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AQA BUSS 4 - Corporate Culture Discussion

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Reply 300
Original post by CubePL
Toxic - It is relatively easy to identify evidence on how organisational culture can be an intangible asset of a business - a source of competitive advantage and a key reason for a business enjoying industry-beating financial performance.However, the reverse can also be true. If organisational culture is managed incorrectly or (worse) left un-managed, it can become dysfunctional or toxic. In these situations the organisational culture of a business can become a liability, not an asset. It can even lead to the failure of the business. (taken from tutor2u)

Static - this culture is probably inflexible and unresponsive to changes, kinda bureaucratic culture

Dynamic - I think it's the culture which is opposite to 'static'.

However, personally, I'd stick to Handy's four cultures - power, role, task and person. Also, include entrepreneurial and bureaucratic (I think that's just fancy names for dynamic and static, but I might be incorrect). I don't think you really need many more. Plus just the 'toxic' to describe cultures which can bring disadvantages to a company, example being Enron.


Thanks :smile:
Reply 301
Original post by Timesup88
Just wanted to know what it means when it says "Company's such as Nokia became too inward looking which led to rivals such as Apple taking away their market share".

What does it mean if a company is too "inward looking"?


Too bureaucratic and inflexible/unresponsive to changing external environment (looking INwards at the internal influences only)

In Nokia's case it was not exploiting the 'smartphone revolution' opportunity, which was an external factor :biggrin:
Could someone please give me business examples I could usr for Ways of changing organisation culture and Problems with changing organisation culture. The examples I have arent too good.
Also for Section B do we need to know alot of theory or just focus on our examples and write about those?

Thanks in advance :biggrin:
Reply 303
Original post by butterflyy
Could someone please give me business examples I could usr for Ways of changing organisation culture and Problems with changing organisation culture. The examples I have arent too good.
Also for Section B do we need to know alot of theory or just focus on our examples and write about those?

Thanks in advance :biggrin:

Problems = could face emplyee resistance . Willie Walsh faced this at BA when he tried to change culture . He was met with union action and many strikes which affected their long term profits . Flights were delayed which ruined the reputation. Talk a out Lewis force field model with employees resisting change
Reply 304
what examples did people use for bulletpoint 1?

Ive only used steve jobs fromapple and Anna wintour for vogue so far?

Can anyone reccomend me some other examples please?
Reply 305
Hey people, I dont know if this has been posted on here yet or not - and with 16 pages for this thread, i'm too lazy to look (sorryyy), but last night, tutor2u held their final online revision clinic for buss4 where us students ask questions to examiners and staff at tutor2u. It should be helpful to all of us doing the exam so if you have time, have a look through it. Good luck everyone!

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/buss4-revision-clinic-16-june-2013
Reply 307
Can somebody please list which companies they have researched?

I'm using Royal Mail, Nokia, Ikea, Zappos, Barclays and Enron
Reply 308
Anyone have examples of innovative, entrepreneurial companies whith high market growt and low market share?
Reply 309
Original post by iggyDash
Anyone have examples of innovative, entrepreneurial companies whith high market growt and low market share?


HTC possibly ?


Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 310
hey what case studies are people learning?
Reply 311
Original post by nasheboy


Yes BINGO!
aha thanks
Reply 312
Original post by iggyDash
Yes BINGO!
aha thanks


Glad to help :smile:


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by CubePL
I disagree with you. I think that that the leadership approach Jobs used is lassez-faire/democratic. Even though, yes, decision-making was centralised, the workers in the company had some freedom and innovation was encouraged.


I wouldn't say laissez-faire, he wanted to involve himself in every little detail and though workers did have scope for innovation, he wanted to know about every idea. Yes, decision making is centralised but you could say to an extent, it's democratic due to some degree of delegation but I would say autocratic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/8811232/Virgins-Richard-Branson-Apple-boss-Steve-Jobs-was-the-entrepreneur-I-most-admired.html

But I mean as long as you can back up your answer with evidence I don't think they'd mark you down for saying autocratic over democratic or vice versa.


Original post by OEAFAS
why do they want to maximise profit?


Because it pleases shareholders, but the problem with this is, it's too short termist, they don't focus on the long term sustainability of the business which is why Barclays had significant problems.
Reply 314
im doing research in paper form (mind maps) but also have a document with some research for the topics i have attached.

If someone can send me there research in return it would be greatlly appreciated
Original post by iggyDash
im doing research in paper form (mind maps) but also have a document with some research for the topics i have attached.

If someone can send me there research in return it would be greatlly appreciated


sorry all of mine are hand written but this link is good
http://www.tutor2u.net/buss4revision.pdf
Reply 316
Original post by needtosucceed=)
sorry all of mine are hand written but this link is good
http://www.tutor2u.net/buss4revision.pdf


Thank you!
How far are you in to your research and at what point?

Im almost finished doing the bulltet points
Reply 317
I found a good recent article which talks about John Lewis weekly sales dropping. It would be a great point to slip in for evaluation i think, eg just how sustainable is high profits and sales in a business with a strong culture, and so it could imply that the economy is the overriding factor which determines whether or not a business is successful.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/14/john-lewis-sales-drop-level
Reply 318
Original post by needtosucceed=)
strong cultures will generally lead to success, and weak ones lead to failure.
strong is exactly how you defined it before, employee commitment, team work, everyone has the same values etc. they dont mean strong in the sense of being aggressive/powerful, they mean strong in the sense of everyone working together for the benefit of all the stakeholders, not just themselves.
enron would be weak as there were clear sub-cultures in the firm, everyone wasnt working towards the same goals they were just doing things for their own benefit

I hope that makes things clearer!


This is a massive generalisation. An incorrect one. Strong is not the same as positive and weak is not the same as negative. Barclays and Enron both allowed subcultures to form, their cultures were negative. They caused problems in terms of staff retention and in the case of Enron, survival. Their cultures were, however, strong. At Enron, everyone was aware of the profit maximisation objective and knew that "as long as they brought home the bacon" as one employee was quoted saying, they were safe. Employees were aware of the objective of the company and knew exactly what was needed to achieve them. This, suggests the culture at Enron was strong....but negative. You are right in saying that in general, strong cultures tend to be good and weak bad, but this is not always the case and certainly not with Enron
Reply 319
Original post by iggyDash
im doing research in paper form (mind maps) but also have a document with some research for the topics i have attached.

If someone can send me there research in return it would be greatlly appreciated


This is like a treasure just before the exam.

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