Corporation: How Your Company\'s Culture

¶ … Corporation: How Your Company's Culture can Make or Break Your Business, authors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones discuss the broad significance of culture in large organizations. Corporate culture can affect a business's bottom line as much as any more tangible aspects of the business model. Goffee and Jones base their book's premise on sound sociological theory related to the concepts of sociability and solidarity. The authors outline four basic types of corporate culture characters based on the levels of solidarity and sociability within an organization: networked, communal, fragmented, and mercenary. These four culture types work best in certain situations and can be detrimental in others; Goffee and Jones describe both the causes and implications of each cultural style, noting that there is no one right culture per organization. Furthermore, the authors note that most organizations demonstrate a combination of cultural styles and many evolve over time to exhibit various cultural styles within the lifespan of the organization. All corporate cultures can become dysfunctional by over- or under-emphasizing manifestations of solidarity, sociability, or both, or by excess individualism and lack of cohesiveness. The main purposes of The Character of a Corporation include illustrating the importance of corporate culture in ensuring the success of an organization, and showing business leaders how to address issues related to corporate culture in order to make necessary changes.

Goffee and Jones begin by explaining the importance of organizational culture, which they describe as being the "ultimate paradox of business," (8). According to the authors, "no business strategy or program can or will succeed without the appropriate organizational culture in place," (8). Organizational culture is therefore one of the most underestimated ingredients in the success of a company, probably because culture cannot be calculated. More often than not, business leaders and employees recognize the consequences of their organization's culture before understanding what organizational culture actually entails. An organization's culture refers to its social dynamic as well as to its rules, regulations, and relationships. How organizations deal with conflict or create hierarchy is a part of their cultures. The "underlying social architecture" of an organization is its cultural bedrock (15). Although culture is not expressly addressed in the hiring process, all new employees must adapt to the culture of the organization and similarly, an organization's culture can change as employees come and go and policies shift.

Goffee and Jones create a fourfold model of organizational culture as the cornerstone of their book. Plotting core cultural traits on a cube graph, the authors construct a Double S. Cube: the "S" refers to the twin traits of sociability and solidarity. All organizations can be plotted somewhere on the Double S. Cube based on their culture's relative levels of sociability and solidarity. The authors selected these two traits as their Double S. Cube axes based on research by eminent sociologists and philosophers like Durkheim (22). Therefore, sociability and solidarity are fundamental features of organizational culture because they are fundamental to human sociology in general. Sociability refers to "a measure of friendliness among members of a community," whereas solidarity refers more to the efficacy of mutual interests. Both sociability and solidarity have benefits and drawbacks in the realm of organizational culture. High levels of sociability beget high levels of job satisfaction and employee morale. On the other hand, organizational cultures with high levels of sociability can degrade into unproductive scenarios. If coworkers are "friends" then decision-making can become more about pleasing others than about what's best for the company. Highly social cultures can also become cliquish. Organizations with high levels of solidarity can be highly productive, as employees are fused in their dedication to common goals. The dark side of solidarity-based cultures is that they can become overly impersonal, neglecting the needs of the individual in favor of the collective.

A culture with high levels of sociability and high levels of solidarity becomes Communal. A culture with low levels of both sociability and solidarity is described as Fragmented. Organizational cultures with High levels of sociability but low levels of solidarity is Networked, and an organization with high levels of solidarity but low levels of sociability is Mercenary. In The Character of a Corporation, the authors offer readers a checklist and questionnaire to help them determine the nature of their organization's culture. Issues including the organization's physical space and work environment; communications infrastructure and style; concept of time and scheduling; and level of personal identities all contribute to the determination of an organization's culture.

The authors' four main points regarding the Double S. Cube include the following. First, organizations can be comprised of more than one culture, especially large organizations with multiple divisions. Second, organizations often demonstrate an evolutionary life-cycle, shifting from culture to culture in a predictable order. Third, none of the organizational cultures described in the book are superior or inferior independently of the specific business environment or of the organization's immediate goals. Fourth, the Double S. Cube graphically illustrates the dark side of each culture: its dysfunctional counterpart.

A large portion of The Character of a Corporation is dedicated to explaining in detail the nature of each culture: Networked, Communal, Fragmented, and Mercenary. Goffee and Jones discuss the positive and negative consequences of the culture in terms of the organizational goals and also point out how individual employees can learn how to adapt and thrive in various cultures. Later, the authors offer a step-by-step guide to changing an organization's culture, which is often necessary in order to avoid cultural dysfunction and to ensure survival of the business. A cultural change can be driven by external factors such as encroaching competition or from internal factors like disgruntled employees. The complicated process of changing an organization's culture can be best accomplished via a solid grasp of the concept described throughout the book. Finally, Goffee and Jones offer real-world examples of each organizational culture model based on well-known corporations.