Shaping Corporate Culture: For Sustainable Business Success

164 Pages·2023·3.579 MB·English

by  Josef Herget

Josef Herget
Shaping
Corporate
Culture
For Sustainable Business Success
Shaping Corporate Culture
Josef Herget
Shaping Corporate Culture
For Sustainable Business Success
Josef Herget
Excellence Institute
Wien, Austria
ISBN 978-3-662-65326-5 ISBN 978-3-662-65327-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65327-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part
of Springer Nature 2023
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Preface
We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. This description of the state
of affairs no longer frightens anyone these days, as it has become a general characteristic of
everyday life experience and perception. This is especially true in the entrepreneurial and
economic context. Consequently, the central challenge for companies, and in particular for
the managers working there at all hierarchical levels, is the question of how they can operate
successfully in this world – and not just for a few quarters, but if possible for many years.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”: This often-quoted bon mot points the way: it is the
corporate culture that sustainably determines how companies develop in the future. The
corporate culture is the basis, the humus, so to speak, that creates and opens up the oppor-
tunity space for companies: Innovation, customer orientation, trust, appreciation, and effi-
ciency – exemplary factors of a corporate culture – can distinguish it. Corporate culture
either promotes them or prevents them. The message “Work on corporate culture” sounds
simple. But what does the reality of this look like?
Let’s look at some figures from a study by Deloitte (2016). According to this study,
only 28% of managers believe they have a good understanding of their own corporate
culture. Just 19% assume that their organization has the “right” corporate culture, although
82% of the executives surveyed consider corporate culture to be a relevant competitive
factor. What a contradiction between aspiration and reality! The digital transformation of
our entire economic life that is taking place right now is adding to this dilemma, as numer-
ous other studies have shown. Executives are thirsting for concepts on how they can sus-
tainably support the digital transformation through a supportive corporate culture!
There is an obvious lack of knowledge and competence on how to develop and imple-
ment a sustainable corporate culture. Glossy brochures on mission statements and values
abound in companies, but what is often lacking in practice are concrete models, methods,
and approaches on how to directly change and shape the corporate culture.
This is where this practice-oriented book comes in: After a brief introduction to the
terminology and concepts of corporate culture, its importance for corporate success is
elaborated. For this purpose, corporate culture is viewed in an architectural model on three
levels: in addition to a strategic level and its importance for the relevant mindset, the
immediate implementation as practiced behavior in the work processes and cooperation is
recalled. The third level of so-called “culture hacks” serves as a bracket between these two
v
vi Preface
levels. This direct reflection instrument ensures the expression of the desired corporate
culture, which is experienced in daily actions and experiences, because a new corporate
culture must first become a habit.
A six-phase process is then presented, which systematically starts from the determina-
tion of the most important factors of the company’s individual culture, shows their diag-
nostic possibilities, enables a maturity classification, supports a strategy derivation,
presents possible methods and intervention options, and outlines a change process via a
roadmap, with which a successful culture change can be controlled. An accompanying
illustrative example clarifies the individual phases and illustrates the possible implementa-
tion in one’s own corporate practice. Recommendations for the successful implementation
of culture change projects and the importance of leadership follow. The book concludes
with remarks on the sustainable establishment of a living corporate culture and takes a
look at future-relevant developments in the context of corporate culture.
It is advisable to work through the entire book first, because many tips for successful
culture change projects can be found in the back chapters, the consideration of which
should already be helpful during planning and implementation. Afterwards, the relevant
chapters can be used directly as possible advice and guidance for specific projects. The
entire context and the classification of the individual work steps should then hopefully be
of great benefit during successful implementation.
The credo of this book is: corporate culture can be shaped, it can be changed and devel-
oped in a desired direction. However, this is usually not an easy and often not a quick
undertaking. Nevertheless, this process can be successful. It seems important to have a
systematic approach that offers a structured orientation and can be followed immediately.
And this should be supported by methods that are as easy to apply as possible. So much
for the claim of this book: theoretically sound and pragmatically oriented to contribute to
a sustainable corporate culture that is fit for the future and ultimately results in greater
corporate success.
Corporate culture is the most important and central success factor for sustainably suc-
cessful organizations. It affects all managers working in the company at all levels of the
hierarchy. If one understands corporate culture as a shapable reality of life in companies,
it advances to become a decisive management tool for all managers.
Many exciting insights while reading and most of all, every success in the implementation
I wish you many
Josef Herget
www.excellence- institute.at
Vienna, Austria Josef Herget
Reference
Deloitte (2016) Global human capital trends 2016. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/
dam/Deloitte/at/Documents/human- capital/hc- trends- 2016.pdf. Accessed 17 Nov 2019
Contents
1 Corporate Culture: The Central Success Factor 1
1.1 What Is Corporate Culture Anyway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1 In-Depth Illustrations of the Concept of Corporate Culture . . . . . . 4
1.1.2 Functions of Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.3 Where Are the Starting Points? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2 When Is a Corporate Culture Good? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 Corporate Culture as a Success Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3.1 A Strong Corporate Culture Leads to Financially More
Successful Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3.2 Corporate Culture as the Most Important Cause of Corporate
Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4 What Are the Drivers of Corporate Culture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.5 New Approaches to Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5.1 Behavioural Economics Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5.2 Neuroscience Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.6 Good Practices Make the Difference: An Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.7 To Get You in the Right Frame of Mind: How Important Is Corporate
Culture Management to You? A Self-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.8 The Path Is Worthwhile: Create the Corporate Culture with Which
You Will Become Successful in the Long Term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.9 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2 Corporate Culture Can Be Shaped 25
2.1 On the Dynamics of the Phenomenon of Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 Simultaneity of Different Corporate Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3 A mbidextry: Consciously Using Different Parallel Corporate Cultures . . . . . 28
2.4 Integration and Adaptation: Central Approaches to Developing
Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.5 On the “Feasibility” of Corporate Culture: Systemic Reservations
and the Courage to Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
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2.6 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3 Architecture of Corporate Culture: An Operational Design Approach 33
3.1 Meeting the Complexity of Corporate Culture Through a Systematic
Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2 The Integrative Corporate Culture Architecture Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2.1 The Strategic Level: Vision and Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.2.2 The Action Level: Measures and Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.2.3 T he Level of Reflection: Culture Hacks as a Constant Compass . . . . . 39
3.3 An Approach to Shaping Corporate Culture: The Culture Excellence
Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3.1 The Individual Phases of the Culture Excellence Process . . . . . . . . 43
3.3.2 The Culture Excellence Process as a Central Management
Tool for Shaping Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.4 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4 Developing Your Own Culture Model 47
4.1 Why Is a Model Essential for Discussing Corporate Culture? . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.2 Brief Synopsis of Different Corporate Culture Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.2.1 Development-Oriented Models: The Graves Model . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.2.2 Generic Models: Denison’s Organisational Culture
Model and the OCI Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2.3 Problem-Based and Specified Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.3 D eveloping Your Own Model of Corporate Culture: Integrating Different
Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3.1 Taking Account of Different Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3.2 Integration of the Views: Basis of the Own Corporate Culture
Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.4 The Culture-Diamond-Model: Procedural Concept for the
Identification of the Own Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.4.1 An Example: Recording Culturally Relevant Factors . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.4.2 An Example: Condensation to Company-Specific
Culture Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.5 Alignment of Corporate Culture with Corporate Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.6 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5 Analysis and Diagnosis of the Corporate Culture 65
5.1 The Corporate Culture Audit: On the Term and Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.2 Survey and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.3 Derivation and Prioritisation of Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Contents ix
5.4 An Example to Illustrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.5 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6 Corporate Culture in the Maturity Model 73
6.1 Meaning and Function of Maturity Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.2 Concept of the Maturity Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.2.1 Stages in the Maturity Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
6.2.2 Options for Carrying Out the Determination of the Degree
of Maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.3 Procedure Model for Strategic Positioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.4 Example of a Maturity Model for Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
6.5 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
7 Development of Corporate Culture: Strategy Generation 87
7.1 Systematics for the Development of Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7.1.1 Generic Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.1.2 Specific Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7.2 Strategy Options for Cultural Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7.3 Controlling the Strategy Premises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
7.4 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
8 Methods for Cultural Development: Levels and Measures
of Intervention 95
8.1 Use of Interventions and Methods in the Architecture Model . . . . . . . . . . . 96
8.1.1 Mindset and Behaviour: The Strategic Level of the
Architecture Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
8.1.2 Moving from Strategy to Action: The Operational Level
of the Architecture Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
8.1.3 C ulture Hacks: The Punctual Level of the Architecture Model . . . . . .100
8.2 Classic Approaches to Changing Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
8.3 Recent Approaches to Changing Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8.3.1 Interventions and Methods: A Characterisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
8.3.2 Suitability Potential for the Own Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
8.4 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
9 Setting Up Culture Change Projects the Right Way: Implementation
and Controlling 115
9.1 Determine Procedure Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
9.2 Evaluate Interdependencies Between Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
9.3 Moving from a Portfolio of Methods to a Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
9.4 Install Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
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9.5 Measure and Evaluate Implementation Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
9.6 Ensure Roll-Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
9.7 Collecting and Processing Learnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
9.8 A Warning and Encouragement at the Same Time! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
9.9 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
10 Integrative View: The Concept of Culture Excellence 125
10.1 The Individual Building Blocks of Culture Excellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
10.2 Integration of the Individual Building Blocks into the Concept
of Culture Excellence: Approach and Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
10.3 The Cultural Design Process as a Recursive Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
10.4 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
11 Don’t Fail in the Culture Change Project: Do’s and Don’ts 131
11.1 Why Is Shaping a Corporate Culture a Sensitive Undertaking? . . . . . . . . 132
11.2 Do’s: These Approaches Promise Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
11.3 Don’ts: It’s Best to Avoid These Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
11.4 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
12 The Special Role of Leadership 137
12.1 Importance of Leadership: Leadership and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
12.2 Role Model Behaviour as the Most Important Influencing
Factor in the Development of Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
12.3 Management in a Sandwich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
12.4 Who Is a Role Model in the Democratic Enterprise? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
12.5 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
13 Living Corporate Culture 143
13.1 Forming Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
13.2 Reflecting on the Corporate Culture in Everyday Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
13.3 Allowing Corporate Culture to Be a Dynamic Development . . . . . . . . . . 145
13.4 Corporate Culture: Between a “Never Ending Story” or “Life
Still Offers Many Exciting Moments” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
13.5 Consciously Celebrate Corporate Culture: And Develop Pride . . . . . . . . . 146
13.6 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
14 Challenges to Corporate Culture: Today and Tomorrow 149
14.1 What Are the Future Challenges for Corporate Culture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
14.2 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157