The corporate culture is the atmosphere or social climate of a company. Developing corporate culture is a complex and multifaceted task. The outcome of business depends largely on its application, that is, on the success of the formation of a corporate culture.
The objective of internal public relations is to create a corporate culture, a management tool that improves the productivity of company employees and contributes to creating a positive image, a good reputation and respect for the company in front of the public.
By corporate culture, it is understood a set of social norms, attitudes, orientations, behavioral stereotypes, beliefs, customs, which are developed and identified by the organization’s staff and which oblige a person or a group to act under certain conditions in a certain way.
On a visible plane, the culture of a group of people takes the form of rituals, symbols, myths, legends, language symbols, and artifacts.
Today, corporate culture is considered to be the main mechanism for ensuring a practical increase in organizational efficiency.
Impact of Corporate Culture
- It is necessary to take into account the importance of the parameters influenced by corporate culture:
- Employee motivation
- The attractiveness of the employer (reflected in employee turnover).
- The morality of each employee is their business reputation.
- Productivity and efficiency of work activity.
- The quality of the employees’ work.
- The nature of personal and industrial relationships in the organization.
- The attitude of employees towards work.
- The creative potential of employees.
According to modern conditions, the company management is interested in flexibility and innovation being the most important and integral components of the company culture.
Corporate culture is a system that exists on at least three levels: content, mental, and active.
Content Level of Corporate Culture
At the content level, corporate culture is a set of blocks established in texts and documents that constitute the regulatory framework for the organization’s activities. The content of these blocks is determined in the course of creating the corporate culture of the organization by the people working in it and self-determination in relation to the environment in a particular capacity.
Mental Level of Corporate Culture
However, keeping the corporate culture outside and beyond the mindset of the company’s employees makes no sense. It is convenient to consider the mental level of corporate culture, that is, its existence at the level of human consciousness and in its forms, as an area of much more complex tasks than the design of development of strategies, technologies, regulations, etc.
For forward-thinking strategies, new programs, more productive standards, effective management style, etc begin to work and bring significant financial results. They must be transformed into managers’ beliefs, commitment, and motivation. The focus on survival and functioning must be shifted to an emphasis on development, a move to new levels of performance and opportunities, a commitment to the high-level principle, corporate values, and a focus on an overall better quality of life.
Activity Level of Corporate Culture
The operational level of corporate culture is the level of people’s practical actions aimed at achieving the mission, strategy, application of the company concept, corporate philosophy, values and standards, the appropriate management style, traditions, programs and projects, etc. People act according to their orientations and goals, as well as their ideas about the situation and the world in general. What is the content and quality of the corporate culture, what is the depth and degree of its acceptance by employees on a mental level, these will be the actions of employees and the effectiveness of these actions.
Corporate culture is directly related to corporate spirit and employee loyalty to the organization. One of the most important tasks of the corporation’s public relations department is to maintain the corporate spirit of both an individual employee and a work team, unite employees with common interests, and understand the common goals of business activity.
The corporate culture can be created intentionally from above, but can also form spontaneously from below, from different elements of different structures, brought by human relationships between employees, managers and subordinates, different people who became employees of the company.