Corporate culture and organizational identity

Role of Corporate Culture in Customer Relations

Corporate culture refers to the shared values, attitudes, standards, and beliefs that characterize members of an organization and define its nature. Corporate culture is rooted in an organization's goals, strategies, structure, and approaches to labor. (Small business encyclopedia, n.d.)

If I were going to tell our people five ways to be successful," said

David Glass (former CEO of Walmart), "they would be: 1. Think like a customer. 2. Sell the customer what they want to buy.

Provide a genuine value to the customer. 4. Make sure the customer has a good time. 5. Exceed the customer's expectations."

Now, that's a corporate culture that enhances customer relations. And to confirm those results, one only has to look at the rise, expansion, and success of Walmart, even during these very difficult financial and economic times. Thinking of the customer first did not originate with Mr. Glass at Walmart. "Customer" was founder Sam Walton's creed. (Lisanti, 1989)

The successful relationship with the customer must evolve from the corporate culture. The whole idea of an executive, manager, or employee being involved in the decision-making process, sharing the good news and the bad news, and being positively reinforced for their ideas and performance, will create a tremendous company spirit and pride of workmanship on every level of management from the headquarters office to the stock room. This, of course, reflects in each employee's positive view of, and relationship with, each and every customer. (Lisanti, 1989)

The small things a company does for its employees, they then do for customers.

Committed employees tend to strongly identify with the goals of an organization, and they are proud to work in it. Culture is embodied in the phrase "this is the way we do things around here," or more precisely, organizational culture is "what people perceive they have to do to fit in, be accepted, and rewarded." Culture defines accepted behavior.

BPIR.com, n.d.)

As a direct result of its established culture, Southwest Airlines experienced soaring profitability along with excellent staff and customer engagement. After the events of 9/11, many travelers wanted to cancel or change travel arrangements on purchased tickets. While many airlines charged for making such changes, Southwest's mission statement provided guidance. The mission called for "dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit." Accordingly, the airline decided not to charge for changes or cancellations, and to offer full refunds if requested. As a result of its actions, Southwest continued to prosper through a most challenging time for the travel industry, and still does.

Role of Corporate Culture in Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the ongoing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and contribute to economic development, while improving the quality of life of its employees and that of the local community within which it operates as well as society at large.

How do you design corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts that are integrated with the business strategy? How do you measure social impact? How do you promote a corporate culture that embraces and supports your CSR strategy?

The CSR programs need to be run at a senior level, not passed off to a director or manager level. The social responsibility of an organization should be rightly placed in the head office. There, by example, and by direction, the CSR programs are almost automatically into the corporate culture of the company. (Gettler, 2007)

Companies, whether individually or together with other bodies and social groups, may promote an attitude favorable to the common good by using their distinctive competencies to find new solutions to social problems, by proposing business solutions as models applicable in other spheres of society, and by fostering individual and group initiative. (IESE Business School, n.d.)

Corporate culture, as the basis for all action, needs to be translated into everyday business processes and operations. CSR therefore, represents the tools for implementing the company's corporate culture putting it into practice. (ICCA, n.d.)