Examples of books on the subject include:
-
In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and
Robert Waterman
-
Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the
Japanese Challenge by William G. Ouchi
-
The Art of Japanese Management by Richard
Pascale and Anthony Athos
By 1989 the concept of ‘Corporate Culture’
had become so widely accepted that a hostile bid for Time Inc. by
Paramount was rejected in court due to the ‘cultural differences’
between the two organisations.
In the 1990’s a new set of books were appearing,
taking the theories previously expounded even further, these
included:
-
Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras
-
Liberating the Corporate Soul by Richard
Barrett
-
Corporate Culture and Performance by John
Kotter and James Heskett
The evolution of the various theories has been
categorised as:
Theory I
Theory I is based on a having a ‘strong’ culture
within an organisation which creates norms & values to help align,
motivate & control the staff. However, it has been shown that some
strong cultures have led to weak financial performance. Whilst there
is a relationship between a strong culture and performance it is
statistically only a modest one.
Theory II
Theory II is where organisations not only have a
strong culture but one that is strategically appropriate to the
operating conditions at the time. This recognises that ‘one size
doesn’t fit all’ and that culture needs to change to meet the
different prevailing conditions which different organisations find
themselves in. This theory proved to be reasonably good for short to
medium term results but there were still some significant
exceptions.
Theory III
Theory III suggests that the best type of
corporate culture is one that is strong and adaptive, one that can
change to match the prevailing market conditions. This type of
culture is driven very much by values and behaviours. Tom Peters,
co-author of In Search of Excellence is a significant supporter of
this approach and suggests you should focus exclusively on your
customers. Others suggest you should focus on customers, employees
and shareholders equally. This theory has the best fit to the
measured results offered by research so far, and is the one which we
here at CIT fully support.
|