CI Principle and Practice

Author: Rao Dejiang (Editor) / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features: 3. The function of corporate culture in the production and operation management activities of enterprises plays a positive role. The key element is the person, who is the main body of corporate activities. Enterprises face the market, and mainly face people, providing goods and services for countless consumers. Therefore, to examine the function of corporate culture, it must first start from "people." People are the active creators of culture, creating a rich and diverse culture through practice and struggle; at the same time, people are also passive recipients of culture, always constrained by the culture they have created. Therefore, the function of corporate culture is also mainly referred to as its impact on people. Cultural experts believe that culture, as an explicit and implicit behavioral pattern, provides a series of "rules" for members of society, and these "rules" are always followed repeatedly and continuously. The implicit behavioral pattern refers to thought patterns and emotional patterns, while the explicit behavioral pattern refers to active behavioral patterns. These behavioral patterns "rules" affect both corporate employees and the buyers of the company's products or goods. This is how the function of corporate culture is realized. First, corporate culture has a cohesive function. A company must have unified people to have cohesion. The unity of people mainly lies in two aspects: one is the unity of ideological understanding, and the other is the harmony of emotions. Corporate culture provides employees with thought patterns, making each employee tend to a certain aspect or goal in their understanding and consciously and voluntarily strive for it together. Especially in terms of values, a certain corporate culture can clearly indicate that the realization of corporate value and the realization of individual employee value are interdependent, i.e., it can make decision-makers and managers clearly realize that every small success and development of the company must rely on the talent and fighting spirit of employees, while it also makes employees clearly realize that the success and individual development of each member of the company can only be achieved in the process of the company's success and development. The fate of the company and the personal fate of employees are closely linked together. This kind of ideological understanding of "breathing together and sharing the fate" between the company and employees undoubtedly forms a strong internal cohesion. Corporate culture also provides employees with emotional patterns, that is, between superiors and subordinates, as well as colleagues, they are comrades with the same aspirations, striving for common goals, and a natural sense of closeness naturally arises between people. At the same time, corporate ethics and moral rules adjust the conflicts of interest between employees at any time, dissolving some potential conflicts. For a company with a long history or outstanding achievements, employees also have a sense of close reliance, belonging, and pride. The above emotions undoubtedly form another strong internal cohesion. Second, corporate culture has a radiating function. A corporate culture will always spread in the public. There are three ways of diffusion. First, through on-site situational diffusion, such as customers' actual perception of the cultural atmosphere when purchasing labor services or shopping in a mall; second, through public opinion media promotion association diffusion, such as when the public watches, listens to, or reads about the company's introduction reports or certain messages, they will naturally form some in their minds about the company, and this naturally includes the taste and perception of the corporate culture; third, through product connotation display diffusion. Products, in addition to having practical value (including use value and aesthetic value), also contain cultural connotation. From the shape design and material selection of the product to packaging and functional instructions, they can not only reflect the company's technical level and talent quality but also reflect the company's goals, beliefs, business principles, and management ideas, which are the cultural foundation of corporate culture. Some people metaphorically call this cultural foundation the "soul of the product," and it is not too exaggerated to say so. For example, when customers choose to buy products, from the unique and innovative design and packaging of the products, they can perceive the creative spirit of the manufacturer; from the quality, functional design, usage instructions, and after-sales service of the products, they can perceive the manufacturer's business principles of being honest and responsible, always thinking for the consumers; some products are specially designed to solve consumers' special difficulties, such as extra-large shoes, middle-aged and elderly fashion, and special body shape clothing, which more clearly show the manufacturer's concern and love for consumers; as for those products that focus on aesthetic value and humanistic feelings, it is needless to say that they can better show their cultural connotation. On the contrary, some products have mediocre and monotonous appearance design, outdated and single functions, rough production technology, and simple packaging, and customers can see at a glance that the manufacturer is either of low personnel quality, low management level, or lacking in funds and struggling to survive; in short, the cultural connotation of the product shows the company's low cultural taste. The above-mentioned three ways of situational, promotion association, and product connotation display are the main ways of corporate culture diffusion. In the process of diffusion, corporate culture gradually "radiates" outward, and the radiation effect may be positive or negative. This radiation effect is fed back to the company through business performance information and the public's evaluation of the company, prompting the company's corporate culture to become more mature. There are other views on the function of corporate culture, such as the idea that corporate culture has guiding function, motivation function, and constraint function, and so on. These proposals reflect different perspectives in people's research on the function of corporate culture, which is of important reference value for us to have a deeper understanding of corporate culture. The function of corporate culture has special importance and has been fully played in excellent enterprises. Recently, experts from the RAND Corporation, McKinsey Company, and International Management Consulting Companies, after tracking 30 of the fastest-growing companies in the world, jointly wrote the "Research Report on Corporate Growth." The report said in the last paragraph: As the Business Week commentator article pointed out, the fundamental reason why the Fortune 500 outperforms other companies is that these companies are good at injecting vitality into their corporate culture. The corporate culture of these first-class companies is significantly different from that of ordinary companies. They pay attention to four points: first, teamwork spirit; second, customer-centric; third, equal treatment of employees; fourth, motivation and innovation. With the corporate culture force formed by these four pillars, these first-class companies have remained prosperous for a hundred years. In most companies, the actual corporate culture and the corporate culture the company hopes to form are very different, but for outstanding companies, the actual situation and the ideal corporate culture are highly correlated. They consistently adhere to the core principles and corporate values of the company, and this concept can be said to be a major cornerstone of the success of the world's most admired companies. 4. The relationship between corporate culture and corporate personality The formation of corporate personality is related to the following factors: First, the type of enterprise. According to different standards, enterprises can be classified differently, such as state-owned enterprises, collective enterprises, private enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises, and joint ventures, etc.; they can be divided into large enterprises, medium-sized enterprises, and small enterprises; they can also be divided into industrial enterprises and commercial enterprises; they can also be divided into shareholding enterprises and non-shareholding enterprises, and so on. But here, the discussion is not about how to classify enterprises specifically, but to point out that any enterprise must necessarily belong to a specific type and must have the general characteristics of that type. Therefore, the type of enterprise is one of the decisive factors in the formation of corporate personality. This point is generally easy to understand. Second, the type of business the enterprise engages in. The type of business an enterprise engages in restricts its business operation mode and management model. For example, a department store and a moving company are very different in terms of management and operation. The former mainly provides goods to customers, while the latter mainly provides labor services to customers. They must adopt their respective business operation modes and management models according to their respective business needs. And their corporate personality will also be correspondingly different. Third, the influence of the industry tradition on the enterprise. An enterprise must belong to a certain industry, and the long history tradition of an industry will have an important impact on the behavior of the enterprise, and these traditional influences will also have a nurturing and restraining effect on the formation of corporate personality. However, these factors only have special significance when specifically studying the formation process of corporate personality. This is like studying a person's personality when considering the influence of blood type, occupation, and family education on a person. But now, the focus is mainly on the shaping of corporate image, so the focus is not on the above three factors, but on placing the enterprise in the market competition environment and looking at the individual differences between the enterprise and its competitors in the same industry. Several enterprises with the same type, business, and industry will inevitably have common parts in their personality, but they will not be completely the same, and there must be individual differences. These individual differences make an enterprise different from other competitors in the same industry and make the enterprise show its unique image. How is this individual difference formed? Here, it is necessary to focus on exploring the fourth factor affecting the formation of corporate personality, i.e., corporate culture. The relationship between corporate culture and the formation of corporate personality is very close. The individual differences of corporate personality are mainly determined by the differences in corporate culture.