Definition: Corporate culture refers to the organizational culture that encompasses the vision, values, behaviors, and practices of a company.
What Does Corporate Culture Mean?
What is the definition of corporate culture? Corporate culture starts with the company’s vision. Normally, a vision is a single phrase that communicates exactly what the purpose of the company is. Then, corporate culture dictates how people should behave when at work, what values should drive their performance, and what practices should be implemented to achieve the vision.
Behaviors are directly related to what customers and co-workers see, and they include dress codes, the physical environment of the company, do’s and don’ts as well as organizational rituals.
Values pertain to the unwritten laws of behavior when at the workplace. For instance, workers should not gossip about each other; or they should all work for the good of the company, etc. Values are manifested through behaviors but are not directly detectable.
Practices reflect a company’s values.
Let’s look at an example.
Example
Google is one of the companies that are renowned for their corporate culture. The company has evolved into a mega corporation; however, it maintains a very friendly culture reflected in its extremely clear vision and mission. By hiring the best of the best candidates in a meticulous manner, Google fosters creativity and maximizes employee performance. People know what they should do and why, and this motivates them to work harder and achieve the organizational goals.
Open-door policies allow the involvement of all levels of the workforce in the decision making of the company, but more importantly they instill trust and commitment. In addition, employee benefits, employee recognition, and democratic leadership make Google one of the best companies to work for.
Today, Google employs about 70,000 full-time employees. Although there has been a lot of criticism regarding the company’s employee turnover, the truth of the matter is that Google employs too many people on the same day. This means that, if 200 employees were hired last week, and one calculates employee tenure today, the tenure for these people will be one week, but this doesn’t mean that they stay at the company for one week.
Summary Definition
Define Corporate Culture: Organizational culture means the vision, tone, and mentality of a company and its employees as a whole.
