Despite organizational culture may be influenced by the events taking place in the exogenous environment, the full accountability for shaping and developing corporate culture should invariably rest with an organization founder and management (Who develops, shapes and controls organizational culture? http://rosariolongo.blogspot.com/2014/10/who-develops-shapes-and-controls.html). The identification of the organizational values and of the type of behaviour individuals should exhibit in the workplace as well as the adoption of a metaphor aptly summarizing, explaining, reinforcing and in many respects linking all of these components together, so as to help individuals to establish a clear line of sight between them, should be in fact invariably regarded as a typical business founder responsibility.
Corporate culture is increasingly assuming a greater importance to employers, who are learning from experience that this cannot be merely considered as a discretionary organizational component, but rather as the founding pillar of organizational strategy, whose pursuance it is essentially intended to support, sustain and ease. Business culture requires hence the constant employer attention and active control in that its unintended derailment might produce irreversible, harmful effects on the execution of an organization strategy and ultimately upon the business stability.
Corporate culture, nonetheless, is not only exposed to the pressure coming from the exogenous environment, but it is indeed also sorely subject to the effects produced by the occurrences taking place in the endogenous environment. Amongst these, particularly detrimental to an organization may prove to be the deliberate or inadvertent employee attempt to alter or reinterpret the culture fostered by the business founder. This circumstance is likely to occur when a business founder leaves the organization and when the management diverts its attention away from the importance of consistently and continually fostering the culture originally developed and nourished by the business founder.
The executives and managers of an organization should be particularly cautious and vigilant from this point of view and should do whatever they can to prevent employees from influencing corporate culture, whether their reinterpretation or redefinition may threaten to derail the founder original vision and spirit. This may prove to be a definitely daunting feat to perform in that this employee initiative may be actually triggered by the business management incapability to firmly, convincingly and consistently foster and sustain, for a wide range of reasons, the existing culture. Yet, in some instances, managers might not become aware of the problem until it may be too late, let alone to resolve it once clearly emerged.
The role of HR
The first question to ask is whether HR actually has a role in corporate culture. Since culture is essentially concerned with the organizational values, shared beliefs, individual behaviour and the norms stemming from these, which definitely affect individuals at large, and HR is essentially concerned with people, it can be contended that HR unquestionably has a role to play in corporate culture.
This role, notwithstanding, should not be intended in the sense that HR should be fully involved in the definition and identification of the right or most suitable culture in that, as discussed earlier, this should be indeed invariably regarded as a specific founder duty. Being in charge of the development of human capital management practices and in its strategic advisory role, HR is in a commanding position to competently support an organization founder in developing his/her vision and translate this into corporate culture, but can hardly act as a substitute for the founder in this instance.
Taking heed of the circumstance that culture supports strategy execution, to which this should be hence strictly interrelated, it may be argued that corporate culture is somewhat of in between strategy execution and human capital management. It essentially contains the guiding principles for employers to attain competitive advantage over their competitors building on their most valuable resource, that is to say human capital. As such, corporate culture aims at fostering the behaviour which the employer considers as the most appropriate to achieve competitive edge and hence at developing the organization distinctive approach to “the way we do things around here.”
It can be hardly believed that an organization may achieve competitive advantage whether its management does not foster a corporate culture enabling the business to effectually execute its strategy. The success attained by the organization will contribute in turn to reinforce the individual belief that the behaviour endorsed by the management essentially represents a recipe for success. HR should thus, first and foremost, support the organization management so as to ensure that each manager properly fulfils his/her duty (Table 1 – The role of HR in Corporate Culture).
The role played by HR in corporate culture
http://rosariolongo.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-role-played-by-hr-in-corporate.html
Corporate culture is increasingly assuming a greater importance to employers, who are learning from experience that this cannot be merely considered as a discretionary organizational component, but rather as the founding pillar of organizational strategy, whose pursuance it is essentially intended to support, sustain and ease. Business culture requires hence the constant employer attention and active control in that its unintended derailment might produce irreversible, harmful effects on the execution of an organization strategy and ultimately upon the business stability.
Corporate culture, nonetheless, is not only exposed to the pressure coming from the exogenous environment, but it is indeed also sorely subject to the effects produced by the occurrences taking place in the endogenous environment. Amongst these, particularly detrimental to an organization may prove to be the deliberate or inadvertent employee attempt to alter or reinterpret the culture fostered by the business founder. This circumstance is likely to occur when a business founder leaves the organization and when the management diverts its attention away from the importance of consistently and continually fostering the culture originally developed and nourished by the business founder.
The executives and managers of an organization should be particularly cautious and vigilant from this point of view and should do whatever they can to prevent employees from influencing corporate culture, whether their reinterpretation or redefinition may threaten to derail the founder original vision and spirit. This may prove to be a definitely daunting feat to perform in that this employee initiative may be actually triggered by the business management incapability to firmly, convincingly and consistently foster and sustain, for a wide range of reasons, the existing culture. Yet, in some instances, managers might not become aware of the problem until it may be too late, let alone to resolve it once clearly emerged.
The role of HR
The first question to ask is whether HR actually has a role in corporate culture. Since culture is essentially concerned with the organizational values, shared beliefs, individual behaviour and the norms stemming from these, which definitely affect individuals at large, and HR is essentially concerned with people, it can be contended that HR unquestionably has a role to play in corporate culture.
This role, notwithstanding, should not be intended in the sense that HR should be fully involved in the definition and identification of the right or most suitable culture in that, as discussed earlier, this should be indeed invariably regarded as a specific founder duty. Being in charge of the development of human capital management practices and in its strategic advisory role, HR is in a commanding position to competently support an organization founder in developing his/her vision and translate this into corporate culture, but can hardly act as a substitute for the founder in this instance.
Taking heed of the circumstance that culture supports strategy execution, to which this should be hence strictly interrelated, it may be argued that corporate culture is somewhat of in between strategy execution and human capital management. It essentially contains the guiding principles for employers to attain competitive advantage over their competitors building on their most valuable resource, that is to say human capital. As such, corporate culture aims at fostering the behaviour which the employer considers as the most appropriate to achieve competitive edge and hence at developing the organization distinctive approach to “the way we do things around here.”
It can be hardly believed that an organization may achieve competitive advantage whether its management does not foster a corporate culture enabling the business to effectually execute its strategy. The success attained by the organization will contribute in turn to reinforce the individual belief that the behaviour endorsed by the management essentially represents a recipe for success. HR should thus, first and foremost, support the organization management so as to ensure that each manager properly fulfils his/her duty (Table 1 – The role of HR in Corporate Culture).
The role played by HR in corporate culture
http://rosariolongo.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-role-played-by-hr-in-corporate.html