One well-known scholar in the Academy of Management, one of the largest leadership and management organizations in the world, called Edgar Schein, describes organizational culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions.
The group learned them as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration in a way that worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.
In fact, corporate culture is reflected in shared assumptions, symbols, beliefs, values and norms that specify how employees understand problems and appropriately react to them.
Executives today are focusing on corporate culture and they can build an effective one to improve customer satisfaction through acquiring additional knowledge from customers, developing better relationships with them and providing a higher quality of service for them.
There is a global need to cultivate a strong corporate culture to accomplish sustainable competitiveness in global markets. It includes three dimensions of collaboration, trust and learning. These three cultural aspects play a critical role in improving innovation and enhancing the effectiveness of organizational knowledge management.
For example, collaboration provides a shared understanding about the current issues and problems among employees, which helps to generate new ideas within organizations. Trust toward their leader’s decisions is also a necessary precursor to create new knowledge. Moreover, the amount of time spent learning is positively related with the amount of knowledge gained, shared and implemented.
Executives can facilitate collaboration by developing relationships in organizations. They can contribute to the cultural aspect of trust through considering both employees’ individual interests and the company’s essential needs.
Also, executives can identify individual needs of their employees and develop a learning culture to generate new knowledge and share it with others.
The next sections of this article present a set of actions that can be taken by executives to build an effective corporate culture within corporations.
Building a true collaboration culture
To build a collaboration culture, executives need to improve the degree to which employees actively support and provide significant contributions to each other in their work.
In doing this, executives can develop a collaborative work climate in which:
- Employees are satisfied by the degree of collaboration between departments.
- Employees are supportive.
- Employees are helpful.
- There is a willingness to accept responsibility for failure.
Related article: Four ways to improve team collaboration
Creating a no-fail trust culture
To create a trust culture, executive need to maintain the volume of reciprocal faith in terms of behaviors and intentions.
In doing this, executives can build an atmosphere of trust and openness in which:
- Employees are generally trustworthy.
- Employees have reciprocal faith in other members' intentions and behaviors.
- Employees have reciprocal faith in others' ability.
- Employees have reciprocal faith in others' behaviors to work toward organizational goals.
- Employees have reciprocal faith in others' decision toward organizational interests than individual interests.
- Employees have relationships based on reciprocal faith.
Read this interview with experts from Amazon and The HUMAN Leadership Institute on how to drive innovation and belonging in your organization through a focus on compassionate leadership
Cultivating a successful learning culture
To foster a learning culture, executives need to enhance the extent to which learning is motivated within the workplace.
In doing this, executives can contribute to the development of a learning workplace in which:
- Various formal training programs are provided to improve the performance of duties.
- Opportunities are provided for informal individual development other than formal training such as work assignments and job rotation.
- There is an encouragement to attend events such as external seminars and symposia.
- Various social mechanisms such as clubs and community gatherings are provided.
- Employees are satisfied by the contents of job training or self-development programs.
Read PEX Network report: Mastering change in hybrid-work models
In conclusion
Success in today’s global business environment can be more effective when executives can manifest themselves as change agents who reshape, and in some cases, manipulate corporate culture to better apply knowledge and create competitive advantage.
Building on the three aspects of corporate culture, collaboration, trust and learning, companies can attempt to continuously innovate and create new and valuable services or products through applying new ideas and knowledge.
References
Schein, E 1984 'Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture', Sloan Management Review, vol. 25, no. 2. pp. 37-50.
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