AQA BUSS 4 - Corporate Culture Discussion

Has anyone researched Starbucks? I don't know what to write for them :/

Can somebody please list which companies they have researched?

I'm using Royal Mail, Nokia, Ikea, Zappos, Barclays and Enron

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

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

Im almost finished doing the bulltet points

for section a i've gone through all the theory and researched 3 companies, planning to do 2-3 more today.

i've done about half my research for section B, so still a lot to do!

x

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what companies are you doing for section A/B?

section a - ikea, royal mail, nokia, SW airlines, zappos, enron, barclays i think
section b - lots of different ones, depends on the topic, trying to use the ones for culture and some additional ones like tesco.

would you be able to upload those papers please?

oh okay, have any ones popped up for your section B often that cover a few of the topics? im really stuck with what ones to research for it,and i dont know whether to do like specific in depth ones for section b, or just kind of general in relation to the topics that could come up in section B.

yes i will! i need to scan them, I just need to type some things up and then I will sorry i forgot to do it yesterday!

I have revised around 7-8 companies for the exam but I feel like I don't know EXACTLY what some of their culture is like. For example, even though Amazon has diversified and received profit of $544 million, I don't know what their actual culture is like (anyone who got the tutor2u booklet will understand that the case never specified on their culture, just how they succeeded as an online retailer). Help?

Also, does anyone have any example essay answers for section A or B?

What examples would yu give for employee resistance to change... E.g. British Airways ...

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

Can someone give me a list of all the possible topics that can come up in the Section B question please? Thanks

here :

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/buss4-section-b-prepare-for-hybrid-essay-questions

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/buss4-10-section-b-essay-questions-to-practice