Culture in any of its variants or levels, such as, national, business, occupational, or corporate, is not easy to define. Scholars have attempted to define culture at various levels. For example, Hofstede's work on national culture is a much cited work amongst researchers and scholars. The significance of his work can be assessed by the wealth of literature available on the impact of national culture on business operations, specifically in the area of employer and employee relationship and most of these studies tend to draw from the original work by Hofstede in terms of identifying different cultural dimensions. Most of these works relate to examining and understanding the role that national, cultural differences play in understanding how businesses operate in various countries. Such works are important from the organization's point of view especially for companies having multinational operations because cultural understanding is seen as a key to business success in international business. One significant implication of the impact of cultural differences can be seen in the hiring practices of many Multinational Companies (MNCs) that tend to hire locals especially at the lower levels in large numbers as they feel that the local staff would have a better understanding of the local culture, which can be extended further to the better understanding of the local market by the local employees.
The role of corporate culture within a corporation has been the central theme of
a number of studies. Such studies not only look at the importance of hiring locals, but some
studies have also highlighted the importance of
social identification factors that tend to play an important role in employee retention.
Some studies in the recent past in the wake of
large-scale misappropriations by top executives reported by the popular media have tried
to examine the consequences of incivility and unethical behavior in the workplace and
have stated that unhealthy desire for profits tends
to create a cultural atmosphere that is
detrimental to the long-term well being of
organizations. Some may discount the role of popular media
in formulating and reinforcing the viewpoints of the general public, including
potential employees, but it does play a significant
role, and it is because of this reason that
companies have started investing and highlighting
their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
activities through the popular media. Such activities
help to form a favorable opinion about
organizations and are seen by prospective employees as
good places to work. Such studies direct the
attention towards the role that corporate culture tends
to play in job acceptance decisions by prospective
employees. |
