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AQA BUSS 4 - Corporate Culture Discussion

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Not done that much...just have a few facts and figures. Hope this helps

Founded: 1971

CEO: Howard Schultz

Number of stores: 20,891 as of March 2013

Number of countries: 62

Culture: Value employees. Training and development of subordinates is encouraged.

News: Boycotted by customers due to tax avoidance. Competitors like Café Nero in particular have benefitted from the loss in Starbucks’ sales. In December 2012, Costa’s sales went up by 7%.

Long-term strategy: Focus on training.

Social responsibility: Suspended coffee project

Being an employee myself i can tell you how wrong you have the culture there!! But for this exam, it's good research you've done!! What are you focusing on for section b btw? Need some ideas of general companies which encompass most the topic area..

Reply 341

MrBobb

Can someone explain the difference between strong culture, weak culture, negative culture and positive culture with some examples? Please help!

thanks

Reply 342

nadster

Original post by BS95

Haha well that's interesting... Perhaps Starbucks has a problem with subcultures? :P and... At the tutor2u conference in Manchester, the guy told us that AQA like to reuse the section A research topic from the previous year in this year's section B, so I'm looking over mergers and takeovers. I have a feeling globalisation may come up also and perhaps something to do with the current economic climate?

Reply 343

Superunknown17

I have a feeling leadership is expected to come up which would be beautiful.

Reply 344

LewisRichardson

Original post by Superunknown17

I have a feeling leadership is expected to come up which would be beautiful.

Leadership, CSR and ethics would be bloody great.

Reply 345

username818763

Guys I know this sounds really dumb but I'm still confused between section A and B. I know that section A will be on the stuff we are taught i.e leadership, takeovers etc. and that section B could be on anything. I'm confused in terms of research like how do I know which business will be relevant to section B? Like how do I research for section B, which organisations?

Reply 346

nadster

Original post by LewisRichardson

Leadership, CSR and ethics would be bloody great.

Didn't ethics come up in jan?

Reply 347

nadster

Original post by arnoob

Section A is just culture.... B is everything else

Reply 348

MrBobb

Original post by Superunknown17

I have a feeling leadership is expected to come up which would be beautiful.

can you do a brief plan for this question please:
Is leadership the most important influence on organisational culture?

Reply 349

iggyDash

What did Y'all put down for factors influencing organisation culture

Reply 350

Infamous12

Original post by iggyDash

What did Y'all put down for factors influencing organisation culture

The first bullet point?
IKEA: Founder - Ingvar Kamprad built up a family culture of "togetherness".
Google: Leader - Eric schmidt democratic leadership allows for innovation.
Tesco: Industry - focus on cost cutting culture, to achieve cost leadership.

Pretty brief, but hopefully that helps!

Reply 351

MrBobb

Original post by iggyDash

What did Y'all put down for factors influencing organisation culture

leader, wider culture, senior managers, training and recruitment (i think). i am not sure if this is correct

Reply 352

CubePL

Original post by nadster

Royal Mail! :biggrin:

How were Royal Mail's employees resistant to change? I thought they weren't really, with Moya Greene focusing on valuing employees more with, for example, Just Say It.

Reply 353

Oliver1234

Could somebody say if this is ok for starbucks

Starbucks are a multinational coffee company and coffehouse chain based in the united states, with over 20,000 stores in 62 countries. Starrbucks place a huge value on culture and in itself is a reason for starbucks success.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz believes starbucks growth is unconvential, arising not form marketing but through a strong culture and shared values. Howard schultz states whether you are a CEO or a lower level employee the most important thing at work is you communicate your values to others.
Starbucks believe its neccessary to be driven by culture and values rather than rules, which i espescially important in the service sector.
This has allowed starbucks to create a unique community around starbucks with it becoming a lifestyle brand. Starbucks employees are told to follow a set a guide of principles that starbucks culture is based around. One of thes is to create enthusiastically satisfied customers and so employees need to do whatever neccessary to please the customer, this wouldnt be possible at all times by following rules.
This also gives a sense of empowerment to employees.
This suggest to an extent that starbucks operate a power culture, with a relative degree of power given to all employees in the company.

Reply 354

Kieran20

I did some research on RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) today, i think it will be a great example for leadership questions.

RBS
Leader - Fred Goodwin
Leadership Style - autocratic

Culture
1. Freds aggressive leadership style created a culture of fear - http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/latest-news/rbs-collapse-down-to-fred-goodwin-s-culture-of-fear-1-2370574
2.Because of this staff were in constant fear of losing their jobs
3. RBS were fined £390m for it's part in the libor rate fixing scandal suggesting that they focused on generating profit instead of serving the needs of customer
4. The culture also had an element of risk taking shown by the takeover of dutch bank ABN Amro which resulted in bad debts, however this may have been caused by other factors such as the economic climate at the time of the takeover.

Reply 355

Infamous12

Original post by nadster

Didn't ethics come up in jan?

Did you do BUSS 4 in jan?

Reply 356

CubePL

Guys, I've seen you mentioning British Airways (BA) several times. How is BA good for culture and what bullet points does it relate to? :biggrin:

Reply 357

xxm

I think I've finished my revision for Culture. I'd like some feedback

Org culture- the way we do things around here.

Charles Handy believes there is 4 different cultures a company can take - Power(Decision making stems from small amount of people) , Role( responsibilities and roles are easily identifiable) , task (companies culture related to projects usually small team set up to achieve the objective), person (focuses on developing employees and so forth a university will adopt this culture)

Cultures can also be bureaucratic and entrepreneurial. B- is more conservative and less
inclined to take risks more focused on the role culture - advantages brings stability disadvantages may be too slow to react to changing market. E- is opposite more risk taking and links in with power culture and task- adv innovative dis- can take unnecessary risks.

Factors that affect culture:
Leadership- Authoritarian leadership is likely to link with power culture as it is a more controlling leadership - paternalistic and Authoritarian are more bureaucratic cultures. Democratic and laissez- faire more entrepreneurial culture.

Mergers/takeovers -Reasons obvious. A new company will have it's own Culture and dependent on it's share of the business will look to implement it.

Objectives- If a company aim is to achieve maximum profit it is likely to be bureaucratic and adopt a power culture in order to achieve it's goals. Whilst a company looking to diversify in markets is likely to adopt Entrepreneurial culture as innovation is a good tool to break into a market.

Other factors include, Market size and external environment -i.e Nokia had to change it's bureaucratic culture to try to ragain control in the phone market.

The importance of culture is simple - Culture can help a company achieve it's aim through motivating and empowering staff. An Entre culture can help the company diversify into new markets. Can also help create the mission statement of a company amongst other things.

Resistance to Change- Staff, need to recruit new staff, disruption of current programme for the company.May need to change organisational structure.

Companies - Nokia Stephen Elop was bought in to change the culture of Nokia as the Bur culture stagnated their growth as they failed to innovate their phones and thus saw Apple and Samsung amongst many overtake them. The new Culture focuses on a more Entre culture and a more task culture to try to bring innovation amongst the company. projects such as partnership with Microsft highlight the new emphasis on innovation.

John Lewis has a pratnership with it's employees and focuses on theory Y as a result many customers highlight it's fantastic customer service as employees are motivated. The Culture may be Bur however it also is a person culture as emphasis is on employees too. Ceo Andy street believes the success to a businesss comes from it's staff. John Lewis one of the major department stores in the UK and show's culture to be a success.

Barclays- Involved in Libor scandal and former CEO bob diamond handed out many bonuses and focused on short term which gave Barclays bad reputation new CEOAnthony Jenkins focusing on a more Bur culture to try and restore companies image.

Apple-Innovative and an entre culture as well as theory Y steve jobs focused on innovation from staff in order for apple to become on of the key companies in the world. New CEO Tim cook has continued his culture.

Google- Entre culture, founders SErgey and Larry believe in theory Y and also believe in PErson culture as a means to improve and innovate the company.

Now all this was done within 3 hours today, so I would like feedback is it too basic do I need more companies? Any plus points? Feedback wil be hugely appreciated! I need an E to get a B overall and a B to get an A overall.

Reply 358

iggyDash

Original post by MrBobb

leader, wider culture, senior managers, training and recruitment (i think). i am not sure if this is correct

Yeah and the nature of the industry and external factors aswell?

Original post by Infamous12

Yeah thanks for the examples but i meant actual factors. e.g leadership and management style, nature of industry, external factors. You need examples of the above factors aswell as the ones you have which are primarily leadership (one factor) so if a question like "is leadership the strongest influence on an organisatons culture?" you can use the other factors :-)