Definition of Corporate Culture

Are you looking for a clear definition of corporate culture? You have come to the right place!

I developed a definition of corporate culture after nearly 20 years working with organizations and viewing from the perspective of a cultural anthropologist, as well as a strategic consultant with an MBA in finance.

The easiest way to think of corporate culture is that it is an energy field that determines how people think, act, and see the world around them. I often compare culture to electricity. Culture is powerful and invisible and its effects are far reaching. Culture is an energy force that becomes woven through the conduct of thought, and the identity of those within the group.

The corporate culture is created naturally and automatically. Whenever people come together with a common purpose, culture is created. This group of people could be a family, neighborhood, project team, or company. The culture is created automatically out of the combined thoughts, energies and attitudes of people in the group.

I worked with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists involved in the start-up technology companies. They want to work on corporate culture once the company is profitable, or "black". It 's much more difficult to change the corporate culture, once it emerged that proactively create the corporate culture they want from the beginning.

The corporate culture energy field determines a company's dress code, work environment, working hours, the rules to get ahead and get promoted, how the business world has seen, what has value, that is appreciated, and more yet.

Any companies or organizations has numerous corporate cultures. For example, the marketing department and the engineering department may have very different corporate cultures that are both influenced by organizational culture overall business. Many times these two sub-cultures collide.

Culture manifests itself in ways seen and unseen. Some expressions of corporate culture are easy to observe. You can see the dress code, work environment, benefits, and securities of a company. This is the layer of culture surface. These are just some of the visible manifestations of a culture.

Surface layer of the corporate culture: visible expressions

* Dress Code

* Work Environment

* The Benefits

* The Perks

* The Conversations

* Work / Life Balance

* The titles and descriptions of work

* Organizational Structure

* Relations

The by far most powerful aspects of culture are invisible. The nucleus is composed of cultural beliefs, values, standards, paradigms, worldviews, moods, internal conversations, and private conversations of people who belong to the group. This is the foundation of all actions and decisions within a group, department or organization.

Base layer of corporate culture: invisible Events

* Values

* The Private Conversations (with self or confidants)

* Rules invisible

* The Attitudes

* The Beliefs

* The Worldviews

* The Moods and Emotions

* The unconscious interpretations

* Standard

* The paradigms

* The Assumptions

Business leaders often assume that their company's vision, values ​​and strategic priorities are synonymous with the culture of your company. Unfortunately, too often, the vision, values ​​and strategic priorities may only be words hanging on a plaque on the wall.

The corporate culture is actually the container for the mission vision and values. It is not synonymous with them. In a thriving profitable company, employees will embody the values, vision and strategic priorities of your company.

What creates this embodiment (or the lack of realization) is the corporate culture energy field that permeates the psyche of people, bodies, conversations and actions.
Companies need a good definition of corporate culture before they can begin to understand how to change the corporate culture .......