
Race to bottom phrase describes how the governments in many different places are deregulating most of the business environments across the globe. They are also imposing high taxes to their benefit where they can retain economic activity in their jurisdictions to their benefit while the business men are highly impacted in a negative manner. Race to bottom is a phenomenon that is bound to increase in the presence of increased competition between geographical areas taking place either in the trade and production sector accordingly.
Most of the workers are now exploited in developing countries due to the race to bottom effect and most of the multinational corporations that benefit countries in operation a lot from such workers (Aneel Karnani, 2010). Workers are less paid and on the other side the multinational companies are getting high finances in return for the service they get in exchange of the cheap labour. This research will focus on how globalization has created a “race to the bottom effect” that enables multinational corporations to exploit workers in the developing countries and profit from low labour costs.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) emphasizes the aspect of companies to behaving ethically and stops exploiting their workers to their benefit; since it is an act that is not human. Practical perspective is provided to many of the organization in the developing countries to guarantee good and ethical dealing of stakeholders for their wealth security. It is a CSR responsibility to ensure that all ethical actions are well adhererd to the latter for the sake of helping their workers and their environment.
Ethical behaviour is well advoatced for smooth running of the organisation performance and increased performance. Any organization that works to ensure that corporate rules are well followed will emerge to be successful and stop exploiting its workers and start listening to their views accordingly. In the past, it was difficult to differentiate between the working and operation of the CSR with the individuals working in the organization.
Globalization effect has brought a lot of effects, including the race to the bottom effect that makes some people gain while the rest are suffering due to the rules in operations that do not yield to their needs (Beddewela & Herzig, 2013). There are many gaps that have been created and they are bringing negative impacts to most of the operations of multinational corporations.
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Globalization of the economy
The race to bottom effect experienced in most developing economies lead to an increased interconnection of people, different cultures and increased economies which benefits only a few, but the rest is humiliated (Blowfield, 2013). Economies will tend to rise at the expense of the few who are benefiting, and the rest are suffering from then increased exploitation cases taking place. It is prudent to say that globalization has stimulated growth through the multinational corporations that are investing highly in developing countries.
The investments of foreign investors in developing countries have led to stimulation of the growth in such countries where workers are working hard on such premises to make end meet. The investors are taking advantage of the high number of unemployment citizens whom they can easily exploit and make use of their knowledge at a very cheap cost. They employ them in the corporations in the developing countries and pay them very less amount of money that cannot cater for their needs. It is due to this reason that most of the multinationals corporations like investing in developing countries for the sake of exploiting poor citizens who have no say.
Company drivers for CSR
Under such circumstances, the CSR becomes more useful in making sure that ethical behaviour is followed to the latter to stop the high exploitation by multinational corporations (Blowfield & Murray, 2011). Regulations of the multinational corporations must not be a difficult duty for the governments because; they are out to save their citizens who voted for them to be in political positions. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that CSR rules are followed to the latter by different multinational corporations to stop the high exploitation that is taking place.
The societal pressure from the humiliated citizens makes most of the multinational corporations to adopt the use of CSR for the sake of saving most of the humiliated lives within the society. Use of CSR ensures that all the stakeholders’ needs are well met, and their needs followed because; their presence means a lot in the organization (C-Pedersen, 2015). Embracing the right CSR rules is an ethical act that will help to reduce the exploitation of employes in the organisation.
The corporate social, responsibility requires the businesses to assume their major duties and role that ensures that the world is better than yesterday. The CSR activists demand that the corporations adopt labour, environmental policies, and human rights issues that impact the society positively. Globalization poses a lot of opportunities and challenges for the developing countries and this is the reason as to why most of activities have to be scrutinised. The majority of the businesses have responded to the matter by putting more emphasis on the issue of the corporate accountability and corporate responsibility.
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Organizations responsibilities
Organizations have the Philanthropic responsibilities of ensuring that their workers act as good corporate citizens and that they have behavior that will pay off. Well behaved workers will ensure that they perform their duties as expected and bring the best to the corporation by attaining the set goal. The company is delegated with the duty of ethical responsibilities where it has to do what is expected of it at the right time to attain the desired outcome (Carroll, 1991). Workers who are well treated under a good CSR will tend to perform as required while they who are not given the best will not do their job as required.
Use of CSR help workers feel appreciated and part of the organization, which they are offering service for (Crane, Matten & Spence, 2014). Employing the use of ethical responsibilities ensures that a company does what is right and fair and in such a case, it does not mistreat it workers no matter what. It values its workers welfare and rewards them to motivate them to keep offering their services and doing their best for the sake of improved performance in the firm. Following of legal responsibly is the duty of all multinational corporations to avoid exploiting workers in the environment in which they are situated.
Embracing legal responsibility means that the multinational corporations adhere to all that is required by the law to undertake its company operations in the country. Following the rules that are set in the law, the multiple corporations will be able to know what is right and wrong; hence, follow what is right to make their working smooth. However, some corporations evade the paying of taxes which is the unlawful act and once they are found guilty in courts, they lose a lot of money paying for their uncouth behaviours.
Adhering to the rules set in operation for the foreign organization a lot of problems are avoided, and it means that the company is bound to humiliate and exploit workers. The multinational corporations are associated with the economic responsibilities where they have to work hard and make sure that they make profits for the benefit of its workers and the government as well. Making of high profits by the corporations means that they will have enough money to pay taxes and pay its workers well under reputable CSR rules. A high profitable corporation will pay high taxes and benefit the government, which will use the money to run its activities and create more jobs for its citizens.
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Code of conduct
CSR has to be well maintained in a supply chain to make sure that the organization adheres to all the required rules of operations and that it cannot exploit workers to its benefit. When CSR is well used in a supply chain, it will mean that fair trade will be transacted, and cases of oppression will be minimal. To ensure that CSR is managed in the supply chain, it is prudent to realize that all the CSR strategies are well aligned with the actual purchasing practice.
A supply chain will be deemed important if it creates value and clarifies all the objectives of obtaining the right steps of development to the organization’s benefit. A good supply chain should ensure that understanding as well as ability is well developed in any multinational corporations for the sake of continuity and better performance of the company. Workers who are better treated will contribute to giving all their efforts for the company success. It is therefore very prudent to reward workers with good pay to retain best brains that will keep the corporation standing for a longer period (Filatotchev & Dotsenko, 2015).
Implementation of the required code in the organization helps to ensure that the multinational corporations do not exploit workers. In some instances, workers tend to be treated badly by the multinationals corporations, which do not yield to right codes of ethics. Supply chain management should ensure that they get feedback of how working is taking place and what ought to be rectified with an immediate effect. Feedback shows that the worker is given a chance to air their views and give a recommendation on what should be done better. Improving working conditions imply that the multi-corporations are concerned with their workers’ welfare.
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Effects of CSR in the supply chain
There are various factors affecting CSR in the supply chain like the goals and values of the multinational corporations which have been set aside to be attained. However, the only problem that might arise in such a case is the incompatible goals that might interfere with the handling of different activities (Crane, Matten, & Spencer, 2014). When goals are conflicting, operations in the organization might be difficult to handle, and performance will be affected negatively.
The importance and complexity of CSR might be a big problem in the operations of the supply chain by the multinational corporations; since, compatibility will tend to be a bother. There is a need to ensure that there is a balance of power that will guarantee knowledge sharing and good management of the workers and organization operations. Workers ought not to be exploited under power balance, but should be given their rights accordingly because; resources are now available to better their working conditions and increased pay.
Multinational Corporations
The multinational corporations are popular as the big business, and they are a very powerful economic power. The world globalization enhances the integration between the MNCs and the developing countries where the capitalist process and major labour division occur due to the high level of competition to increase economies of scale. At present, the MNCs access cheaper labour by exploiting the low-income earners (Garavan & McGuire, 2010). The industries that need low-skilled labour outsource labourer from the developing countries.
The process involves MNC and the SMEs where the MNCs outsource labour from the small and medium enterprises with whom they can easily exploit. With the global revolution in business, the capitalist firms have changed the pattern of operations in order compete competitively. The MNCs have strengthened their power by opting to do mergers and acquisition, which are better ways of dealing with the race to bottom effect.
The MNCs manipulates the supply chain to ensure that efficiency, productivity, performance, and reliability. The supply chain involves high labour requirements in the production process, and the high, labour are located in the developing countries (Gond, Kang & Moon, 2011. Some of the employers in specific industries come across important incentives to infringe labour standards laws. Lack of enough regulations on the labour standards in the developed and developing nations create opportunities that are favourable to the MNCs.
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The big businesses have the ability to improve the labour standards and adhere to the set labour regulations. The political conflicts between the developed and developing countries create an obstacle to the achievement of the effective labour standards governing both nations. The market liberations offer both opportunities and challenges to the developed and developing nations.
During the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1996, the European and US Commissions maintained the labour standards implementation in the human rights centre, but the labour rights and minimum wage missed from the agendas (Goranova & Ryan, 2014). The Asian nations were not comfortable with the whole decision and they resisted any trade links with them since the standards could end up as non-tariff barriers.
The ILO is in charge of overseeing the labour standards the entire world and it is one of the UN organizations. The body is important since it makes resolutions and passes them urging the nations to honour their duties to realize the ILO Fundamental Rights and Principles. The declaration in the ILO involves four major labour rights that involve the abolition of child labour, banned forced labour, the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association and the abolition of discrimination in employment. The labour practices involve realization of the standards, living wages and minimum wages, the occupational safety, and health, and limit the working hours (Karnani, 2009).
MNCs and Developing Countries
The majority of the developing countries do not have laws to look after the set labour rights and at some level the infrastructural and institutional limitations pose challenges in the implementation process. Due to limitations in the implementation process, the labour performance affects the set core standards. The consumer goods industries are labour intensive despite the technological advancement in the developing nations (Lam and Khare, 2010).
The developing countries and the MNCs get controls from the political and economic relationships. Some of the countries can effectively provide good environments to the Foreign Direct Investments for the MNCs. The standard labor effects differ from one developing country to the other.
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The developing countries are attraction to the MNCs; since, the majority of the developing countries has unskilled and low skilled labour who are exploited at all cost by foreign investors. The global competition in the countries with abundant labour like Indonesia modifies the state of features endowments since the production increases and the wages go down.
The goal of the majority of the MNCs is to increase profits and market shares and gain competitiveness (Mamic, 2005). The majority of the developing countries is attractive to the MNCs since they encourage the bargaining power of wages due to the inelasticity of labour supply. The wages decrease in the developing countries that are experiencing trade liberation like the Mexico occurrence with North American Free Trade Agreement.
The presence of cheap labour is a key factor in the growth of the low-skilled businesses. Currently, the majority of the brand shoes and garment are in the developed countries while they carry out production in developing countries. The labour costs are very little of the retail price of the finished goods that sells at high prices 9Porter & Kramer, 2006). The majority of the MNCs motive is to take advantage of the up-and-coming economies in the developing nations.
Moreover, the MNCs aim at expanding their market shares and remain competitive globally. To fulfil the requirement of increased profit production costs need to be minimal. The ever changes in consumer demand need low-cost investment due to the high likelihood of low pricing. To achieve this MNCs prefer to low labour cost through by paying less to the unskilled labourers.
The internal political and economic factors in the developing economies influence wages. Globalization causes integration in the global labour supply chain that raises competition in the export firms that are labour intensive (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002). This overall practice affects and challenges the labour performance in the developing countries. The regional trade unions in the developing countries vary from one region to the other.
The China and India trade unions differ from the African trade unions like that of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. The Trade Unions cannot bring a strong solution to the issue of low wages in the developing countries. The MNCs will always defend their supply chain and fail to address the issue of low wages (Spence & Bourlakis, 2009).
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Shareholders and Investors
The labour standards are a concern that the MNCs need to address to implement positive changes in the developing countries (Bartley, 2007). The motivation to bring in positive impacts comes from the investors and employees among other members who manipulate the supply chain. Research and ethical source state that the MNCs are likely to implement the labour practices and standards now when the external stakeholder pressure them. The MNCs reputations and profitability increase the values of the shareholder (Vo, & Karen Delchet-Cochet, 2013). The shareholders are the main force that can influence the MNCs corporate social responsibilities.
The branded footwear and clothing industries are under pressure due to the presence of bad working conditions and low wage. For example, the Nike experienced negative publicity concerning the working conditions in the factories (Aneel Karnani, 2010). Despite the open letter from the Clean Clothes Campaign Nike defended itself and maintained it did not carry out any unlawful business. The US Securities and Exchange Commission does not fully support the issue of shareholders addressing wages and so shareholder see labour standards like an unsuitable topic to tackle.
Conclusion
The majority of the MNCs do not address the CSR in the developing countries due to the presence of a low implementation of rules and laws. The issue of labour standards is a major concern, especially in the developing countries due to the presence of high unskilled labour and low skilled labour. The MNCs focus on profits increment, market shares expansion, gaining global competitiveness and expanding operations among other factors.
The developing countries focus more on the FDI that comes in because of investments by the MNCs. The high rates of unemployment in the developing countries facilitate exploitation of labourers and presence of bad working conditions like increased working hour.
Aneel Karnani. (2010). The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility. Wall Street Journal.
Bartley, T. (2007). Institutional Emergence in an Era of Globalization: The Rise of Transnational Private Regulation of Labor and Environmental Conditions1.American Journal of Sociology.
Beddewela, E., & Herzig, C. (2013). Corporate social reporting by MNCs’ subsidiaries in Sri Lanka. Accounting Forum, 37(2), 135-149
Blowfield, M., & Murray, A. (2011), Corporate Responsibility (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press
C Pedersen, E. R. (2015). Corporate social responsibility. London: SAGE
Carroll, A. B. (1991). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34(4), 39-48. Chapter 01
Crane, A., Matten, D., & Spence, L. J. (2014). Corporate Social Responsibility: in a global context. Corporate social responsibility: readings and cases in a global context (second., pp 3-26). London: Routledge – Chapter 01
Crane, A., Matten, D., & Spencer, L. (Eds.). (2014). Corporate Social Responsibility: Readings and cases in a global context (2nd ed.). London: Routledge Chapter 11
Filatotchev, I., & Dotsenko, O. (2015). Shareholder activism in the UK: types of activists, forms of activism, and their impact on a target’s performance. Journal of Management & Governance, 19(1), 5-24
Garavan, T. N., & McGuire, D. (2010). Human resource development and society: Human resource development’s role in embedding corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and ethics in organizations. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 12(5), 487-507.
Gond, J.P., Kang, N. & Moon, J. (2011). The government of self-regulation: on the comparative dynamics of corporate social responsibility. Economy and society, 40, 640-671
Goranova, M., & Ryan, L. V. (2014). Shareholder Activism: A Multidisciplinary Review. Journal of Management, 40(5), 1230-1268
Karnani, A. (2009, Winter). Romanticizing the poor. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 7, 38-43
Lam, H. and Khare, A., (2010). HR’s Crucial role for successful CSR . Journal of International Business Ethics, 3(2), pp. 3-15,82.
Mamic, I. (2005). Managing global supply chain: The sports footwear, apparel and retail sectors. Journal of Business Ethics, 59(1/2), 81-100
Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. R. (2006). Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. Harvard Business Review, 84(12), 78-92.
Prahalad, C.K. and Hammond, A. (2002). ‘Serving the World’s Poor, Profitably’, Harvard Business Review, September 2002, Vol. 80(9), pp.48–58.
Spence, L., & Bourlakis, M. (2009). The evolution from corporate social responsibility to supply chain responsibility: The case of waitrose. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 14(4), 291-302.
Vo, L.C. with Karen Delchet-Cochet. (2013). Classification of CSR standards in the light of ISO 26000. Society and Business Review, 8(2), 134 -144
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Corporate Environmental Responsibility
Environmental concerns have a significant impact on the success of companies today. For a business organization to sustain its competitive advantage, the company’s corporate manager has to stay ahead of the curve, positioning the company as environmentally responsible and focusing on environmental strategy. In this essay, a book report on the 2000 film Erin Brockovich and the 1996 book A Civil Action is provided.
Book Report: A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
The non-fiction book A Civil Action was written in the year 1996 by Jonathan Harr. This text is purely against pollution. In essence, this book is basically about a case of water pollution in the Massachusetts town of Woburn in the year 1980. After Anne Anderson discovered that her child is diagnosed with a horrible blood cancer known as leukaemia which is a rare condition, she sees a high occurrence of this disease in her city.
Anne then gathered other families and decided to seek an attorney to consider their options. They found Jan Schlichtmann as their lawyer (Harr, 1996). At first, this lawyer did not want to take this case because there was no clear defendant and evidence was also lacking. However, he picked up the case later on and found evidence that indicated the water supply of the town had trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination.
Apparently, the organizations responsible for this contamination included Riley Tannery which was Beatrice Foods’ subsidiary; a company called Unifirst; and W. R. Grace, a chemical firm (Harr, 1996).
Corporate Environmental Responsibility
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At some point in the court case, Schlichtmann got other lawyers to help him. Unifirst was the first company to pay fines and its management paid slightly more than one million dollars. However, this money was invested right away in the litigation against Beatrice Foods and W. R. Grace companies. The case which the plaintiff has against W. R. Grace is very strong primarily because first, the lawyer has personal testimony of W. R. Grace’s previous worker who had actually witnessed dumping.
Secondly, a river between the tannery operated by Beatrice Foods and the polluted water wells make their contribution to the pollution less believable. The court found Beatrice Foods not guilty (Harr, 1996). Although Schlichtmann’s law firm looks forward to a much higher settlement, the horrible state of its financial position compels the firm to agree to a settlement for eight million dollars from W. R. Grace. The lawyer then disbursed the settlement to the affected families, excluding expenditures and payment for the lawyer – every affected family was given about $375,000.
When some of the affected families believed that Schlichtmann had inflated the expenditures for his own benefit, the lawyer agreed and surrendered more of his charges. Later on, this lawyer filed for bankruptcy after losing his automobile and mansion, and actually lived inside his office for some time. In the end, he decided to practice personal injury, civil and environmental law (Harr, 1996).
After examining sludge extracted from the wells, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report determined that W. R. Grace and Beatrice Foods had both polluted the water wells. EPA afterwards filed its own court case against Beatrice Foods and W. R. Grace basing on the new evidence. In the year 1988, Schlichtmann tried to bring up the litigation against Beatrice Foods once more, but the case was dismissed by the jury, which cited testimony from Beatrice Foods’ soil chemist.
Corporate Environmental Responsibility
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Even so, because of the court cases filed by the EPA, these two firms were in the end compelled to pay for a very large cleanup in the North-eastern part of the country, which cost an estimated sixty eight million dollars (Harr, 1996). Events such as the one illustrated in this book happen largely because big corporations are driven purely by profit with total disregard for the environment. They want to make profits in their business operations without caring about the negative environmental effects they cause to the environment.
Movie Report: Erin Brockovich
The film Erin Brockovich was released in the year 2000. This movie, which seeks to fight nuclear wastes, is founded on the factual account of a certain woman who helped in winning the biggest settlement that has ever been paid in a direct-action litigation. Julia Roberts acts as Erin Brockovish. The film’s director is Steven Soderbergh. Whilst working at a law firm which had in fact represented her in a previous case – a personal injury lawsuit – Erin Brockovich discovered a very strange thing: medical records inside a real-estate folder.
Erin then decided to make a follow-up on this issue and discovered what associated medical information with real estate transactions. Pacific Gas & Electric, a multi-billion public utility company, was purchasing homes that were believed to be impacted adversely by contamination of groundwater. After buying those homes, it destroyed them (Soderbergh, 2000). In fact, the contamination was as a result of the waste disposal practices of Pacific Gas & Electric.
Corporate Environmental Responsibility
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At issue was hexavalent chromium, a chemical which is carcinogenic and causes cancer. The firm had discovered this toxic chemical inside a monitoring well not far from its compressor station in the Californian town of Hinkley. In this region, groundwater flowed towards businesses and homes of Pacific Gas & Electric’s neighbours who utilized groundwater for various purposes including drinking, and some of those neighbours were becoming ill.
A number of people were interviewed by Erin and she found a way of getting copies of records that incriminated Pacific Gas & Electric and discussed this situation with Ed Masry, who was the boss in the law firm where she worked. Ed Masry and Erin then filed a class-action litigation, which eventually ended in an immense settlement of $333 million for the residents of the area (Soderbergh, 2000). Eventually, the industrial poisoning of the water supply of a southern California city which threatened the health of the whole community was stopped and a huge fine paid to the victims by the contaminating company.
The viewers of the film Erin Brockovich come to know that Pacific Gas & Electric contaminated groundwater and the company is actually to blame for disease and death that has befell the local residents. It was very important that Pacific Gas & Electric, a company which cut corners and contaminated the ground waters on which the local residents and communities were dependent upon for drinking purposes, was eventually held answerable.
In the past few years, manufacturing factories, chemical plants, in addition to other workplaces have breached water pollution laws on very many occasions. Such infringements include failure to report emissions to dumping toxins at high concentrations that may bring about various conditions and illnesses like birth defects and cancer.
Corporate Environmental Responsibility
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Discussion
Such events get covered up because clear evidence may sometimes be lacking and the affected people might in fact not be aware that they are being impacted by the contamination – in A Civil Action for instance, Anne Anderson was initially not aware that her son’s leukaemia was as a result of the water contaminated by TCE from a few factories in the vicinity.
Furthermore, such events get covered up because the culpable companies do not want the truth to be known since they fear litigation, fines, reputation damage and losing customers if they are discovered to be committing the crime of environmental pollution. For instance, Pacific Gas & Electric was purchasing homes and destroying them so that its crime is not discovered.
What needs to happen is that polluters such as Pacific Gas & Electric, Beatrice Foods and W. R. Grace who harm the environment have to be held accountable for their actions. They are in violation of the Clean Water Act because they polluted the water on which many people in the region relied on. Big corporations such as these three are not in any way above the law.
Such companies should pay huge fines and the money for paying the fines must come not from the company’s clients, but rather from their shareholders. Furthermore, the companies should also be ordered by the court to run full-page adverts on state and national newspapers giving their apology.
Corporate Environmental Responsibility
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On the whole, business organizations should be fully committed to sustainable environmental practices and they should truly hold themselves to effective and proper sustainable practices. Equally important, companies should not say in their websites that they employ sustainable practices and yet still pollute the environment – such an organization would not be a sustainable company. Most pollution is linked directly to corporate enterprise. Companies should take initiatives to decreasing pollution and government regulations should continue restricting pollution.
References
Harr, J. (1996). A civil action. New York City, NY: Random House Inc.
Soderbergh, S. (2000). Erin Brockovich. Film.
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Corporate Personality
The concepts of separate corporate personality have provided the ground for companies to survive even in the absence of its original owners, provided they adhere to the companies act. Despite this, the company is limited in that it cannot enter a contract ultra vires. The global economy and businesses are built on the separate corporate personality. However, it has been established that corporate personality has been the vital cause of several frauds and a legal shield in the courts of law (Mohanty & Bhandari, 2011).
To achieve a compensation for a fraud, the fraudster needs to be identified together with the company that the perceived fraudster controls. Usually such a process is referred to as piercing the corporate veil. Currently, the Supreme Court has reviewed the ruling in relation to corporate personality. Of particular interest is the case in Prest v Petrodel, where the supreme courts provided a new definition to the law in respect to the corporate personality.
Whereas the courts have limited powers to ignore the limited corporate personality, the courts acknowledge that many other English law doctrines can be used to provide an alternative interpretation and enhance the justice system. This essay illustrates how the ruling in the case of Prest v Petrodel altered the law and its effect on the meaning of corporate personality.
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The background of the case can be traced from a man by the name Prest. He shared the matrimonial home with his wife and the operations of his businesses were limited to owning residential properties. When the marriage failed and they decided to divorced, his wife sued. However, he denied that the wealth in the company was solely his and she should not be sharing with anybody.
In the first ruling, the court applied the clause in the Matrimonial Cause Act to treat the assets of the company as if they belong to the man (Stockin, 2014). Therefore, the companies could not be ordered to transfer the property to the woman since they belonged to the man. Having lost the case at the courts of the appeal, the woman took the issue to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court overturned the court of appeal decision that and ordered that the properties be transferred to the women since the first judge had erred in his judgment. The courts could only transfer the assets that are actually owned by the husband.
Unlike the appeal court, the Supreme Court discussed the concept of the corporate veil at length while delivering the justice. The concept of corporate veil in this ruling provides the precedent that may be formally binding to future cases (Daehnert, 2007). Immediately after the landmark ruling, the courts of appeal had already indicated that attempts to widen the scope of the doctrine would be difficult or even impossible.
Despite the supreme courts attempt to pierce the corporate veil, it is associated with some limitations as the application of law is concerned. The first limitation of this attempt to pierce of corporate veil is that it will only be applied of the when there is no other legal method of achieving justice. This means that this precedence may not apply if there exist other mechanisms of achieving equivalent results.
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In this regard, it is only necessary to pierce the corporate veil if it is appropriately to do so. One of the supreme courts judges asserted that it is only necessary to pierce the corporate veil when all other legal remedies cannot be applied to provide justice in the courts (Hargovan, 2007). The other limitation to the courts power to pierce corporate veil is possible when the claimant fails to establish an alternative way to identify the company with its controller.
It was evident before the supreme courts that the accused had already established his company several years before he divorced his wife. In this regard, the evasion principle was not applicable in his case and this limited the ability of the judges to pierce the corporate veil. On the other hand, the existence of the resulting trusts also limited the ability of the judges to pierce the corporate veil.
Corporate personality is a legal concept where an organization acquires separate legal personality that is an organization is a separate legal person from its members (Hargovan, 2007). Therefore, an organization is able to have legal obligations and rights. Consequently, an organization can sue and be sued, own property, continue its existence despite change in membership, shareholders can entrust management to directors, right to sell, purchase and mortgage its property in its own name, and enter into contracts. In international law, legal personality is a prior condition for an organization to use its own name in signing of international treaties (Ross 2008).
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This concept of corporate personality has consequences to both the company and its members(French, Mayson, & Ryan, 2015). These consequences are a member’s liability is limited to the share amount they fully paid or the fixed amount a guarantee pays. As a result, a company cannot claim additional contribution from the members. The members are also not liable to cover debts that the company incurred as a separate legal person (Gray, 1997).
A company is at liberty to sue third parties, and even its shareholders. Members are not capable of suing on behalf of the company since it is a separate person with its own legal rights. A company’s property is its own, hence neither creditors nor members have any legal or interest in its possessions. Another consequence in this concept is that a company has liabilities and rights occasionally claiming human rights. The artificial personality does not go as far as giving it human rights, for example, it cannot claim compensation for hurt feelings (McAdms 2014).
Piercing the corporate veil has been a tight rope for the courts as they have to deviate from existing liabilities to do so. However, the cases such as the one Trutor AB v Smallbone provided the need for the courts to pierce the corporate veil. The Canadian courts have the power to pierce the corporate veil in their pursuit for justice. Such a concept is complete contrast to other legal concepts in the common law world.
However, it is emerging that Canada has moved from the British legal system and is slowly influencing the American legal system on corporate matters (Hargovan & Harris, 2007). The North American country has added a conceptual fog of veil piercing jurisprudence through their indiscriminate use of the agency concept. According to Daehnert (2007), the English and the German legal systems are largely based on the limited liability and the separate legal entity philosophies.
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Piercing the corporate veil is a situation in which a court does not abide to the limited liability law and holds a company’s directors or shareholders legally responsible for the company’s statement, debts, or actions. This situation arises when there has been a serious misconduct such as engaging in fraud, undercapitalization at time of incorporation, and other criminal activities (McAdms 2014).
For a long time, the case in Salmon still holds true due to its widely accepted concept of limited liability. Therefore, most English and the American courts have adopted the approach that permits companies to order the affairs by the use of subsidiaries as they claim for limited liability. However, such a concept prejudiced the creditors on the basis that they should not know the state of affairs before transacting with the company (Ruane, 2005).
Throughout the evolution of legal practice, the yardstick of prevention of injustice continue to hold much power in the courts as the judges continue to lean in favor of the decision that favors justice(Mohanty & Bhandari, 2011).
The case in Salomon provided the benchmarks that have been used for years to deal with the issue of corporate personality and liability of directors. The courts established that a member is a legal entity that is separate who is not liable for the debts of the company and his personal assets cannot be used to offset the company debts (Walters, 1998).
The case in Bottrill was one of the numerous attack on the virtues held in Salomon. This ruling in this was fair but left the sole director of the company vulnerable to legal consequences. Whenever other directors of the company are absent, the sole director is left exposed to claims to the claims that his company is operating in a sham contract of employment (Howell, 2000). Therefore, the principle in Salomon can be denied on the policy grounds.
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The rationale for lifting the veil has been observed by law experts for some time. According to Krishnaprasad (2011), lifting corporate veil is a rare and unprincipled legal concept that is often left to jurists. From the policy perspective, the concept of trading with the enemy might form the rationale of lifting the veil. However, the corporate veil is usually lifted to stop people from abusing the legal privileges of the corporate form such as the case of fraud.
However, it is hard to determine whether established company can abuse the concept of corporate form through breaking out hostilities. Theretofore, corporate personality is a privilege that is superimposed on the agreement between the company shareholders that is cloaked in corporate veil and can only be lifted in the case of abuse (Ruane, 2005).
Traditionally, the courts were very reluctant to pierce the corporate veil, unless there exist a compelling issue to do so. However, the courts are increasingly to disregard the autonomous personality of the companies to facilitate the course of justice. In order to uphold the public interest, the courts have strongly relied on the strict rule in Salmon v Salmon to preserve the veil (Nakajima, 1996). The courts have observed the principle of separate personality by noting that the body corporate lacks the basic characteristics of human beings.
There are several corporate structures around the world with different legal consequence. However, most justifications for limited liability no longer apply when the creditor requesting to lift the veil is an involuntary creditor or when there exists a controlling shareholder.
According to Krishnaprasad (2011), the burden of the cases entailing an involuntary creditor and controlling shareholder should be put on the shareholder having potential control of the company to show that he exercises actual control. Such a system is likely to create incentives on the shareholders to invest in socially productive monitoring that activates the social sensitivity of corporations.
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The law in Salomon provided the basis cornerstone of the corporate personality. However, it is evident that the law has been evolving over the years as the court seeks justice. The extent by which the courts will pierce the corporate veil depends whether they are applying the common law of the statutes. For the courts applying the common law, they would only pierce the veil on exceptional circumstances.
On the other hand, there are statutory provisions where the veil can be pierced. From the case laws, it is evident that the courts have the power to pierce the veil or even lift the veil. The recent decision by the Supreme Court in Prest to revisit the issue of corporate veil brought a new concept with consequences in legal practice. In this case, the courts addressed the controversial issue of corporate personality by concealment and evasion principles.
The Supreme Court decision brought the concept that the remedy can be sought from a different position and provides alternative legal base on which equivalent remedy can be provided. In this regard, the courts will have alternative legal routes to make decisions in the vast majority of the corruption and fraud cases. The implication is that the courts should be left free to pierce or lift the veil upon observing certain criteria that falls within the evasion principle and if it is necessary to do so.
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Sneha Mohanty & Vrinda Bhandari, (2011) “The evolution of the separate legal personality doctrine and its exceptions: a comparative analysis”, Comp. Law. 2011, 32(7), 194-205
Krishnaprasad, K.V (2011) “Agency, limited liability and the corporate veil”, Comp. Law. 2011, 32(6), 163-165
Adrian Walters, (1998) “Corporate veil”, (Company Lawyer), Comp. Law.,19(8), 226-227.
Gray, (1997), “SIB attempts to pierce the corporate veil”,(Company Lawyer),Vol 18 No 7,page 217).
Anil Hargovan, (2007) “Piercing the corporate veil in Canada: a comparative analysis”, (Company Lawyer), Comp. Law, 28(2), 58-62.
Alexander Daehnert, (2007), “Lifting the corporate veil: English and German perspectives on group liability”, (International Company and Commercial Law Review), I.C.C.L.R. 2007, 18(11), 393-403.
Laura Stockin (2014), “Piercing the corporate veil: reconciling R. v Sale, Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd and VTB Capital Plc v Nutritek International Corp” Comp. Law. 2014, 35(12), 363-366
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The Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility and its relation to business can be viewed as the voluntary activities that a company engages in with the aim of ensuring that economic, environmental and social goals of the society are achieved besides profit making.
When a company carries out its functions in a manner that impacts the economic, environmental, and social aspects and in a transparent way in the society, they are in a position of succeeding since this encourages the element of shared values (Habel, Schons, Alavi, & Wieseke, 2016). This therefore points out to the fact that the mitigation of social, economic and environmental risk factors remains one of the essential ingredients in the success of different businesses.
Conflicts that Corporate Social Responsibility Creates For Corporations
It is essential to consider the fact that one of the conflicts that Corporate Social Responsibility (CRS) creates for corporations is in relation to corporates the chosen levels of the expenditures in running these programs that may tend to be greater than the elements that maximize a company’s value (Habel, et.al.2016). This therefore may prove to be negatively connoted since it has the capacity to decrease the value of a company’s shareholders. Additionally, these conflicts are bound to promote the element of social agendas that may also be viewed positively.
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Shareholders & Stakeholders Conflicts in a Corporation
It is essential to consider that the shareholders and stakeholders have different conflicts within a corporation. In consideration of the shareholder and stakeholder theories, it is vital to note that these two functions have the capacity to dictate what a corporates role has to be in CSR(Mishra, & Modi, 2016). The shareholder theory therefore holds that the shareholders need to advance funds to the company’s managers who are tasked with the responsibility of spending the funds as accorded by the shareholders.
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On the other hand, the stakeholder theory asserts that the interests of corporates stakeholders need to be considered even in the even that this has the capacity to reduce the profitability of a company. The conflict therefore arises in relation to the definition of roles and functions between the shareholders and the stakeholders (Mishra, & Modi, 2016). On the other hand, conflicts are also bound to rise when the needs of the stakeholders compromise the expectations of the shareholders.
It is essential to determine the fact that corporations have the capacity of being socially responsible considering the fact that this is an element that points out to their clients on how they are dedicated which goes along with the company’s reputation.
Business Practicing Corporate Social Responsibility
RELX Group is one of the company’s that offers CRS to its employees by offering them opportunities to develop in order to reach their full potential. Through this, the company is in a position to justify their expenditures in meeting these purposes (Mishra, & Modi, 2016). Through this trainings, it has been established that the lives of the people within the community are impacted, a factor that has urged this company’s commitment of this course.
Mishra, S., & Modi, S. B. (2016). Corporate Social Responsibility and Shareholder Wealth: The Role of Marketing Capability. Journal of Marketing, 80(1), 26-46. doi:10.1509/jm.15.0013
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Corporate Culture and Strategy
An organization’s mission strategy is a précis of the way in which the firm perceives its role and the beliefs the company employs in attaining its objectives. The culture of an organization signifies the professional values an organization espouses which dictate how the company interacts with its customers, partners, vendors and workers. Since the culture of the organization is a driving force in how the business organization carries out its business, it has a significant impact on developing business strategy (Hofstede, 2014).
This paper delves into the topic of culture and strategy. In this investigation of the topic, the subject of culture and strategy is analyzed exhaustively and critically. In particular, this paper provides an in-depth discussion of the relationship between company culture and strategy, importance of alignment between culture and strategy, and how national culture really influences an organization’s strategy.
Correlation between corporate culture and strategy
There is a strong relationship between corporate culture and strategy. In general, strategy is considered as a product of culture while culture, on the other hand, is considered as a product of strategy (Browaeys & Price, 2009). In spite of how good the company’s strategy is, when it really comes down to it, Schneider (2011) noted that it is the people who usually make the difference. At its core, strategy is logical and rational, simple and clear.
Strategy has to be easy to talk about and to understand. A business organization is lost if it lacks a clear strategy. In essence, strategy is the pattern of activities that a company follows as it pursues its long-term purpose. Put simply, it refers to where the company is at the moment, where the company wants to go, and how the company intends to get there (Akbar et al., 2012).
Strategy comprises a number of factors which include the following: objectives and goals of the company; mission statement and vision; and critical success factors, or the things which the company has to get right for it to succeed in its mission. It also includes core values; reputation/brand, which entails developing and communicating meaningful and powerful differences between the company’s offerings and the offerings of the company’s competitors; and positioning, whereby a company builds a preferred and valued position within the minds of its target audience (Cristian-Liviu, 2013).
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Conversely, culture is understood as the set of beliefs which drive the behaviours of workers. These could be things that everyone within the organization knows and shares, in addition to implicit rules. It is worth mentioning that the range of acceptable behaviours of workers in the company is rooted in these underlying beliefs (Weick, 2014). On the whole, organization culture consists of the shared values, norms as well as ideals in a business organization and it actually sets the basis and groundwork for strategy.
An important starting point of understanding the culture of a company is to understand its founding principles: that is, its legacy, heritage, the clients and markets which it serves, and its points of differentiation. Anderson, Anderson and Lee (2015) pointed out that culture of a company is an aggregation of the beliefs and mindset of the company’s workers. It is the manifestation of the mission, vision and principles which bind employees in the organization together.
In the current business world in which sell-offs, diversifications, acquisitions, expansions and mergers are becoming increasingly common, it is becoming very important to understand corporate culture in strategic decision-making. The consolidation of AOL with Time Warner did not succeed because of culture clash as did the DaimlerChrysler merger. Organization culture is a very powerful factor in an organization’s lasting success.
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For a strategy in a company to develop and be successfully executed, that strategy has to align fully with the corporate culture. As such, goals and initiatives need to be established within the company in order to support and establish a corporate culture which embraces the strategy of the company over time (Su, Yang & Yang, 2012). Corporate culture has a significant impact on strategy execution within the organization.
Characteristics of stability: an organization culture that is stable, a culture that would systematically support implementation of strategy, is one which promotes a culture of cooperation, unity, partnership and teamwork amongst staff members. This kind of organization culture would certainly enhance commitment amongst workers and focus on productivity in the company instead of resistance to regulations and rules or external factors which prohibit success.
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Flexibility and adaptability: according to Fombrun (2012), companies which remain flexible tend to embrace change and establish an environment that is open to both communication and production. This creates a model which welcomes cultural diversity and helps in clarifying implementation of the strategy. In any company, corporate culture could serve a number of different purposes such as unifying employees in the company and helping to establish a set of common rules or norms within the company that members abide by.
Goal unification: corporate cultures that are unified, strong and flexible would approach strategy execution and affect execution positively through aligning goals. In essence, goals could come into alignment when the culture of the business organization is working to focus on productivity and getting the mission of the company achieved. This might include shipping out more product items compared to the company’s main competitors, getting products delivered to the company’s clients on time, or similar objectives.
This would create a domino effect within the company which would ensure that all work carried out by every work group and employee within the organization is really focused on performance and on the company’s strategic importance (Dutch, 2013). This would allow corporate culture of the company to be in alignment with strategy execution at the most basic level. Hanson and Melnyk (2014) noted that for this unification level to work, it is important that goal setting aligns with and is supported by processes, procedures, policies and systems within the company, which would help to attain strategy execution and continuing the organization’s cultural integrity.
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Process implementation: part of strategy implementation and cultural alignment entails process implementation. It is noteworthy that processes include the use of technology in facilitating goal achievement as well as the results which an organization is looking for when it works with clients to satisfy their needs. Although the hard problems and needs of a company are attained most of the time, the corporate culture becomes overlooked during the process. This is where processes actually come into place and execution of the strategy slowly comes into existence to maintain and sustain corporate culture and strategies (Dutch, 2013).
Cultural alignment: when corporate culture is in alignment with implementation of the strategy, a company can operate more efficiently within the international marketplace. Corporate culture allows the senior managers of a company to work both as teams and individually in developing strategic initiatives in the company. These might include re-establishing old partnerships and creating new partnerships to continue to deliver the best services and products to an international marketplace (Slater, Olson & Finnegan, 2011).
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Organizational strategic alignment, in its simplest form, is lining up the strategy of the company with its organization culture. For an organization to experience organizational strategic alignment, then its goals, processes and management should align. In order to create a supportive culture, an organization should clearly define the competence of its resources by assessing whether its processes, employees and equipment could actually handle new changes. If staff members do not have the competence for handling a new strategy, then the organization should offer training to improve the skills of its workers and managers.
If there is no sufficient support and training, the relationships between managers and staff members within the organization would suffer and the company would lack flexibility. To establish a culture of support, the top managers need to be involved in organizational strategic alignment from the beginning and provide the right resources to help in ensuring success of the workers and the organization (Yarbrough, Morgan & Vorhies, 2011). Workers should commit to supporting an organization’s strategic alignment and senior managers could help ensure this success by defining the goals of the organization in a clear manner and giving incentives to help workers accept new strategies.
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When strategy and organization culture are misaligned, the misalignment would short-circuit performance and increase the probability that the company will not attain its goals. An organization culture which all employees within the company subscribes to will help in creating focus amongst the workers.
When workers comply with the values and beliefs of the organization, it will give a unified impression to partners, customers and vendors (Bushardt, Glascoff & Doty, 2011). The organization could then formulate a strategy knowing that every member would uniformly apply the guidelines and improve the likelihood that a strategy would succeed.
In aligning corporate culture with strategy, the following steps are important: first, the senior managers should define their company’s long-term set of guiding principles – the philosophy and purpose –, which are essentially the organization’s identity. A strategic plan would not succeed if the strategic plan is really not supported by these key principles of the company’s core culture.
Secondly, the senior management should evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of the company as well as the external factors which could impact success (Simoneaux & Stroud, 2014). Thirdly, the executives should create the company’s vision and then set strategic goals that are measurable and specific. Fourthly, the senior management should decide the strategic priorities which are in alignment with those strategic goals. It is worth mentioning that strategic priorities are a part of the organization’s core culture.
They are basically the values and principles which could alter given that their function is to align the corporate culture with the organization’s strategy. A company’s core corporate culture has to drive the company’s strategy and align with it (Mintzberg, 2011). Fifthly, with a clear understanding of the organization’s core corporate culture, strategic goals and vision, the top managers should create an action plan with measures for guiding performance. Finally, the senior executives should turn the strategic goals into measurable outcomes. Processes and employees should be aligned with the company’s core corporate culture and strategy (Simoneaux & Stroud, 2014).
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National culture and strategy
A country’s national culture greatly influences the strategy adopted by a company. National culture has an impact on organizational strategy and implementation of the strategy, and can ultimately result in business failure or success. In essence, all national cultures have an impact on companies in both negative and positive ways, depending on the particular business, the business cycle, as well as the specific strategies being pursued (Hammerich & Lewis, 2013).
Cultural dynamics could either derail or enable performance depending on these different factors. It is important that a company’s senior management recognize the cultural factors which have a negative impact on performance and the ones which could be harnessed to foster superior performance (Hammerich & Lewis, 2013). To formulate strategy, a company needs to identify and interpret strategic issues.
In this process, the company scans, selects, interprets and validates information and establishes priorities amongst issues. The national culture of any country could actually influence this process given that it affects the nature of the relationship of a company with its environment and the nature of the relationships amongst employees in a company (Schneider, 2011).
Whether it is big company pursuing international growth strategies or a small start-up firm in its initial phases of the growth curve, culture plays a vital role in making sure that the company does not swerve off the path and that it remains on course. Usually, driving and executing effective strategic change is a medium-term to long-term priority for a company’s management.
Likewise, the corporate culture of a company also develops with time, with a combination of active support by the company’s top leaders and voluntary cohesion and dissemination as the company’s purposes and beliefs pervade through the hierarchy. Owing to the intrinsic patience which the company’s top management requires to drive a strategic change and establish a focused culture, it is really sensible that both of them – strategic change and purposeful culture – work alongside each other and not against (Schein, 2012).
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Companies which are highly successful in driving strategic change and implementing it share 3 fundamental principles by which they embrace corporate culture and utilize it in the process as an enabler. Firstly, such companies are aware of differences in global cultures – this factor might be more pertinent and applicable to multinational corporations although it is equally applicable to small start-up firms that have ambitious aspirations for growth.
For instance, knowing the way that a worker in Malaysia would react to a new strategic initiative in comparison to how a worker in the Netherlands would react is of great importance in executing strategic change at the ground level (Schwartz & Davis, 2011). In essence, it implies that the overarching aspects of the strategy should be modified to fit the with local market-level ways of operation.
The second underlying principle is recognizing what culture means to different peoples – Cristian-Liviu (2013) reported that this second principle is more of a challenge for big companies with scale than to new, start-up firms. Within an organization, culture implies different things for different individuals.
In a brand consultancy company for example, the design/creative department might think that their department is really the best place to work in the organization, but the sales and marketing department whose role is to sell the design solutions, might think that the design/creative group’s capabilities are dull and outmoded. Broader changes within the company would impact employee groups in different ways and the cultural aspect of the change should be carefully measured (Schwartz & Davis, 2011).
The third underlying principle entails aligning strategic change initiatives with corporate culture – the Time Warner-AOL and DaimlerChrysler mergers were both in the same industry but still they did not succeed, they both failed. This evidently illustrates the dangers of overlooking culture as a factor when planning and executing a company’s strategic initiatives (Mühlbacher, Vyslozil & Ritter, 2014).
Although both Chrysler and Daimler produced vehicles, the styles of management and the collaboration processes in each firm were driven very much by their nation of origin; that is, the German and American cultural ethos. These 2 cultural ethoses were never reconciled and adapted in the merged organization and they clashed all the time. In essence, every form of strategic planning should take in corporate culture as a factor that impacts success, as well as manpower, finance and capabilities (Weick, 2014).
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Conclusion
To sum up, there is a really strong correlation between corporate culture and strategy. Strategy is considered as a product of culture while culture, on the other hand, is considered as a product of strategy. For a strategy in a company to be formulated and executed successfully, this strategy has to align completely with the culture of the organization. Thus, goals and aims need to be established within the firm so as to support and establish a corporate culture which embraces the strategy over time.
When organization culture is in alignment with execution of the strategy, a firm can operate more efficiently within the international market. When strategy and organization culture are not aligned, then this misalignment would short-circuit performance and increase the likelihood that the firm would not accomplish its goals. National culture has a significant impact on organizational strategy and implementation of that strategy, and could eventually result in business failure or success.
References
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Anderson, G. M., Anderson, M. J., & Lee, J. B. (2015). Defining Corporate Culture. NACD Directorship, 41(2), 36-37.
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The Impact of National Culture on Workplace Behavior
Culture
Culture is perhaps the most influential factors that impact the success of businesses across the world. Culture can be defined as a set of beliefs, values and assumptions that are held in common by a particular group of people. It is important for any business to understand the culture of its business environment as this is crucial to the success of the business. In this paper, the impact of national culture on workplace behavior is discussed.
Secondly, the paper critically analyzes the impact of national culture on organizational practices. Thirdly, the paper presents some of the factors that often act as change triggers in organizational culture. Finally, the paper presents a discussion on some current cultural issues that impact the operations of contemporary businesses.
National Culture and Its Impact
National culture can be defined as set of assumption, values and beliefs that are held by individuals or organization that have the same national identity. A comparison of the individual behavior people from two cultures in an organizational context can help to illustrate how national culture impacts workplace behavior. In this essay, the behavior of Indians and Americans in a technology firm is compared (Perlow, 2002).
There are significant cultural differences between Americans and Indians. American culture emphasizes on individual liberty while Indians believe in interdependence and mutually helping each other. According to Perlow (2002), these attitudes and beliefs can have a significant impact on behavior in the workplace.
According to Hofstede (1983) as cited in Perlow and Weeks (2002), American ranks highly as an individualistic culture while India scores 48 to America’s 98 on the individualistic dimension. According to Perlow and Weeks (2002), individualistic people are characterized by emphasis on independence and differentiation from others. On the other hand, collectivists’ individuals are interdependent and thrive on relationships.
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The impact of individualism/collectivism is apparent in US organization contexts. In the US, an individual is supposed to make individual contribution to the organization which will be rewarded by promotion up the societal hierarchy (Perlow and Weeks, 2002). Workers in the US easily link individual effort and ability to rewards. For example, salespersons will work as direct competitors although they are from the same company.
In contrast, India is a collectivist society where group performance is more important than individual performance. In India, a group of salespersons from the same company are likely to work collaboratively as they pursuit market opportunities for their organization. According to Perlow and Weeks (2002), Indian children are taught to subordinate their own personal interests to those of the family and other social institutions.
Later in life, Indians adopt the same attitude where societal or group norms, belief, desires, needs, and values have more priority than those of the individual. People from collectivist cultures have increased pressure to act in an acceptable, effective and legitimate way. According to Perlow and Weeks (2002), the individualism/collectivism dimension has a great effect on the willingness of individuals to engage in collective or cooperative tasks.
Perlow and Weeks (2002) found that Indian tech workers were more willing to help their colleagues who were faced with difficult task. The authors point out that Indian workers believed that helping fellow workers was an opportunity to enhance their own skills. In addition, assistance in task completion was greatly appreciated by Indian workers who were beneficiaries. In contrast, American workers considered assistance from colleagues an unnecessary interruption in their work. Furthermore, very few American workers were willing to help their colleagues who were experiencing difficulties in completing tasks that were assigned individually.
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The influence of national culture is an indicator of just how profound the impact of culture is in workplaces. Culture is an influential factor that impacts a number of workplace behaviors. According to () , how people work, behave, use language, solve conflicts and problem, negotiate and create relationship is dependent on their culture, and in particular their national culture. This change in behavior is driven by the common values that people from the same national culture posses.
Importance of Values
According to (), individuals learn both conscious and unconscious values from their national culture. People only become aware of their national culture values and beliefs when they are confronted by people with different worldviews, values and beliefs. National cultural differences make interactions and communication between people of different cultures especially difficult. According to (), there are significant variations across national cultures. Unfortunately, many people are biased to judge other using their own cultural norms as reference points or lens.
This biased view holds great potential for conflict, miscommunication and misunderstanding. () points out that diverse cultures lead to diverse behavior which may not be understood by everyone. There is need for contemporary workers to understand, learn and appreciate the culture of their colleagues from other cultural backgrounds and workplaces are becoming increasingly multicultural.
Individual vs Group behaviors and Values
According to Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (), individuals can either be dividend into community or self-oriented. As seen earlier, Indians are community oriented while American are self-oriented. However, even in community oriented culture there is huge difference in the institution the culture identifies with. The Irish identify the Catholic Church, the French with family and country, while the Japanese identify with Corporations.
It may be assumed that the whole society is moving towards individualism but this is not really true. According to (), it is rare for a person to achieve an extraordinary feat without the assistance of other members of society. He notes that nobody has invented an new product on their own.
According to (), the best approach to survive and flourish in a multicultural environments is to adopt our individual values to the group. Culturally adapt individuals can adapt to fit into groups of different culture. Individuals can also behave in a “culturally intelligent” way by seeking to understand other and adapting behavior so that it can be easily understood. () advises immigrants or expertriate who move into foreign nation to adapt to local national cultures.
He points out that a person could end up forgetting some aspects of the home culture. However, () argues that people working in foreign countries have no choice that to adapt to host cultures as this is the most practical thing to do. However, people will rarely lose their values even if they work in a foreign culture for years.
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Building Multicultural workplaces
People are likely to work with people from different cultural backgrounds in contemporary organizations. It is therefore important to build work environment where people from different cultures can fit comfortably. Success in building such an environment is dependent on the development of common trust, understanding and commitment.
It is important to genuinely connect with people from different individual culture and realize the potential their hold despite the obvious cultural differences. Some of the important consideration to make include:
Is the person from a different national culture relationship or task oriented? Can I we collaborate in a task without first needing to build a relationship?
Is the person from a low-trust or high-trust society? With individuals from low trust society it takes little time to earn a person’s trust. In contrast, a lot of time and effort is needed to earn the trust of a person originating from a high-trust country.
Willingness to share information should also be an important consideration when working with people from different national cultures.
Does the person come from a direct communication or an indirect communication country? This is an important consideration when passing instruction to the concerned party.
Research the persons cultural background: its is important for members of staff who will be interacting with a person from a different country to know the cultural expectations of their national culture.
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Building trust with people of diverse national cultures is a difficult undertaking that need skillful employment of cultural intelligence. Trust is achieved when cultural understanding, intercultural engagement, and intercultural communication are employed. Cultural understanding includes being aware of our won cultural bias and those of the other party. On the other hand, intercultural communication involves use of both verbal and non-verbal communication and communication styles that can be easily understood. According to (), emphatic listening and respect helps in earning the trust of people from different national culture backgrounds.
Factors that Lead to Cultural Change in Organizations
Leadership Change
Many authors agree that changes in top-level management can contribute or drive culture change in organizations Morgan (2012); Christopher (2012); Beer (2012). Organizational culture is initiated by the founder of the organization, but it changes over time due to a number of factors (Beer 2012). Organizational culture changes significantly once the management of the organization changes and some new ideas start to flow in these organizations. However, Beer (2012) points out that organizational culture remains the same in public sector organization despite changes in the top-management of the organization.
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Beer (2012) and Christopher (2012) argue that changes in organizational leadership can either have insignificant or significant changes on organizational culture. According to Christopher (2012), the personal traits of the leader, the organization’s new strategy, and objectives influence the extent of changes in organizational culture at the onset of new leadership. In organizations where strategy changes significantly, the organizational culture also changes profoundly.
Technological Developments
Advances in technology have had a huge impact in organizations and in particular organizational culture. Technology has the potential to impact culture in different ways. For example, mobile phone, email and internet technology changed the way organizations communicate. On the other hand, technology such as CCTV enables organizations to closely monitor the conduct of workers at the workplace (Maude 2011).
For example, some organizations use strategically placed CCTV cameras to control lateness and absentia from work. Teleconferencing, email and video relay systems allow employee to work from the comfort of their homes or from remote locations. For example, Walshe and Smith (2011) points out that technology has enabled clients to make online appointments with health practitioner instead of making physical visits. Overall, technology is changing the way work is done in organizations and therefore changing underlying organizational culture in the concerned organizations.
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Mergers and Acquisitions
Christopher (2012) and Moran et al (2011) have linked changes to organizational culture to the merger or acquisition of organizations. Mergers and acquisition bring together two or more organization with different cultures. Obviously, the cultures of some or all the organizations have to change to enable them to work together successfully. According to Moran (2012), the period immediately following a merger or acquisition is especially difficult as employee have to deal with the inevitable clash in cultures.
However, this clash in culture is temporary and new hybrid cultures soon emerge after the acquisition and merger is completed. Sometimes mergers and acquisition involve organizations from two different cultures. In such a situation, the cultural clash is more serious and need more able leadership to manage it.
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In the views of Christopher (2011), effective leaders assist greatly in enabling the emergence of a new organizational culture blend in the case of a merger or acquisition. He argues that leaders need to support employees at all level of the organization to accept and embrace the new cultural changes. Leaders should also raise awareness about the inevitability of change after a merger or acquisition and try to prepare all stakeholders to receive the impending change positively.
4. Changes in External Environment
Changes in the external environment can act as triggers for changes in organizational culture (Morgan, 2012; Primecz et al. 2011; Velo, 2012). According to, changes in the Political, Social, Technological, environmental and legal environment can influence organizations to change their organizational culture. For example, governments may make changes to official workers requiring workers to report to work at 9:00 am instead of 8: am. Organizations will have no choice than to change their policies to suit the change in official working hours.
Cultural Issues in Business Environments
Successful intercultural negotiations
Businesses are engaged in multiple situations where negotiations between the parties are necessary. According to (), language and cultural etiquette forms a formidable barrier to intercultural negotiations. () argues that it is imperative that businesses operating in multicultural environment use the language of the customer. According to (), foreign trade partners may use a different language, think differently and have different priorities while engaging in business negotiations.
For example, in some culture, business meetings are formal and parties are offended if they are addressed by their first names. In other cultures, business meetings are informal affairs where negotiating parties refer to each other by first name. Obviously, two parties from these two cultures are engaged in negotiations they would have difficulties understanding each other. () argues that successful negotiations depend on the previous knowledge of each other values and assumptions.
Differences in negotiation styles are as diverse as national cultures. For example, negotiations between an South American and a North American businessman will be characterized by considerable differences as the true have distinctly different negotiation styles.
Differences range from the authority of a negotiator to approve a deal, to the level of relationship needed to start business negotiations. In some culture, it is necessary for organizations to build close and personal relationships with negotiators. These relationships are meant to establish fidelity and trust between the two negotiating teams.
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Religious Limitations
Religion moderates the behavior of communities more than any other cultural factor. Religion varies from nation to nation, within nations, and even within local communities. It is important for businesses to respect the religious norms that relate to their business operations. In particular, the advertising area of business is profoundly impacted by religions. For example, religious reason may prevent businesses from advertising alcoholic products, sanitary pads and other culturally sensitive product in some countries.
For example, the Koran (Islam’s holy book) ban the consumption of alcohol by believers. In some muslim countries, believer who are caught intoxicated are severely punished. The impacts of the alcohol ban on foreign businesses means they cannot market alcohol in countries where it is a banned. In addition, alcohol is a taboo subject in most of the Muslim world where people cannot discuss whether it should be legalized or stay banned.
Dressing and Dress Codes
Dressing is an important cultural consideration in businesses that operate across different national cultures. What is acceptable and decent varies from one culture to another. For example, KFC in the United States may be able to dress their female waiting staff in miniskirts and tight tops as this is acceptable in American culture. In contrast, if KFC operates a store in a conservative Middle Eastern country it would be considered indecent to dress their staff in miniskirts.
The backlash for breaking cultural dressing codes can be significant as some government can even cancel the operation licenses of organization that break local dressing codes. Cultural dressing codes also impact the dressing codes organization can use for their employees. For example, it is agreeable in many western countries for women to go to work in miniskirts as part of suits, but the same would not pass for decent office wear in the Middle East.
Furthermore, some communities require women to wear veils whenever they are outdoors. These points are important considerations for organizations who are developing dressing codes for employee in foreign offices.
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Women vs. men relationships
Women/Men relationships are becoming an important cultural issue that has the potential to influence business operations. In some cultures, some products are for men while other are for women. Another good example is where buying decisions for some products are the preserve of one sex. In some cultures, women make the buying decisions for food items, household items, and sometimes for holidays as in the case of Britain.
For organization marketing to different cultures, it is important to pre-determine the role of women/men in making the purchases decision for the product that you are offering in the market.
Taboos
Taboos vary from culture to culture. For example, in some culture Dogs are considered pets and thought of consuming their meat would be unacceptable. However, the Chinese consider dog meat a delicacy and there are many butcheries stocking Dog meat in China. One of the taboos which touch on organizational culture has to do with acceptance of tattoos in the workplace.
In the United States, tattoos have gained wide popularity and are quickly being accepted in the workplace. However, some workplaces in the US have rules that prevent employees from having visible tattoos. According to (), the prejudice associated with tattoos has faded greatly in the last twenty years and few people feel tattoos can prevent them from securing a job.
Despite this over 31 per cent of Human resource managers assert that visible tattoos can impact a candidate’s chance of getting a job. In contrast, the stigma associated with tattoos is still high in the UK. Most hiring managers thought that visible tattoos on candidates’ bodies indicated they were “thugs” or “drug addicts”. They also argued that ultimately it is customer’s attitudes towards employees with visible tattoos that influence the hiring decision.
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Conclusion
There is little doubt that culture is a powerful force in business environments. Businesses cannot ignore the potent forces of culture in both their internal and external environment. In particular, businesses must remember that contemporary organizations have to work with employees originating from different national cultures.
It is important for them to consider the role differences in national culture may impact the behavior of employees. For example, organizations receiving employees from foreign cultures may need to use special communication strategies to engage and connect with the employees from different national cultures.
Organizations also have their own internal culture which may need to change from time to time. This paper discusses leadership change, merger and acquisitions, changes in external environment, and technological changes as the main drivers of organizational culture change.
The paper argues that good leadership can enable organization smoothly transition into a new organizational culture. Finally, the paper presents several cultural issues that impact contemporary business including negotiations, religion, dress codes and taboos.
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Corporate Culture for Remote Workers
Introduction
The global “workplace,” has resulted in a convergence of cultures that are diverse and integrate individuals from diverse backgrounds. However, even with diverse backgrounds, individuals should be able to integrate into teams so that there is a successful achievement of the organization’s objectives. According to Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (2015), the leaders of corporate organizations have the responsibility of maintaining governance and a required corporate culture so as to achieve their objectives and profitability.
The employees are the representatives of an organization in their daily work and actions outside the organization. The image that the employees portray should be a reflection of the values and objectives of the organization.
Clients and other stakeholders should feel that the employees of the organization are committed to achieving the set goals and intended image that they would inspire them to work with the company. Before an organization establishes a corporate culture, it should ensure that its leaders are ethical and believe in the values of the organization. Leaders that believe in the objectives and mission of the company can easily pass those values to employees.
In addition to being motivated to remain ethical in their leadership practices, the senior managers and executives should possess integrity as one of their characters. When the leaders’ possess integrity, employees are likely to be motivated to follow their guidance and vision. Leaders with integrity are also likely to earn the required respect of the employees in the organization.
Importance of Corporate Culture
Organizations also have unique personalities that separate them from their competitors and other firms. Parameters such as procedures, policies, hierarchies, leadership styles, habits and shared values of the employees and stakeholders form the corporate culture of an organization.Usually, sales levels, financial performance, and planning, the corporate culture of a firm should be deliberately planned for, cultivated, and nurtured. The corporate culture acts as a factor in attracting clients and business partners for an organization.
The culture shows the “outside world” the values that are important for the organization, and therefore adhered to in attaining objectives and conducting business.The board of directors usually focus on controlling the spending of a firm so that shareholders get as much of their wealth maximized as possible. The board also focuses on the growth of the company in terms of revenue and market share.
A corporate culture cannot be monetized, but it contributes to the profitability or lack of it, to a company. Therefore, the corporate culture of an organization should be monitored regularly, and changed to fit the dynamics of the industry and technology. Corporate cultures have an impact on the employees that companies attract and retain, as well as the commodities, or services offered, and revenue earned.
Companies that take pride in, and promote their corporate cultures are attractive to their current and potential employees. The clients of such organizations also want to associate with the organizations because they want to find out more information on what makes the organizations tick and pursue their objectives and mission in delivering commodities or services to their clients.
Companies that have healthy corporate cultures are able to retain employees for a long duration. The employees also have a positive attitude in light of the company, which in turn goes to the creation of a desirable team spirit. If organizations have to hire new staff members, they would spend highly on recruiting and training which would cut back on the firms’ funds, time and manpower hours. Organizations should therefore target the cultivation of a healthy corporate culture so that they retain their current employees.
Healthy corporate cultures allow organizations to charge high values for the commodities they produce or services offered to clients. The corporate culture possessed by an organization acts as a reputation that precedes the organization in the market. A company that has a healthy corporate culture is aware of the high quality production of its commodities or services that they have to deliver. The corporate culture guides the employees to be aware of the qualities and standards that they should uphold in delivering what is expected to their customers. Therefore, they have to meet the set baseline so that clients can be satisfied, and guiding principles upheld.
A corporate culture also results in the maintenance of high productivity among the workforce. The employees have a high morale which directly impacts their productivity in a positive tone. The productivity in turn results in a positive impact on the financial health of the organization. Therefore, there is a positive circle of production and healthy corporate culture maintenance.
The foundation of success that is established through a positive and healthy corporate culture results in placing of the company highly in comparison to its competitors. The corporate culture can result in positive growth for all the organization’s departments, and hinder complacency. Individuals’ characters and personalities cannot be changed wholly, but their attitude and behaviour can be guided through the establishment and maintenance of a positive corporate culture. This research paper will cover how remotely working employees can be included in the corporate culture of an organization.
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BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM
Remote working is expected to grow in the coming years based on the increase in the level of cost cutting being conducted by organizations. A large number of companies are increasing outsourcing, or employing a higher number of employees remotely. The employees can either be on temporary or a permanent basis of employment. Remote employees are usually on the usual payroll just like normal employees that report to the office on a daily basis. Most individuals confuse remote employees with freelancers, virtual or outsourced personnel.
The only difference between employees that report physically to the office and remote employees is that the latter work from home. Complacency can fall into the schedule of remote employees if they feel like they are not getting the required feedback. The employees do not get daily feedback as opposed to employees that would be working on a cubicle in the office, and constantly in touch with their bosses or colleagues (Gareri, 2013: 1). The management should spell out the corporate culture that they expect from their employees, and constantly monitor and evaluate the level of cooperation, if any, given by the remote employees.
Through the quality, consistent and constant nature of the feedback given by the employees, the management would know whether the corporate culture was effective, or if it would have to be adjusted to fit the remote employees. Parameters such as communication, promptness in submission of work and adhering to deadlines would be determined by the corporate culture. The social media profiles of employees that work at the organization might fall into the spectrum of the organization’s corporate culture. Some business partners are sensitive about the image that is portrayed by organizations and their employees on social media.
Such organizations feel that the employees and executives of an organization are a reflection of the image and values of the organization. Therefore, the image that is portrayed on platforms such as social media would contribute to their value and image as well; through association and conducting business together. The remote employees should get clear communication on whether the corporate culture falls into the extremes of observing certain guidelines and rules in their work, or which side they lean towards.
The current generation of millennial individuals has grown up using technology for entertainment purposes, and doing their assignments. Previous generations had to go to the library and physically interact with their colleagues through discussion groups. Currently, millennial learners can attend online classes and graduate, without having met any of their colleagues. Therefore, there is a high proportion of the current generation of individuals that would prefer working remotely; away from the office.
According to Besner (2014: 1), remote employees should be guided on the level of feedback and acknowledgement between them, and their supervisors and colleagues. Consistent communication is required so as to ensure that there is progress and the work done complies with the required guidelines and standards. The remote employees should also be included and guided on the manner in which the processes of the organization should take place.
All departments in organizations have processes that should be adhered to, so that required tasks are accomplished within stipulated durations. Employees that report to physical offices usually have a timeline within which they report and finish all their assigned tasks. This timelines should also be established and communicated to the remote employees so that misunderstandings do not arise.
The turnaround on projects and workload should have stipulated submission deadlines. Even though the remoteemployees are away from the office, they should still maintain deadlines so that no individuals or departments are inconvenienced. Remote working employees might feel neglected if they are not included in the corporate culture.
Most corporate organizations have serious corporate cultures that guide the behaviour of employees and stakeholders. The different departments in the organization should come up with guidelines that would clarify the manner in which their employees should act. There should be specifications about the manner in which remote working employees are expected to act in accordance to their tasks and organization mission and vision achievement.
The departments would also be expected to specify the durations during which the employees would be expected to report in the office for different events such as critical meetings, team building, and office parties. Therefore, the employees would still get some physical contact with some of their colleagues, and seek redress of any issues that they would be facing in relation to their remote working.
The remote employees should also be informed of any team building exercises and the timelines within which they would be required to attend. The team building exercises are usually meant to strengthen colleagues’ working relationships and therefore form strong teams. The remote employees should especially not miss attending the team building meetings because they would contribute to interacting with employees in the different departments.
The remote employees and those that work in the office might only have had interactions through online communications such as video chats and emails. The physical meeting can strengthen their team work and therefore contribute to higher productivity.
The remote employees should also physically attend some of the meetings that are held by departments or the organization as a whole. The meetings usually serve as a platform where the management communicates the continued objectives, mission, and values that make the organization unique and give it a competitive position.
Employees require awareness of these values, so that all their personal achievements as related to their work, reflects those values. The department heads could also interact with the remote working employees during such meetings and encourage them to align their personal goals to those of the organization.
Research question
How can remote working employees be included in the corporate culture?
Objectives
To find out if employees would be willing to work from anywhere in the world
To find out how an organization can promote a sense of solidarity for a remote workforce.
To find out how can productivity be increased in the organization?
Primary research method
The research utilized interviews for research into the effect of a physical environment on corporate culture. The organization that was focused on is Elastic Recruitment Agency. The company recruits individuals from broad professionals for their clients. The company also hires a high number of professionals that work remotely. The number might increase with the trend in the workforce for organizations to cut back on costs for offices and health insurance based on the type of employment offered to employees (permanent or part time).
A contact employee in the human resources department, assisted in the distribution of the questions to the company’s employees who work remotely. The online questionnaires will be forwarded to the employees who work remotely, and requests made to fill in and return them within the week so that the results are compiled, analyzed and included in the research report by the second week.
The contact person was critical in introducing the questionnaires to the organization’s remote working employees. The employees of an organization are likely to be more cooperative in participating in a research study if it is “okayed” by a colleague. The contact person felt that the survey results would be useful in the field and would also contribute to guiding of business partners and clients in the near future.
References
Besner, G. 2015, Why Company Culture is more Important than Ever. Entrepreneur.
Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. &Zingales, L. 2015.The Value of Corporate Culture. NBER Conference on the Causes and Consequences of Corporate Culture, Journal of Financial Economics July 2015 117(1):60-76.
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