Is corporate culture the answer to depersonalised, bureaucratic work (Weber, 1922) or is it simply the continuation of bureaucratic control by other means?

Corporate culture is “the way we do things around here” (Kotter, Heskett, 1992). It represents a system of shared values and beliefs that interact with people, organisational structures, and systems to produce norms (Balkaran, 1995). What corporate culture does is to influence employee perception, behavior and work attitudes. Compared to Bureaucracy, which has written, inflexible rules and consists of systems of administrations distinguished by its clear hierarchy of authority; corporate culture represents the personality of an organization and appeals to the emotional, non-rational, affective elements within employees (Ray, 1986). The purpose of this essay is to prove that corporate culture is the solution to the problem of depersonalized bureaucratic work. In the first part I will examine the differences between corporate culture and bureaucracy, and why corporate culture contains the possibility of being the best and most efficient system of control so far. And in the second part I will analyse if there are any similarities between both types of organisational controls; whilst also assessing whether there are any possibilities for the corporate culture to be just a continuation of the bureaucratic control by other means. Bureaucracy defined by Warwick is a “type of organisation designed to accomplish large-scale administrative tasks by systematically coordinating the work of many individuals” (1974). However the characteristics of bureaucracy were first systematically formulated by Max Weber who managed to see in the bureaucratic organisation a highly developed “division of labour”, where “every member has a specific task to fulfill, and all of the tasks are then coordinated to accomplish the purpose of the organisation”(Bureaucracy). Another unique function of bureaucracy is the pyramidal hierarchy with assignments flowing downward and accountability flowing upward where organisation is divided into clear-cut levels. The higher the level is, the greater authority, importance, and influence the individual will have. Also in order to be as efficient as possible the bureaucracy relies on written procedures and rules, the number of which grows parallel with the existence of the organisation. The impersonality of the workplace is also another characteristic of the bureaucracy. According to Weber “Managers should maintain an impersonal relationship with employees to promote fair and equal treatment of all employees so that unbiased decisions can be made” (Education portal).And one last principle of bureaucracy is the qualification. Employees are hired because of their qualifications, rather than personal favourites or connections and relationships. From all these characteristics of bureaucracy it is easy to make the assumption of two things, the first being that bureaucratic control is control by incentive; if you adhere to the formal procedure and you are doing your part of the job correctly, you are promised security, promotions and rewards. And secondly, that it focuses upon “individualistically inclined, future-oriented workers, people who are motivated by the possibility that they may participate beneficially in the reward system of concern” (Ray,1986).

While it is one of the most effective organisational methods in the long-run, it still has a lot of disadvantages. The main one is labeled ‘depersonalisation’. It most often arises from the fact that workers must deal with each other only in formal ways since bureaucracy is built on clear hierarchy of authorities and written rules. This structure may cause the worker to feel unappreciated and isolated, thereby causing a strain to the employee’s mental health. In the bigger organisations, workers might even start to feel like objects instead of human beings. All these feelings may result in limiting their sense of contribution to the product as well as creativity, therefore not only affecting the person but the business too. To some extent ‘depersonalisation’ may be compared to Marx’s conception of ‘alienation’ (Bureaucracy). However, the solution for this ‘depersonalisation’ might be seen through the use of Corporate Culture. This method of control, compared to the bureaucratic control, views people as rational, economic, competitive, future-orientated individuals, and promotes the emotional, symbol-loving, and inspirational idea that the aim is to belong to a “superior entity or collectivity” (Ray, 1986). Even though corporate culture is not something that is visible to the human eye, every organisation or company has its own culture and norms of behaviour. The organizational culture can’t be defined because it develops with the times to coincide with the accumulative traits of the employees that the company hires (Investopedia.com). A company’s culture can be separated into three levels. The first one, that is also the most visible one, is the physical level; it represents the way that the people in the company are dressed, the office layout and the technology they use. The second level is the level of values; it facilitates workers and their values, integrating them into the workplace. The idea of the corporate values is to support and reflect the vision of the employees as well as to shape the culture in the organization. And the last and most important level is the beliefs of the company and the employees; its purpose is to encourage the employees to accept the goals and the values of the leaders of the organisation and at the same time promote a sense of belonging in all employees (Ray, 1986, p.289). If, however, for some reason there is a clash between the beliefs of the employees and those of the organisation, it will most probably lead to negative results. However, as Deal and Kennedy state, it is obvious that in order to make thousands of people possess the same shared values and beliefs as the company does, they need to implement numerous tactics and strategies for this to happen successfully. In the Corporate Culture the manager becomes “an evangelist, a shaman, a stateperson” (1982). His job is to implement the idea of loyalty, diligence, enthusiasm and one common goal among the workers. That, on the one hand, will result in improving human relations in the workplace, while on the other hand the sense of a mission among them will increase the productivity and the creativity of the organisation. A great example of a company that is built within the relations of the employees of the company is Tandem Corporation, which is one of the most highly publicized companies of the Silicon Valley. However, what makes the company even more distinctive than the other companies is that the founders of the Tandem Corporation are encouraging the “informal” side of the business. According to one of Tandem’s managers everyone in the company works together in order to achieve that success “people with people; product with product; even processor with processor, within the product” (Ray, 1995, p.9). The employees, on the other hand, express their emotions by saying that they enjoy working for the company, and that they love that place because of the pleasant atmosphere it creates. The slogan of the company, which pretty much represents the idea that Tandem’s greatest resources are the people, the actions and the fun they have while they are working, emphasizes even more on the importance of the people in the organization. The company even has its own rituals and ceremonies, which are aiming to help people to get to know each other better and to let of the steam after a hard week. Tandem’s company is only one of the many examples of how corporate culture can help every organization or company to prosper (Ray, 1995). In conclusion, it can be said that while corporate culture is often seen as just another form of business manipulation that provokes sentiments and emotions among the employees, it is also viewed as a solution to the depersonalisation that bureaucratic control invokes in its employees. Corporate culture focuses on such issues as the involvement of all of its employees, making sure that they feel part of a team, thus improving their attitude towards the company and boosting company productivity at the same time, due to the inspired workforce it creates. This contrasts significantly with the outcome of bureaucratic control which instead of helping its employees, depersonalize them and damages the overall efficiency of the company. Therefore corporate culture is not the continuation of bureaucratic control in the workplace; instead it is a counter action working to dispel the enforcement of formality that bureaucratic control implements so rigorously.

Bibliography:

Balkaran, L., (1995), ‘Corporate culture’, The Internal Auditor, p.4-10.
Deal, T.E., and Kennedy, A.A., (1982), ‘Corporate Cultures’, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Education Portal, ‘Bureaucracy: Max Weber's Theory of Impersonal Management’; Available at:
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Warwick, D., (1974), ‘Bureaucracy’, London, Longman Group Limited.