Understanding organisational culture and the implications for corporate marketing

The actions of employees such as service personnel are seen as being important in communicating a company’s corporate values and goals, particularly where they interact directly with customers and other corporate audiences. Their beliefs, norms and values derived from the organisational culture influence their actions and the informal messages that they communicate. A mystique still exists around the concept of organisational culture. This paper attempts to rectify this by reviewing the literature relating to organisational culture, focusing on its definition, the factors which influence it and the arguments as to whether it can be managed. The paper highlights the complexity of the phenomenon and the need for corporate marketers to be more sensitive to this complexity in the development and execution of corporate communication strategies. This requires marketers to work more closely with researchers and practitioners working in the fields of organisational behaviour and human resource management.