Managing Corporate Culture - Essay Example

The first chapter started off by defining culture, which is the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and generate social behavior and the last chapter focused on performance management as a factor in the organization culture per se this chapter more directly aimed at the culture of overall societies and countries. Managerial leadership involves influencing others to direct their efforts towards the pursuit of specific goals. There are a number of factors across cultures that influence the way in which managers lead their subordinates.

Some of these factors are personal values, risk preference, the manager’s background, interpersonal skills, and decision making. The challenge for HR professionals is to adjust positively to the culture of the organization. They have to choose the path that reflects their corporate culture of the firm and attitudes of its peopleThese contextual factors have had major implications for the Leading Edge organizations. But in responding to these pressures, they do not have a completely free hand; they are constrained by what has been called their administrative heritage-the cultural and physical constraints on an organization (Bartlett and Ghoshal 1989).

The degree of discretion, or strategic choice, an organization has will be determined to a large extent by leadership style, national culture, commitment to past and continuing strategies, the success of certain symbolic actions, and the nature of its systems and processes.The task of cultural adjustment, however, is the most challenging and important one confronting international, marketers; they must adjust their marketing efforts to cultures to which they're not attuned. In dealing with unfamiliar markets, marketers must be aware of the frames of references they are using in making their decisions or evaluating.

Coaching and counseling were being used significantly in the organizations. Development is seen as the responsibility of the line, not the HR function. Managers in Marks & Spencer have personal development plans linked to the competency frameworks, and with the focus in each company on enhancing customer service and retaining key clients, there is a trend towards development in-role, rather than encouraging job hoping to gain skills