Corporate culture always develops with the development of enterprise and social culture, so corporate culture construction is the eternal theme of enterprises. So what exactly is corporate culture? What is the connotation of corporate culture? How is the corporate culture formed? This is a problem that scholars and entrepreneurs are very concerned about and worth discussing when discussing the construction of corporate culture. This paper first analyzes these basic problems, and then puts forward several important links that should be paid attention to in building corporate culture.
First, the concept of corporate culture
Corporate culture is also called corporate culture. The appearance of this word began in the early 1980s. In the process of forming a new idea and theory, different opinions often appear, and corporate culture is no exception. Looking at the knowledge and understanding of corporate culture at home and abroad, there are mainly the following points:
1. Five-factor theory
American John Deere and John F. Kennedy pointed out in their book "Corporate Culture" that corporate culture is a system composed of five factors, among which values, heroes, manners and customs and cultural networks are four necessary factors, and corporate environment is another biggest influencing factor in the formation of corporate culture [2].
2. The theory of the sum of two cultures
According to this theory, enterprise culture is the sum of material culture and spiritual culture in an enterprise. Material culture is visible culture, which mainly refers to facilities, tools, machines, materials, technology, design, products, packaging, trademarks and so on in enterprises. Spiritual culture is intangible culture, which mainly refers to the values, beliefs, styles, customs and traditions of enterprises.
3. Group consciousness theory
According to this theory, corporate culture refers to the group consciousness and behavior formed by employees in long-term practice. The so-called group consciousness refers to the knowledge, emotion, will and character of employees.
4. Psychological phenomenon theory
This view holds that corporate culture is an organic whole formed in the process of operation and development, including the highest goal, the same values, styles and traditional habits, behavioral norms, ways of thinking and so on. It is a variety of spiritual phenomena with material as the carrier and an "ideology" of enterprises.
What exactly is corporate culture? We might as well understand it in a broad sense and a narrow sense. Broadly speaking, corporate culture is a subsystem of social culture and a subculture. Corporate culture not only reflects the characteristics of production and operation, organization and management, but also reflects the strategic objectives, group consciousness, values and behavior norms of enterprises in production and operation activities through the material basis of production and operation and the products and services produced and operated by enterprises. It is not only a window to understand the degree of social civilization, but also a growing point of social contemporary culture. In a narrow sense, corporate culture is the highest level of humanistic management theory. Corporate culture attaches importance to human factors, emphasizes the power of spiritual culture, and hopes to form codes of conduct, values and moral norms with an invisible cultural force, to unite employees' sense of belonging, enthusiasm and creativity, to guide employees to work hard for the development of enterprises and society, and to make an impact on the social and cultural environment through various channels.
To sum up, we can define corporate culture as follows: corporate culture is a humanistic management theory centered on business management philosophy and entrepreneurship, which embodies employees' sense of belonging, enthusiasm and creativity. At the same time, it is an economic culture influenced and restricted by social culture, with enterprise rules and regulations and material phenomena as the carrier.
Second, the connotation of corporate culture
Corporate culture usually consists of four levels: corporate spirit culture, corporate system culture, corporate behavior culture and corporate material culture.
1, enterprise spirit culture
Enterprise spirit culture is a variety of behavioral norms, group consciousness and values used to guide enterprises to carry out production and business activities, and it is a value system with enterprise spirit as the core.
Enterprise spirit is the core of enterprise values. Enterprise spirit is the ideological achievement and spiritual strength gradually formed by employees in long-term production and business activities, which is established by entrepreneurs' conscious generalization, summary and refining. It is the crystallization of the fine tradition of enterprises and the spiritual pillar to maintain the survival and development of enterprises. It turns out that only people have spirits. The concept of enterprise spirit itself is the personification of enterprise, which is bred by the tradition, experience, culture and management philosophy of enterprise leaders. It embodies a unique and distinctive business thinking and personality style of an enterprise, reflects the belief and pursuit of the enterprise, and is also a concentrated expression of the group consciousness of the enterprise. Enterprise spirit has appeal, cohesion and centripetal force, and is the most precious business advantage and spiritual wealth of an enterprise. It is not dispensable, but essential. As thomas jr Jr., chairman of IBM, said: The achievements of an organization relative to other organizations mainly depend on its basic ideas, spirit and internal motivation, which are much more important than technical level, economic resources and organization, innovation and timing. For example, the enterprise spirit of Zhuzhou Times Group Company is "unity and harmony, truth-seeking and innovation, hard work and dedication". These twelve words were forged by the older generation of entrepreneurs and the new generation of builders of Zhuzhou Times Group Company with wisdom and sweat. Its meaning is: take care of the overall situation, unite as one, and create the great cause of * *; Seeking truth from facts, working hard, pioneering and innovating; Advance despite difficulties, dare to struggle and be brave in dedication. The enterprise spirit of Zhuzhou Times Group has become the basic values of all employees.
2, enterprise system culture
Enterprise institutional culture is an explicit culture composed of legal form, organizational form and management form of enterprises. It is the backbone and bridge of enterprise culture and the organic combination of material culture and spiritual culture in enterprise culture. The institutional culture of an enterprise generally includes enterprise laws and regulations, enterprise management system and enterprise management system.
In the process of enterprise culture construction, it is bound to involve laws and regulations related to enterprises, enterprise management system and enterprise management system. The legal form of enterprise reflects the restriction and influence of social culture on enterprise, and embodies the * * * nature of enterprise system culture. The organizational form and management form of an enterprise reflect the management characteristics of the enterprise itself and embody the personality of the enterprise system culture.
(1) enterprise regulations. Enterprise laws and regulations are the general name of legal norms that adjust the economic relations between the state and enterprises and enterprises in production, operation or service activities. The enterprise laws and regulations of different countries are based on their own natural, social systems and cultural traditions, which have great influence and restriction on the construction of their own enterprise culture. As a legal form of institutional culture, enterprise laws and regulations set a clear code of conduct for enterprises and are an important basis and guarantee for managing enterprises according to law.
(2) the management system of the enterprise. The management system of an enterprise refers to the management responsibility system that strengthens the management responsibility of the enterprise, promotes competition and improves the economic benefits of the enterprise by dividing the production right and the management right without changing the ownership, and is the organizational form of the enterprise system culture.
(3) the management system and concept of the enterprise. Nothing can be done without rules. Generally speaking, enterprise laws and regulations and enterprise management system influence and restrict the general trend of enterprise culture development, and at the same time promote the development of enterprise culture of different enterprises in the direction of personalization. However, the real reasons that restrict and influence corporate culture are internal management system and management concept. Enterprise's system and enterprise's management concept influence and promote each other. A reasonable system will inevitably promote the formation of correct enterprise management concepts and employee values; Correct management concepts and values will promote the correct implementation of the system and enable employees to form good behavior habits.
3. Corporate behavior culture
Corporate behavior culture refers to the activity culture produced by employees in production, management, learning and entertainment. It includes cultural phenomena arising from enterprise management, education and publicity, interpersonal communication and cultural and sports activities. It is a dynamic embodiment of enterprise management style, mental outlook and interpersonal relationship, and also a reflection of enterprise spirit and enterprise values.
Divided from the personnel structure, enterprise behavior includes entrepreneur behavior, enterprise model behavior, enterprise employee behavior and so on. The decision-making methods and behaviors of enterprises mainly come from entrepreneurs, who are the protagonists of enterprise management. Among the enterprises with excellent corporate culture, the most respected are those enterprise model figures who embody corporate values. These model characters "personify" the values of enterprises. They are role models for employees to learn, and their behavior is often regarded as the code of conduct for employees to imitate. Enterprise employees are the main body of the enterprise, and the group behavior of enterprise employees determines the overall spirit and civilization of the enterprise [4].
4, enterprise material culture
As a subsystem of social culture, corporate culture is characterized by taking material as the carrier and material culture as the external expression. Excellent corporate culture is embodied by attaching importance to product development, service quality, product reputation and material phenomena such as production environment, living environment and cultural facilities.
Corporate culture is not only embodied in the material carrier of products, services and technological progress, but also through the construction of the factory, including the transformation of production environment, living facilities and cultural facilities.
(1) transformation of production environment. The quality of the production environment directly affects the mood and psychology of employees. If an enterprise has good greening, beautiful factory buildings and clean environment, it can not only stimulate employees' pride and cohesion, but also directly affect their work efficiency. Therefore, excellent enterprises pay special attention to creating a beautiful working environment for employees, and regard it as an important content of corporate culture construction and an important means to mobilize employees' enthusiasm.
(2) Construction of cultural facilities. People have many needs, not only material needs, but also spiritual needs. Today, with the continuous improvement of material living standards, people's pursuit of spiritual needs is getting stronger and stronger, and the psychology of seeking knowledge, beauty and pleasure is developing rapidly, which constitutes a subject that cannot be ignored in the construction of corporate culture. Establishing and perfecting staff cultural facilities and actively carrying out healthy and beneficial cultural and sports activities are important material and cultural contents of many excellent enterprises [5].
Third, the formation mechanism of corporate culture
Corporate culture is usually formed in a certain production and operation environment. In order to meet the needs of enterprise survival and development, it was first advocated and practiced by a few people, and gradually formed after a long period of communication and standardized management. The process is shown in the figure below.
1. Corporate culture is formed for the survival and development of enterprises in a certain environment.
Existence determines consciousness, and the core values of enterprise culture are formed in the environment of enterprise survival and development. For example, the business concepts of "customer first" and "customer first" were formed under the conditions of the emergence of a buyer's market in commodity economy and fierce competition among enterprises. To some extent, the anniversary spirit of sharing worries for the country, striving for strength and self-reliance was formed in the 1950s and 1960s when China faced foreign blockade, domestic economic difficulties and scattered and dangerous oil production. As a social organism, enterprises should survive and develop, but there are some constraints and difficulties in objective conditions. In order to adapt to and change the objective environment, corresponding values and behavior patterns will inevitably arise. At the same time, only the culture that reflects the needs of enterprise survival and development can be accepted by most employees and has strong vitality.
2. Corporate culture originated from the advocacy and demonstration of a few people.
Culture is a dynamic product of people's consciousness, not a negative reflection of the objective environment. Objectively speaking, the need for a certain culture is often intertwined with various contradictory interests, fetters and deep-rooted traditional customs. Therefore, at the beginning, only a few people always realize it first. They put forward cultural ideas that reflect objective needs, advocated changing old ideas and behaviors, and became pioneers of corporate culture. It is precisely because of the demonstration of a few leaders and advanced elements that others in the enterprise are encouraged and driven, forming a new cultural model of the enterprise.
3. Corporate culture is the result of persistent propaganda, continuous practice and standardized management.
Corporate culture is essentially a process of overcoming old ideas and behaviors with new ideas and behaviors. Therefore, new ideas and concepts must be widely publicized and instilled before they can be gradually accepted by employees. For example, after decades of propaganda and indoctrination, Japan finally formed the crisis consciousness of enterprise employees and even the whole nation and the spirit of desperate competition.
Corporate culture will generally go through a process of gradual improvement, finalization and deepening. A new idea needs constant practice. In the long-term practice, by absorbing collective wisdom and constantly supplementing and correcting it, it will gradually become clear and perfect.
The natural evolution of culture is quite slow, so corporate culture is generally the result of standardized management. Once the enterprise leaders confirm the rationality and necessity of the new culture, they should formulate the corresponding code of conduct and management system at the same time of publicity and education, and constantly strengthen it in practice, and strive to change employees' ideological concepts and behavior patterns and establish a new enterprise culture [6].
Fourth, the construction of corporate culture.
According to the formation mechanism of corporate culture and successful experience at home and abroad, we should pay special attention to the following main links in the construction of corporate culture:
1, scientifically determine the content of corporate culture
In the process of determining the content of corporate culture, the following points should be considered:
(1) According to the trend of social development and the gradual progress of culture, consider the cultural model in combination with the future goals and tasks of the state and enterprises. The change and progress of production mode and lifestyle will inevitably lead to the development and variation of people's psychological and behavioral patterns. The evolution of culture is an objective law and an inevitable requirement to realize the new goals and tasks of the country and enterprises.
(2) According to the external objective environment and internal realistic conditions of the enterprise, the * * * sex culture and personality culture of the enterprise are formed. For example, large-scale socialized production requires a spirit of cooperation, strict discipline and firm style of work; Commodity economy needs to establish a good relationship with users to ensure the quality of products and services. These are characteristics that are independent of the nation and the enterprise. However, there are differences in natural resources, economic base and personnel composition among enterprises, which will objectively produce and require different cultural characteristics. For example, enterprises with large investment, slow results and high risks generally need a far-sighted, thoughtful and rigorous attitude and style, while enterprises producing consumer goods need a flexible and alert style.
(3) Take a critical and inherited attitude towards the long-standing national culture and the existing corporate culture, take its essence and discard its dross, and adopt a dialectical analysis method, which cannot be simply affirmed or denied. In particular, we should be good at carrying forward the fine traditions of our company.
(4) Learn from others and absorb the excellent culture of other nationalities and enterprises. Matsushita Electric Company of Japan attaches great importance to gathering the world's excellent corporate culture. It is stipulated that foreign subsidiaries have the mission of studying the corporate culture of various countries. When leaders of subsidiaries return to China for debriefing or training, they should first report the corporate culture characteristics of their countries and regions. For foreign corporate culture, we should not simply adopt "takenism", but adopt an attitude of careful identification, analysis and research and selective absorption. Find out what is excellent and what is suitable for you. At the same time, borrowing the strengths and essence of others must be reformed before it can be applied to your own enterprise. For example, in the early 1950s, Americans taught Japanese entrepreneurs the evaluation and measurement technology of product quality management, which was quickly transformed into a world-famous QC group activity.
(5) Pay attention to personality development. The cultural personality of an enterprise is the characteristic that distinguishes it from other enterprises in culture. It only belongs to this enterprise and only applies to this enterprise, which is a reflection of the survival and development conditions of this enterprise and its historical continuation. Excellent enterprises at home and abroad are enterprises with distinctive cultural personality. As an enterprise belonging to the same American cultural district, HP's corporate culture shows many unique places. It advocates collectivism and the establishment of relaxed, trusting and harmonious interpersonal relationships. The purpose of the company clearly points out: "The achievement of the organization is the result of the concerted efforts of every colleague Qi Xin." The construction of conscious culture of enterprises in China has just begun. Ordinary enterprises do not have their own unique cultural style, so we need to pay more attention to the development of corporate cultural individuality. First of all, we should recognize our own characteristics, give play to some advantages of our own enterprises, give play to the cultural quality of our own enterprises, and develop our own cultural personality on the basis of our own experience.
(6) Focus on enterprise development strategy and cultivate enterprise spirit. Enterprise culture should adapt to the needs of enterprise development strategy and serve to promote enterprise development. Enterprise spirit is the core of enterprise culture and the spiritual pillar of enterprise. The content of enterprise spirit should be adapted to the enterprise development strategy. For example, over the past 40 years, the employees of Zhuzhou Times Group Company have worked hard and forged the enterprise spirit of "unity and harmony, seeking truth from facts and innovation, hard work and dedication". It is with this spirit that the development of Zhuzhou Times Group Company has an inexhaustible spiritual pillar and source of strength.
2. Publicity and implementation
(1) widely publicized, forming * * * knowledge. Daqing Oilfield 1205 drilling team was led by "Iron Man" Wang Jinxi. Although the leadership team has changed many times and the personnel have been constantly updated, the "iron man spirit" has been maintained and carried forward because of persisting in publicizing the tradition of workers' hard work.
(2) The leaders take the lead and practice. Enterprise leaders are the leaders of enterprise culture, and the exemplary behavior of enterprise leaders is a silent call, which plays an important demonstration role for employees. Therefore, in order to shape and maintain corporate values, leaders themselves should become the embodiment of these values and instill corporate values into all members through their own actions. First of all, leaders should pay attention to the summary, shaping, publicity and advocacy of corporate culture. Secondly, we should set an example and embody the values of the enterprise in every specific work.
(3) Improve the system and guarantee the system. Corporate culture is a combination of soft and hard management skills. In the construction of corporate culture, both "soft and hard" complement each other. While cultivating the overall values of enterprise employees, it is necessary to establish, improve and perfect necessary rules and regulations, so that employees have both value orientation and institutionalized norms. At the same time, when building corporate culture, we should adjust the internal organizational structure of enterprises and establish and form the organizational system required by cultural construction.
(4) lead by example, typical guidance. Playing an example role is an important and effective way to build corporate culture. It is beneficial to the formation and development of excellent corporate culture to follow the example of those individuals and collectives who can best embody values, publicize and commend them with great fanfare, and constantly adjust the incentive methods according to the development of the objective situation. Deere and Kennedy regard heroes as one of the five elements of corporate culture in their book Corporate Culture, and think that
Corporate culture without heroes is an incomplete culture, which is difficult to spread and transmit.
(5) Strengthen training and improve quality. If the employees' basic quality is not high or they lack good professional ethics, the healthy and sustainable development of productive forces is impossible, and the construction of corporate culture can only be an armchair strategist. Strengthening training and constantly improving the basic quality of enterprise employees is the basic guarantee for building enterprise culture. In Panasonic, every young person who goes to work must first receive training in professional ethics, business philosophy, collective consciousness and self-cultivation, and receive etiquette education in language and dealing with people. Only by passing the exam can he be hired.
3. Actively strengthen and persevere.
The values, creeds, slogans, styles, customs, etiquette and other cultural elements of enterprise employees are the products of continuous positive reinforcement. Reinforcement refers to the process in which human behavior is continued or interrupted by some stimulus. The reinforcement that obtains the result of behavior continuation is called positive reinforcement or positive reinforcement; The reinforcement of interrupting or pausing behavior is called negative reinforcement or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement stimulus makes people get rewarding emotional experience, while negative reinforcement stimulus brings punitive emotional experience. Pursuing happiness and avoiding pain, pursuing advantages and avoiding disadvantages are the basic laws of human behavior, and these laws should also be followed when building corporate culture to actively strengthen employee behavior.
Corporate culture construction should be a long-term behavior of enterprises, and short-term surprise attack is not feasible and harmful. A certain cultural quality created and advocated by a few people in the organization is spread to every group in the organization, and then spread from one group to everyone, so that it can take root, blossom and bear fruit in every corner of the enterprise. This is a long process. To change the mode of corporate culture, we should not only accumulate new cultural qualities for a long time, but also repeatedly compete and struggle with the "inertia" of the old cultural qualities. To learn from other cultural qualities, we not only need to identify them to decide whether to choose, but also need to process and digest them for a long time before we can absorb them into our own culture. Therefore, the construction of corporate culture must be long-term efforts and perseverance.