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Driving Performance Through Corporate Culture: Interviews with Four Experts
Author(s) -
Gandossy Robert,
Peshawaria Rajeev,
Perlow Leslie,
Trompenaars Fons,
Dowling Daisy Wademan
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of applied corporate finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1745-6622
pISSN - 1078-1196
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6622.2009.00227.x
Subject(s) - organizational culture , constructive , business , function (biology) , value (mathematics) , compensation (psychology) , marketing , power (physics) , public relations , core (optical fiber) , process (computing) , psychology , computer science , political science , telecommunications , physics , quantum mechanics , evolutionary biology , machine learning , psychoanalysis , biology , operating system
Establishing an effective link between corporate strategy and employee performance has traditionally been seen as a function of organizational structure and internal marketing—that is, of getting the right compensation systems in place to reward the desired behavior, and relentlessly communicating the strategy to all employees. But, according to the four organizational behavior experts who were interviewed for this article, there's more to it than that. Also important is a market‐ and customer‐oriented corporate culture, which can be a highly effective tool for companies seeking to improve performance and increase value. This article presents four distinctive, but complementary views on why and how senior executives should play a significant role in managing the cultures within their organizations. According to these experts, it is possible to both transform and harness the power of a culture by paying greater attention to succession issues; articulating and communicating an organization's core values; aligning a company's behavioral norms with employee assumptions; and offering “constructive reconciliation of cultural differences.” In the last analysis, a company's culture is said to be the most effective way for executives to ensure that their employees will perform “when no one is looking.”