企业文化

2024年3月7日发(作者：奔驰车型介绍)

Corporate culture

Introduction:

Corporate culture is one of the important conceptions in organizations in recent years. Every organization has its own unique culture or value set. Having a clear understanding of corporate culture and its classification would help us comprehending the organization in every aspect. Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner’s 1[1]have defined four kinds of corporate cultures: the family, the Eiffel Tower, the guided missile and the incubator. We will certainly benefits from studying their classification of corporate cultures.

Key words:

Corporate culture, classification, overlap

What is corporate culture?

Many articles and books have been written in recent years about culture in organizations, usually referred to as \"Corporate Culture.\"(企业文化) Here corporate culture refers to \"the moral, social, and behavioral norms of an organization based on the beliefs, attitudes, and priorities of its members.\"

Organization’s culture is not a list of values developed at an offsite by the executive team and framed on the wall in their lobbies. These are ideals. Every organization has its own unique culture or value set. Most organizations don\'t consciously try to create a certain

culture. The culture of the organization is typically created unconsciously, based on the values or of the top management or the founders of an organization. In reality, what management pays attention to and rewards is often the strongest indicator of the organization\'s culture. This is often quite different than the values it verbalizes or

the ideals it strives for.

Culture drives the organization and its actions. It is somewhat like

\"the operating system\" of the organization. It guides how employees think, act and feel. It is dynamic and fluid, and it is never static. A culture may be effective at one time, under a given set of circumstances and ineffective at another time. There is no generically good culture. There are however, generic patterns of health and pathology.

The classification of corporate culture

Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner’s classification of the corporate culture is based on two dimensions, universalism-particularism（普遍主义-特殊主义）and individualism-collectivism（个人主

义-集体主义）, thus generating four quadrants. The dimensions they

used to distinguish different corporate cultures are equality-hierarchy（平等-等级） and orientation to the person-orientation to the task（以人为本-以工作为本）. These two dimensions enable them to define four types of corporate culture. The four types can be described as follows.

1, the family（家庭型）

2,the Eiffel Tower（埃菲尔铁塔型）

3, the guided missile（导弹型）

4, the incubator（孵化器型）

Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner point out that these four types of corporate culture are “ideal types”. While in practice the types are mixed or overlaid with one another（相互混合交替）. It’s rather complicated than our imagination. And this classification is useful for exploring the basis of each type in terms of how employees learn, change, resolve conflicts, reward, motivate and so on. We do get benefits from studying their classification of corporate

cultures.

The family culture家庭型文化

According to Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, the

metaphor of family culture poses a kind of close relationship within the whole organization. “It is personal and at the same time hierarchical（等级性质的）, in the sense that the “father” of the family has experience and authority greatly exceeding those of his “children”, especially where these are young. As a result, the leader in the organization is regarded as a caring father（慈爱的父亲） who knows better than his subordinates what should be done and what is

good for them. However, rather than being threatening, this type of power is essentially intimate and (hopefully) benign. The work of

the corporation in this type of culture is usually carried forward in

an atmosphere that in many respects mimics the home.” Father is always the representative of power and authority at home, especially in the Asian countries. However, he is also a caring father, whose power and authority seems quite intimate and benign, not threatening at all. (Here the absolute authority posed by some arbitrary leaders is exclusive in this setting). To some extend, the subordinates

are passively accepted the arrangement and order of the father, but

this order could essentially bring benefits to them. And the benign

atmosphere of a big family is quite humanistic.

The Eiffel Towel culture埃菲尔铁塔型文化

As we mentioned above, the nepotism（裙带关系） within an organization would be regard as corruption and a conflict of interest by

some cultures for the reason that they emphasizes on the various roles and functions prescribed in advance. They’re role orientated. Everyone of the organization has been placed in a certain place, being responsible for the certain work prescribed by his or her supervisors. If every one of them dedicated to carry out their works successfully, the whole organization would be run smoothly forward. In other words, the whole organization assembles a pyramid（金字塔）,

forming a certain kind of hierarchy（等级）. Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner have chosen the Eiffel Towel in Paris to symbolize this culture type “because it is steep, symmetrical, narrow at the top and broad at the base, stable, rigid and robust.” It’s characteristic to some degree assemble that of the work hierarchy in role orientated corporate. And more importantly, “its structure, too, is more important than its function”. Therefore, the organization, including the supervisors and the subordinates, pay their attention to the structure of the organization rather than the functions. Function would be taken over by structure under certain circumstances.

The guided missile culture导弹型文化

Equality, or being called the egalitarian（平等）, is the very characteristic of the guided missile culture. Everyone in an organization has taken up an unchangeable place and on one could be replaced by another. The role of each individual has been greatly emphasized.

Moreover, “the guided missile culture is oriented to tasks, typically

undertaken by teams or project groups”. Team and project group is the focus of their work. To some extend, accomplish a project usually become the goal for the supervisors and subordinates.

The guided missile culture differs from the family culture type and the Eiffel Towel culture type. Egalitarian （平等）within an organization is emphasized rather than the interpersonal relationship（人际关系） that is typical in the family culture type. Changes come quickly to the guided missile culture. New project and target will come, and new groups will be formed, and new boss of the project will be nominated soon. Consequently, loyalties to professions and projects are greater than loyalties to the company. “The guided missile

culture is in many respects the antithesis of the family culture, in

which bonds are close and ties are of long duration and deep affection.” Therefore, due to their task-orientated （工作导向型）characteristics, it resembles the Eiffel Towel culture. The Eiffel Towel culture nevertheless pays attention to their inner structure rather than the egalitarian among the members, while the results of a project is w

hat the guided missile culture emphasizes, not the means to accomplish it.

The incubator culture孵化器型文化

According to Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, the incubator culture is based on the existential idea that organizations are secondary to the fulfillment of individuals（组织从属于个人成就）. The individuality id the most influential value within this kind of

organizations. The cultural incubator is quite similar to the logic of business. Both of them are designed to free individuals from the routines to more creative activities and to minimize time spent on self-maintenance. As a result, “incubators often, if not always, operate in an environment of intense emotional commitment”. The employees and the employers are working toward a common goal, to bring something beneficial to the society and the mankind. And the well-being of themselves are not so important compare with the greatness of the work they’re undertaken. For example, the computer could bring ‘power to the person”, and the gene-splicing could save crops, save lives, rescue the economy. They enjoy the process of creating and innovating. And that’s the pleasure of their lives. Thus the shared enthusiasm and superordinate goals constitutes the invisible

tie that forms the close relationships among the work partners, thus creating an honest, effective, nurturing working atmosphere.

References:

[1]丰斯。特龙彭纳斯，查理斯。汉普登-特纳。在文化的波涛中冲浪：理解工商管理中的文化多样性。 北京，华夏出版社，2003，1

[2]王正元. 国际商务文化. International Business Culture. 沈阳:辽宁教育出版社, 2001. 4.

“企业文化”，就是企业成员共同的价值观念和行为规范。讲通俗点，就是每一位员工都明白怎样做是对企业有利的，而且都自觉自愿地这样做，久而久之便形成了一种习惯；再经过一定时间的积淀，习惯成了自然，成了人们头脑里一种牢固的“观念”，而这种“观念”一旦形成，又会反作用于(约束)大家的行为，逐渐以规章制度、道德公允的形式成为众人的“行为规范”。