Organizations develop cultures whether they try to or not. If your intention is to appraise individual-organization fit, align culture with its strategic goals, understand subcultures, assess mergers and acquisitions partners, or to make organizational changes in practices or values, understanding your culture in an objective manner can give you a business advantage and spare you enormous time and money. Not understanding your culture in today's business world can be fatal. Sometimes the emperor or empress needs to be told that his/her baby is ugly. Having objective measurement tools such as Hagberg Consulting Group's "Cultural Assessment Tool" can provide a consultant or coach with valuable objective measurement of existing culture. Executives are frequently analytical and quantitative in their orientation. Having data and an assessment tool to deliver a painful message may be the key to getting management to pay attention and face the reality of what kind of culture really exists. It is also useful in preventing the demise of me messenger.

III. What is Corporate Culture?

As your text points out, every company (or institution, organization, etc.) has a culture of its own, and employees are usually smart to try to fit in with that culture. The culture of a company deals with its atmosphere and social preferences and includes aspects such as how employees dress, whether they are free to talk among themselves about non-business topics, whether breaks arc limited and strictly timed, whether entry-level employees are free to visit upper-echelon offices, whether superiors are addressed by first name or by Mr. /Ms. whatever, and a host of other considerations. Now no one is going to give you a list of the cultural aspects of the company you work for; those aspects are often intangible and difficult to define. But as an employee, you'll pick them up over time. There are a number of factors that tend to influence corporate culture, and your book does a good Job of explaining them. However, remember that your text is talking about tendencies; don't make assumptions about the culture of any particular company until you've been with it long enough to leam it firsthand A company's history will influence its culture, particularly in terms of how stable the culture is. If you are hired by a company (hat has been around for 100 years and done things pretty much the same way for the whole lime, you probably aren't going to be able to change the culture much. If. on the other hand, me company is relatively new. the culture might not be firmly established, and you may have some influence on it. The type of business has more to do with culture than the company's history. Let me give you an example by comparing the cultures of two long-standing U. S. companies. When I was heavily involved in corporate life in the late '80s, ЮМ was considered me bastion of conservative business. Now, I've never been in an IBM office, and what 1 heard might be an exaggeration. But the scuttlebutt was that you could wear any color suit as long as it was dark blue or dark gray. I read that the employee restrooms and lounges were painted orange because studies have indicated that that is the least restful color, and die company wanted to discourage employees from spending time in the Johns. Men were more or less expected to wear wing-tips, and women were expected to wear 1/2-inch heels in dark colors and neutral-colored hose.

Now, just as IBM is the father of all business machine companies. Disney is the father of animation in the U. S. I have been inside the Disney corporate offices. The employees wear shorts and tennis shoes. They wander between each other's offices at will. Some play music in their offices. Some sit at their desks, and others lounge on sofas. The difference? IBM is a conservative company that produces a product used largely by business professionals Ii wants to exude professionalism and confidence. Disney produces films; it wants to encourage its employees to be creative in any way it can. It hires artists and writers.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that the corporate culture may vary from department to department. When I first started in advertising as a writer/editor, I was in the creative division of the company. Now, we didn't wear shorts or jeans, but the women did wear slacks and sweaters, and none of the guys wore jackets or tics. The people in the front offices wore suits, though.

The idea is that you need to find out what the culture of your peers is and adapt to it. Generally speaking, when you first join a company and don't know what is expected, you should keep in mind that it is better to err on the side of conservatism and formality than on the side of informality.

IV. AMERICAN CULTURE

The U. S. is not a melting pot: ethnic groups persist. Nonetheless, Americans feel a bond to other Americans that transcends differences in ethnic origins.

--Jackson Toby, "America Works Despite All the Odds" --Wall Street Journal

Like people all over the world, Americans take their culture for granted. Indeed, it's only in juxtaposition with other cultures that Americans begin to understand the influence of their own culture on their behavior. Only when we can see that there is more than one approach to life and many different ways of behaving can we begin to experience the strong, pervasive influence of our own culture.

It is more difficult to describe American culture than German or French culture because the United States is not just another country; it spans a continent, and has a population of over 250, 000, 000 people whose ancestors came from virtually every country in the world. American culture is a rich mix of Anglo-Saxon, French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Italian, Latin American, Native American, African, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Arab influences, Just to name a few. In its early days the country was strongly influenced by the British and other people from northern Europe; its laws are based on British common law and American English has absorbed many northern European words. While the U. S. is a nation of immigrants and there are ^any people in American business who are not of northern European heritage, for the purposes of our discussion of American culture, it is the American-European culture we refer to and not the many other cultures represented in the American population. This dominant or mainstream business culture is the norm to which people with other cultural backgrounds are expected to conform, particularly in large corporations.

Despite its ethnic diversity, the U. S. has managed to absorb bits and pieces of many cultures and weave them into a unique culture that is strikingly consistent and distinct. You can pick out Americans any place in the world, often very quickly, because of their behavior. Among their most observable traits are openness, friendliness, informality, optimism, creativity, loudness, and vitality.

In common with others, Americans tend to be ethnocentric, in part because of the great size and economic power of the United States. Unlike the Germans and the French, Americans do not have close foreign neighbors with whom they interact constantly. The country shares borders with Canada and Mexico, but relatively few Americans have dealings with or know much about either country.

While the United States has absorbed millions of people from countries around the globe, the core culture of the United States has its roots in northern European or Anglo-Saxon culture. As a result, it is a predominantly monochrome, low-context culture. To succeed in the American economic system, people must adapt to schedules and the other conventions of doing business in a monochrome, low-context environment. It also means their approach to life is compartmentalized and they need detailed background information because they do not have well developed information networks.

V. Corporate Culture and Local Culture

Businesses which have strong corporate cultures have certain advantages over those that don't. A strong corporate culture provides shared ideals and a common way of communicating. It also performs several other important functions:

1. Increasing context (i. e., providing necessary background data)

2. Decreasing compartmentalization

3. Increasing information flow

4. Facilitating organizational unification and coordination

5. Increasing survival capabilities

In good times a strong corporate culture is not a prerequisite to survival. In bad times it is vital. Companies that do not have a strong corporate culture and a strong corporate image will tend to fragment under the stress of the struggle to survive when times become difficult. Strong corporate cultures are cohesive; they bind their employees together. They encourage cooperation and enable companies to respond quickly and effectively to changing conditions.

But a strong corporate culture at home does not necessarily guarantee an effective corporate presence abroad. Overseas, it is necessary first to create an environment in which the indigenous employees can flourish. Management must adapt the company's corporate culture to the local culture. This adaptation requires great patience in the home office and depends in large part on the selection of the foreign manager, who must understand the requirements of the home office and also have the skills to interact effectively with the local people. Interfacing between the home office and the local affiliate is the greatest challenge to any overseas population. In time local employees should be encouraged to adapt the corporate culture and corporate image to ensure maximum impact on both local people and local markets.

VI. American Business Executives Abroad

Corporate cultures are apparently more exportable than national cultures and are certainly more understandable to Americans, who are used to the idea that working for a company means doing things the company way.