Creating employers' brand through organizational cultures, incl. different culture's spheres such as professional, industry, regional etc. cultures

1. Excellence through Culture, Talent, and Change
Creating Employer’s Brand:
Interacting Spheres of Culture and
Corporate Culture Practice
Hangzhou, April 2010
by Prof. Dr. Hora Tjitra
Version 1.0

2. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Globalization challenges for the HR partners and champions
Challenges for Chinese companies
(% of respondents from companies based in China, n=63)
Three big challenges for Chinese What barriers, if any, has your company faced to undertaking activities outside mainland China?
companies’ globalization
• Developing Managerial Talent Our company does not have enough managerial talent 44
• Managing Cultural Barriers We lack sufficient capital 25
• Attracting International Talent We have an inadequate understanding of legal and/or
reputation risks in other countries 24
Survey from McKinsey Quarterly
Cultural barriers make the business difficult to manage 22
• Most executives at Chinese companies say
the biggest obstacle to the global growth Potential customers have concerns about the quality of
Chinese products 21
of their companies is a lack of managerial
talent.
Customers are unfamiliar with Chinese brands 19
• During the globalization, most Chinese
companies face the challenge of Governments or other stakeholders in other countries had a
negative reaction to our proposed activities 19
combining Chinese and Western forms of
communication and cultural norms. Funds have been difficult to find outside mainland China 14
• 88% of the Chinese executives said that
their globalization efforts were hindered by Logistical barriers make the business difficult to manage 11
the scarcity of people with real cross- Potential employees in new geographies are not familiar
cultural knowledge or experience with our company 10
managing foreign talent.
Other 5
Our company has faced no barriers 3

3. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Chinese Company & Multinational Company in Practice
In Top 50 Best Employers from university graduates’ perspective:
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Multinational
Company 34 33 31 25 25
Chinese
Company 16 17 19 25 25
Source: ChinaHR.com
“While Western-style HRM practices have been increasingly implemented as part of China's social and
economic reforms, there remain a number of questions as to their appropriateness and effectiveness in the
unique Chinese context. So one question that we had was whether the positive relationship between
Western-style HRM practices and employee organizational commitment that has been found in
individualistic and capitalistic countries such as the USA, would also be found in collectivist societies that
are in transition, for example China.”
-- Dr Egri
Professor of Management and Organization studies in the Faculty of Business at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and a visiting Professor of Management at Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

4. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
What are Valuable for Chinese Employees?
DBCC Model
Personal Development
Corporate Brand & Social Influence
Competitive Compensation
Corporate Culture

5. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
What Employees in China Value
MNC perspective
✓ Interpersonal relationships are very important, and need to be central to the business.
✓ Functional competencies and cultural sensitivity are both important to staff.
✓ Employees who feel unvalued or unwanted are likely to leave even if they are paid well.
✓ It is vital to treating employees well to cultivate feelings of belonging and commitment to the firm.
✓ Employees must feel that their boss cares for them personally and professionally. They like to feel that
their managers are taking an interest in their personal lives as well as career development.
Chinese company’s perspective
✓ Good moral image of the company
✓ Outstanding overall strength
✓ Unique and impressive corporate culture
✓ Role model in the aspects of talent attraction, development and retaining
Lui, Cecilia, How best employers retain talent in China, Jun. 2006

6. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Interacting Spheres of Culture
National/Regional
Geography Professional
History
Education
Political and Economic forces
Training
Climate
Selection
Religion
Socialization
Language
Industry
Functional
Resources
Technology External environment
Product market Nature of task
Regulation Time horizon
Competitive advantage Corporate
Founder / Leadership
Administrative heritage
Nature of product/industry stage of development

7. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Regional Culture
Regional cultures refer to differences within countries and similarities between countries.
• East - West division and North - South division
Geography History Political forces Economic forces Language Religion
• Urban-based companies vs. Rural-based companies
Commercial culture Administrative culture Cultural center
Germany Frankfurt Bonn Berlin
India Bombay New Delhi Calcutta
China Shanghai Beijing Nanjing
Near
Eastern Nordic
Finland
Turkey Sweden Austria
• Culture clusters Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
Greece Denmark Germany
Oman Iran Norway Switzerland
Arab Germanic
- Similarities among countries create regional cultures beyond national Bahrain
borders. Far Eastern Taiwan
Chile Italy
US Canada
Anglo
New Zealand UK
Malaysia Singapore
Mexico Portugal South Africa
- Research on managerial values, work attitudes, and leadership styles in Hong Kong
Thailand
Argentina Belgium Australia
Ireland
Columbia France Spain
different countries has confirmed these similarities, indicating this type of Latin Latin
regional culture. Brazil
AmericanEuropean Israel
Japan India
S. Ronen & O. Shenkar, Academy of Management Review Independent
(1985)

8. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
National Culture
Different cultures create the influence on the organizational chart in different countries.
American Chinese French
British Italian
United Nations
International Management, Reed Business Publishing (1985)

9. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Regional Culture - Michelin Case
• Michelin: rural-based company
- The world’s largest tire maker and technological leader Michelin is the only major French company with headquarters
outside Paris.
- It is located in the isolated, rural Auvergne region in central France known for being modest, austere, and pragmatic.
When it goes abroad, it also chose similar isolated, rural sites.
- Michelin makes a point of recruiting engineers from local universities and not from outstanding universities.
- Michelin’s family culture encourages dependency and an inward focus: employees could expect to spend their entire
working lives with the company, living in a company town, complete with company housing, shops, and schools.
Individualism is discouraged and criticism of the company is strongly ill-advised.

10. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Industry Cultures
• Degree of risk vs. Speed of feedback
- Degree of risk involved in each decision of business
- Amount of time the business takes to know the consequences of the decision
• Product / Market Characteristics
- Consumer electronics vs. Pharmaceutical industries: whether patent or
standards provide more value
High
- UNIX: encouraging information sharing between rival companies Bet you Tough guy
- One Swiss pharmaceutical company: “Clean desk” policy company macho
Degree of risks
• Regulation
- Impact on market condition, such as level of competition, which in turn
influences the degree of customer-oriented culture
• Technology Work hard
- Government regulation - technology is developed/protected or not - industry Process
Low
is more valued and crucial or not play hard
• Sources of competitive advantage
- Heavy industry vs. Service industry: efficiency over customer satisfaction &
cost effectiveness over quality Low High
- Capital-intensive industry vs. Knowledge-intensive industry: different focus of Speed of feedback
capital sorts -- financial, human, intellectual

11. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Industry Cultures - Sony Case
• Sony acquired Columbia Pictures for $3.4 billion in 1989.
• Sony insisted on the marketing and technological synergies expected to result from the marriage between
Hollywood’s software and Japan’s hardware.
• Sony got not only a bit of Hollywood but also a large chunk of American culture, while Americans became alarmed at
the “Japanese invasion into the soul of America”
.
• In November 1992, Sony was forced to announce a $2.7 billion write-down on the value of Sony Pictures and
Entertainment.

12. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Professional Culture
The idea of management as a profession and the need to create a “professional” culture are
becoming more important to companies today.
• Different MBAs:
- Harvard-trained MBA: have a generalist approach and to work well in teams, and are hired by large companies into
general management positions
- MIT-trained MBA: be a specialists, perform well in individual assignment, often taking staff roles in smaller companies
- INSEAD-trained MBA: have international background and experience as well as intensive cross-cultural exposure
throughout the program
• Professional culture including:
- Dress code
- Conduct code
- Rules for expression of emotions
- Value and belief
- Method and approach

13. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Functional Cultures
Different functions - finance, production, marketing, and R&D - have different cultures, which
become apparent when cross-functional teams are created to develop new products,
design new policies, or explore new markets.
What Marketing wanted What R&D proposed What Finance budgeted for
What Design built What Production manufactured What Customers wanted

14. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
German Culture and Car Manufacturing
Perfectionism
Germans are perfectionists, therefore they expect a job to be well done. They look earnestly for deficiencies in their products
or services and will criticize and improve the products to match up all their claims.
Detail-oriented
Germans like to go over details time and time again, they wish to avoid any mistake or misunderstanding later, and they are
very patient.
Engineering and quality preference
Cars are made to last 10 to 15 years! Also doors, houses, chairs, tables, and everything should be solid!

15. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Italian Culture and Clothes Fashion
Historical culture center
Italians are charming, intelligent people to whom Europe owes a great cultural debt. They are good at combining ultra-keen
perception with ever-present flexibility.
Emotional expression
Italian communication style is eloquent, wordy, demonstrative and apparently emotional. This is normal for Italians, but
usually over-dramatic for the other cultures.
Social orientation
Italians are gregarious, people oriented. They are friendly, talkative, and like social.

16. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
French Culture and Cosmetic Industry
Extraordinary preference
Frenchmen hate the mediocre. They think big and wide, and they are quite analytical about details
in every aspect of their lives.
Imaginative and abstract
Frenchmen are quick, very imaginative and culture rich.
Affective Autonomy
Emphasizes the desirability of individuals pursuing affectively positive experience

17. Creating Brand via Corporate Culture
Contact Address
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D709
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Email: info@tjitra.com