Academic Discussion

Organizational core values play the pivotal role of tying employees together, irrespective of cultural background. They imbue the employees of a global organization, distributed all over the world, with a sense of commonality of purpose. There is an emotional component to the sense of identification with these core values.

Core values of organizations tend to be durable. A core value of an organization could be that it is a learning organization. The organization would then be open to learning from other cultures and incorporating within its own systems practices that have worked well elsewhere. Credit Suisse is to some extent a learning organization, and is therefore prepared to learn from other cultures where it has operations. Nonetheless, even with Credit Suisse the corporate culture remains superordinate. This ensures that conflicting cultures do not clash and undermine performance. Thus, practices from a different culture that a transnational organization incorporates into its functioning are generally compatible with its core values. Effective global companies have at their command a portfolio of eclectic management practices.

An organization desirous of functioning successfully in diverse cultures must therefore select its core values appropriately. One of Nestl 's core values has been termed by them as 'Respect of other cultures and traditions'. The description of this core value is, 'Nestl accepts cultural and social diversity' (Basic Nestl Management and Leadership Principles). A Nestl manager is expected to have 'international experience and understanding of other cultures'. Credit Suisse expects its international managers to develop cultural sensitivity. BMW insists that its managers have international exposure and acquit themselves well in culturally different scenarios before they find a place in the topmost echelons of management. All the organizations profiled here have as one of their core values 'respect of other cultures and traditions', although only Nestl has articulated it and recorded this in document form.