Figure 3.12 shows the proportion who answered “a” (internal con-
trol).
Our database shows that Western cultures share extremely inter-
nally-controlled orientations. It is obvious that most Western
managers are selected on the competence (false or not) that essen
-
tially any environment can be controlled, any market created, and
any problem overcome by one’s own doing. You market what we
can produce, better known as technology push. Asians, who mostly
come from externally-oriented cultures, are supremely equipped to
be stimulated by signals from the markets. Correspondingly, they
operate under the handicap of often not being the ones pushing the
latest technological developments.
Thus the dilemma is between “selling what you can make” or “mak
-
ing what you can sell.”
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BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES
Figure 3.12 Internal versus external control: percentage selecting “what hap-
pens to me is my own doing.”
GENDER DIFFERENCES
The locus of control is one of the few value dimensions where men
and women score with any significant difference across cultures.
Both in the US as well as in Asia and Europe, males are significantly
more inner-directed than females (see Figure 3.13).
Women seem to be more motivated by external stimuli while men
seem to believe they are in control of their environment by superim
-
posing their views on it.
We use a range of questions of which the following is an example to
position people along this dimension:

any clients
1/10
At the mercy of
your clients
Adapting to the environment by
being pulled by the market
Controlling the environment
by pushing technology
0
10
10
Push the technology
through the demand
of your clients
Figure 3.14 Push through pull
inventiveness. If we take a consumer electronics company like
Philips, nobody will deny its great knowledge and inventiveness in
its specific technologies and the quality of its marketing. The problem
the company had faced was that its two major functional areas didn’t
seem to connect and communicate. The success of an organization is
dependent on the integration of both facets. The push of technology
needs to help to decide which markets you want to be pulled by. And
the pull of the market needs to help you to know what technologies to
push (see Figure 3.14).
YOUR OWN ORIENTATION ALONG THESE DIMENSIONS
Throughout chapters 2 and 3 we have sought to both explain each
value dimension and demonstrate how these can describe cultural
differences. After recognizing and respecting these differences, we
can begin to reconcile them. You can usefully think about your own
orientation along these dimensions and how your overseas business

share in terms of the “way things are done in this organization.”
Their system of shared meaning is no longer from their countries of
birth but from their shared way of working together, from making
PowerPoint presentations to colleagues using an in-house style with
corporate logos to using their own “corporate language,” from talk-
ing in terms of short-term budgets (rather than longer-term Japanese
thinking) to e-mail protocols and resource planning systems.
The corporate culture of the organization is now the driver. “Man-
agement of culture” is now about creating a corporate culture in
which people will work together to achieve the organization’s goals,
reconciling dilemmas that originate from issues of corporate culture.
Of course, this is not free of (national) culture. An organization in
one part of the world with a society that ascribes status may choose
an organization model that builds initially upon ascription rather
than achievement. But what of the global company with a diverse
workforce? And what is the link between corporate culture and
business?
This chapter discusses how one can approach the role and assess
-
ment of organizational culture. The basic framework is to compare
the current corporate culture with some idealized state as a means of
101
eliciting the dilemmas which have to be reconciled. The ideal corpo
-
rate culture is therefore discussed in the context of business goals
and the dilemmas that it provokes.
DEFINING CORPORATE CULTURE
Organizational culture is an elusive concept, which has been sum
-
marized by Silvester, Anderson, and Patterson (1999). Definitions

or strategic alliance. While cultures differ markedly in how they
approach these dilemmas, they do not differ in needing to make
some kind of response. They share the destiny to face up to different
challenges of existence. Once the leaders have become aware of the
problem solving process, they will reconcile dilemmas more effec
-
tively and will therefore be more successful.
It is becoming more frequently recognized that organization devel-
opment and business process reengineering have failed too often
because they ignored aspects of (corporate) culture. However, sim-
ply “adding” the culture component does not suffice. This explains
perhaps why culture is very often ignored. Values are not artifacts
that can be added. They are continuously created by interactions
amongst people and are not “just out there” like rocks. As such, cul-
ture is only meaningful in the context in which the members of an
organization go about their daily work.
CORPORATE CULTURE IN MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS, AND
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES
Globalization through mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances
is big business – currently well over US$2,000 billion annually. They
are sought after more than ever, not only for the implementation of
globalization strategies but as a consequence of political, monetary,
and regulatory convergence. Even so, two out of three deals don’t
achieve anywhere near the expected benefits that prompted the ven
-
ture (Trompenaars and Woolliams, 2001).
It is common to acquire an organization with less concern for full
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CORPORATE CULTURE
integration simply to purchase its inherent value. Increasingly how

HR has a major role to play. Consideration must be given to leader
-
ship styles, management profiles, organizational structures, working
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BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES
practices, and a wide range of perceptions in and of the market
place. In short, culture is pervasive. Even when strategists and
senior managers recognise the importance of culture, frustration
continues because until now they have had no means of assessing or
quantifying its causes and effects, or of taking relevant effective
action.
Based on our extensive experience working with client companies
involved in such mergers and alliances, we have developed a new
methodology that we call Cultural Due Diligence. This provides an
operational framework in order that the consequences of corporate
culture clash can be made explicit and thereby reconciled to ensure
benefit delivery. It is again based on the three ‘R’s: Recognition,
Respect and Reconciliation.
MAJOR TENSIONS ORIGINATING IN
CORPORATE CULTURE
Much of our inductive thinking owes its origin to our portfolio of
effective diagnostic and analytical tools and models, and the large
and reliable database we have established. This enables either us to
facilitate or let organizations themselves diagnose the tensions they
are facing.
Structure is a concept that is frequently used in the analysis of orga
-
nizations and many definitions and approaches are to be found. Our
interest here is in examining the interpretations employees give to
their relationships with each other and with the organization as a

Incubator
Guided Missile
Eiffel Tower
Family
Figure 4.1 Four culture types
Our model identifies four competing organizational cultures that
are derived from two related dimensions:
•
Task or Person (high versus low formalization)
•
Hierarchical or Egalitarian (high versus low centralization)
Combining these dimensions gives us four possible culture types, as
shown in Figure 4.1.
THE EXTREME STEREOTYPES OF
CORPORATE CULTURE
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CORPORATE CULTURE
The Incubator
This culture is like a leaderless team. This person-oriented cul-
ture is characterized by a low degree of both centralization and
formalization. In this culture, the individualization of all
related individuals is one of the most important features. The
organization exists only to serve the needs of its members.
An Incubator organization has no intrinsic values beyond
these goals; the organization is an instrument to the specific
needs of the individuals in the organization. Responsibilities
and tasks within this type of organization are assigned primar
-
ily according to the member’s own preference and needs.
Structure is loose and flexible and control takes place through

The management of the organization is predominantly seen as
a continuous process of solving problems successfully. The
manager is a team leader, the commander of a commando unit,
in whose hands lies absolute authority. This task-oriented cul
-
ture, because of its flexibility and dynamism, is highly
adaptive but at the same time is difficult to manage. Decentral
-
ized control and management contribute to the shortness of
channels of communication. A task-oriented culture is designed
for a rapid reaction to extreme changes. Therefore matrix and
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CORPORATE CULTURE
project types of organizations are favorite designs for the
Guided Missile.
Its main characteristics are:
•
task orientation
•
power of knowledge/expertise
•
commitment to tasks
•
Management by Objectives
•
Pay for Performance.
The Family
The Family culture is characterized by a high degree of central-
ization and a low degree of formalization. It generally reflects
a highly personalized organization and is predominantly

ties. Bureaucracy and the high degree of formalization makes
this organization inflexible. Respect for authority is based on
the respect for functional position and status. The desk has
depersonalized authority.
In contrast with the highly personalized Family, members of
the Eiffel Tower organization are continuously subordinated to
universally applicable rules and procedures. Employees are
very precise and meticulous. Order and predictability are
highly valued in the process of managing the organization.
Duty is an important concept for an employee in this role-ori
-
entated culture. It is duty one feels within oneself, rather than
an obligation one feels towards a concrete individual.
Procedures for change tend to be cumbersome, and the role-
orientated organization is slow to adapt to change.
DIAGNOSING CORPORATE CULTURE WITH OUR CCAP
In the process of managing change it is of utmost importance to
diagnose the current culture in which the organization operates. As
Cameron and Quinn (1999) observe: “Unfortunately, people are
unaware of their culture until it is challanged, until they experience
a new culture, or until it is made overt and explicit through, for
example, a framework or model.” Measurements and assessment
using our model of four corporate cultures have been based on our
Corporate Culture Assessment Profile (CCAP) questionnaire; you
can review examples of questions from this CCAP tool on the Cul-
ture for Business website (www.cultureforbusiness.com). The CCAP
questionnaire has been constantly refined to achieve statistically sig
-
nificant levels of reliability and consistency, and we use this to chart
both current and ideal cultures along some important managerial

In order to triangulate our questionnaire results, key players (lead-
ers, change agents, internal consultants) are interviewed either
face-to-face or through our WebCue™ range of interactive web
pages. We engage senior management in “guided fantasies” such as
asking them to represent their current organization as an animal, car,
or famous television personality and to state the reasons why. On
the basis of these diverse inputs we assemble a picture of their domi-
nant cultural profile(s) that is subsequently codified in a feedback
report to the key players.
Research data from our 65,000 case database reveals that the domi-
nant current, as well as ideal, state is the task-oriented Guided
Missile. However after controlling for the different sizes of our sam
-
ples (Dutch, US, and UK samples are the largest) we see that the
distribution changes significantly.
What the current and ideal corporate culture is seems to be related to
a wide range of factors. At the detailed level, there are frequently
recurring differences across industries, functional areas, genera
-
tions, genders, and the propensity to encourage and enable innova
-
tion.
The corporate culture model also has links with the personal seven
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BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES
dimensions model explained in Chapters Two and Three. Thus the
relationship between employees in the Family or Incubator tends to
be diffuse and in the Eiffel Tower and Guided Missile it is more
specific. Status is ascribed more in Family and Eiffel Towers, while
Guided Missile and Incubator organizations are more achievement

Without doubt, survival of the business is ultimately the responsibil-
ity of the leadership of the organization (Schein, 1997). Not just the
responsibility of the very top, but also the responsibility of all those
who are able to connect actions with the survival of any particular
organizational activity: it is “multiple leadership” (Pettigrew, 1985).
In some respects, the pervasive nature of implicit culture can make it
difficult to manage. Even at the explicit level, traditional practices
become enshrined as “sacred cows” that cannot easily be chal
-
lenged. In an ideal world we would go back and challenge the
implicit values behind each of these explicit constructs in order to
check whether they were still the best way of delivering and rein
-
forcing those values. When the products of culture become sacred
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BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES
Implementing
new design and
define actions
Envisioned
future
Current
organizational
culture
Core values
Key purpose
Ideal
organizational
culture
Business

sure bet, but the organization must believe that it can reach the goal
anyway.
In our professional practice we have found that the development of
a “vivid description” translates the vision into rich pictures (both
vibrant and engaging), creating an image people can carry around in
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CORPORATE CULTURE
their heads. Once we have attained a level of passion, emotion, and
conviction, we are ready to transcend the value side of the equation.
MAPPING CORPORATE CULTURE TO THE
BUSINESS FUTURE
All the inputs of the envisioned future – core values and key pur
-
pose and between current and ideal corporate cultures – form the
ingredients that are available to stimulate management to think
about what basic dilemmas they need to resolve in seeking to man-
age tensions that owe their origin to issues of corporate culture.
We often invite our participants to frame the tensions they feel in
actual business life and then relate them to the tensions they feel
between current and ideal cultures. For example, as an actual busi-
ness tension it is felt that: “Our organization is so much focused on
next-quarter results, we don’t have enough time to be creative and
come up with our next generation of innovations.” This example
would translate as the current corporate culture being a Guided Mis-
sile and the dominant espoused profile, an Incubator.
We often find that an extant organizational culture has developed
because the context best suited the main dilemmas their leaders
were facing in business. For example, an Incubator culture is often
the result of a leader who strives for a core value of entrepreneurship
and innovation while having an envisoned future of becoming the

current and ideal corporate profiles. Again we emphasize that the
selection is done in the light of an envisioned future and core ideol-
ogy. By doing this we assure that the selection of values and
behaviors is done in a business context.
We present the results of this step in the following way:
On the one hand we want more of
and/or to keep the following values
and behaviors of our current
organization:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
On the other hand we need to
develop the following values and
behaviors for supporting our
envisioned future and core values:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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CORPORATE CULTURE
The lists are presented to the full group and again we split them into
syndicates of five or six participants, this time with the request that
they formulate two fields of tension (dilemmas) that are crucial for
them to reconcile for critical success in view of the envisioned
future. We make sure that the formulation of the horns of the