Your Company Culture is Brand

How do you make a company a global company,  “you make it a global company”.  

The internal workings of the company culture must align with the brand value; your company is your brand. Organisational culture encompasses the value and belief systems of the enterprise guiding behaviour and creating a unique psychological environment for its members.

If your company culture does not reflect what you advocate externally  this will be seen in the communications, services and or products of which the firm sells.  Therefore, your culture must be as definable as your brand. The brand acts as a differentiator, it is a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination, this enables users to distinguish one set of goods, products, or services from one group of sellers to another.

As a brand you want your customers to understand you in the way you intended them to.  Customer and stakeholder experiences create value and image. If you want to create a global culture, you must hire people from more than one nation state. Nation culture properties distinctly different from one to another, and this has a profound effect on how work is operationalised and the macro and micro level. 

If your company wants to be a global brand it has to inherently adopt a global culture. All forms of domestic company culture reflect the values of how to perform business in the local market, as an example, some local markets might adhere more to law than others, others might be more punctual than others. 

At this point, it would be advisable to determine the core values of your firm if they are not already apparent. These core values will define the strategies you take to create a mindset, rituals, routines, and drive behaviours of the workforce. Once you have an objective, you can design internal communication plans to reinforce these behaviours that reflect your desired company culture that is in alignment with your brand.

In my experience, the differences in corporate culture are nuanced, i.e. how information flows and is shared amongst colleagues. In this case,  national cultures might behave in different ways, what is key in building a global culture is finding the balance whereby it is accessible and understood by any person without too much time-cost.  Communication is paramount to all people within the corporate culture having solidarity within the context of their work life. When communication is established it is far easier for all to understand each other, and work towards the outlined corporate goals. 

Here is a  tool to determine the core values within your organisation:

(Johnson, Wittington, & Scholes, 2012) Elements of the Cultural Web

Definition

Stories

The past events and people talked about inside and outside the company. Who and what the company chooses to immortalize says a great deal about what it values, and perceives as great behavior.

Rituals & Routines

The daily behavior and actions of people that signal acceptable behavior. This determines what is expected to happen in given situations, and what is valued by management.

Symbols

The visual representations of the company including logos, how plush the offices are, and the formal or informal dress codes.

Organisation Culture

This includes both the structure defined by the organization chart, and the unwritten lines of power and influence that indicate whose contributions are most valued.

Control Systems

The ways that the organization is controlled. These include financial systems, quality systems, and rewards (including the way they are measured and distributed within the organization).

Power Structures

The pockets of real power in the company. This may involve one or two key senior executives, a whole group of executives, or even a department. The key is that these people have the greatest amount of influence on decisions, operations, and strategic direction.