The document discusses organizational culture and identifies three levels - artifacts, espoused values, and basic underlying assumptions. It also evaluates the four main functions of culture as providing identity, making sense of the organization, reinforcing values, and controlling behavior. The relationship between strong, adaptive, and aligned cultures and organizational performance is explored.
SOURCE: Dorothy Marcic, “Identifying Behavioral Norms.” Organizational Behavior: Experiences and Cases (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1989). Reprinted by permission.
The data storage and management company NetApp has survived the dot-com crash and has enjoyed tremendous success under long-time CEO Dan Warmenhoven. Top executives at NetApp are quick to credit the open, trusting culture for the company’s success—and employees agree, catapulting NetApp to the top of Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” list.
A culture of trust and openness gives NetApp a distinct competitive advantage. The office design supports these values. Everyone, including the CEO, works in an open air cubicle. Information is shared fully and openly. A Vice President’s Forum is held every two weeks in which information about the company and the economy is shared, but its main purpose is for the VP to hear what’s on the mind of NetApp employees. Key to the culture is the commitment to simplicity and common sense. Bureaucracy is at a minimum, and products are designed in order to do the job as simply as possible for customers. A twelve-page travel policy was canned in favor of a simple statement asking employees to use their common sense.
Recruiting is done to attract brilliant people to the organization, and care is taken to let employees know how brilliant and appreciated they are. NetApp provides exciting work, provides flexible scheduling for work–life balance, and encourages volunteer efforts in the community. Five paid days off are given to each employee for volunteer work. Unique benefits are provided, too, like adoption aid and autism coverage. NetApp’s culture of trust, openness, simplicity, and common sense has garnered not only recognition, but highly performing employees and loyal customers, both keys to competitive advantage.
SOURCES: R. Levering and M. Moskowitz, “And the Winners Are….” Fortune, February 2, 2009, 67–78; http://greatplacetowork.com/best/100best-2009/100best2009-netapp.php
**Following are six specific guidelines for managers who want to create a global culture:
1. Create a clear and simple mission statement. A shared mission can unite individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
2. Create systems that ensure an effective flow of information. Coordination councils and global task forces can be used to ensure that information flows throughout the geographically dispersed organization are consistent.
3. Create “matrix minds” among managers; that is, broaden managers’ minds to allow them to think globally. IBM does this through temporary overseas assignments. Managers with international experience share that experience when they return to the home organization.
4. Develop global career paths. This means ensuring not only that home country executives go overseas but also that executives from other countries rotate into service in the home office.
5. Use cultural differences as a major asset. The former Digital Equipment Corporation (now part of Hewlett-Packard), for example, transferred its research and development functions to Italy to take advantage of the free-flowing Italian management style that encouraged creativity. Its manufacturing operations went to Germany, which offered a more systematic management style.
6. Implement worldwide management education and team development programs. Unified training efforts that emphasize corporate values can help establish a shared identity among employees.
These guidelines are specifically aimed at multinational organizations that want to create a global corporate culture, but other organizations can also benefit from. Companies that want to broaden employees’ views or to use the diversity of their workforce as a resource will find several of these recommendations advantageous.
U.S. government operatives haul Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally)
off his flight from Cape Town, South Africa, after it arrives in
Washington, D.C. He is a suspected terrorist whom the government
sends to North Africa for torture and interrogation. CIA analyst
Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) reacts negatively to the torture
techniques and urges El-Ibrahimi’s release.
This scene opens with a night shot of the Washington Monument. It follows
Kahlid’s (Moa Khouas) discussion with Hamadi (Hassam Ghancy),
the leader of a terrorist group. Congressional aide Alan Smith (Peter
Sarsgaard) says in a voice-over, “She called you?” referring to Corrine
Whitman (Meryl Streep), head of U.S. intelligence. She authorized
the extraordinary rendition of El-Ibrahimi. Alan Smith, earlier in the
film, pressed her for El-Ibrahimi’s release and his return to the United
States. This scene does not explicitly discuss organizational structure,
but you can infer several aspects of structure from the scene.