(1) research status at home and abroad
1.1 overview of foreign research
Corporate culture is produced and rising against the background of the competition between American and Japanese business management. Driven by the trend of management reform, this kind of management trend, which combines the western management theory with the national traditional culture, emerged in the 1980s. Since the 1970s, the social economy of the United States began to decline. At the same time, Japan, which relied on the support of the United States and vigorously studied the management of the United States, has created a miracle in economic growth. The United States found that the operating efficiency of Japanese enterprises was higher than that of American enterprises, and Japanese management had its own distinctive characteristics, which caused a research upsurge of comparative management between the United States and Japan.
William? Uchi (1981) pointed out in the book "Z theory - how the American business community meets the challenge of Japan" that the enterprise management method is included in the culture [1].
Thomas? Peters (1982) and Robert Jr? Looking for advantages, CO authored by Waterman, puts forward the eight qualities of enterprise management, which can be integrated into the viewpoint of caring for customers, continuous innovation and human centered [2].
Alan? Kennedy and Terrence? The enterprise culture co authored by Deere (1982) points out that the enterprise culture includes the enterprise environment, values, heroes, etiquette and cultural network. An outstanding and successful company has a strong enterprise culture. The publication of the above three works has set off an upsurge of enterprise culture research [3].
There are mainly two schools of western corporate culture research. One is the qualitative research represented by Professor Edgar h. Schein of the Massachusetts Institute of technology, which analyzes the concept and deep structure of its corporate culture. The second is the quantitative research represented by Quinn of the school of Business Administration of the University of Michigan. They measure, evaluate and diagnose the corporate culture through quantitative analysis, but they are questioned because they are too quantitative to go deep into the research on the connotation of organizational culture [4].
Based on the above, Benjamin? In his book organizational climate and culture, beinjamin Scheider (1990) proposed a model of the relationship between social culture, organizational culture, organizational climate and management engineering, employees' work attitude and organizational benefits, and quantified the strength of enterprise culture as a performance indicator. Hofstede expanded several dimensions by combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, and developed the enterprise culture research scale.
At present, western scholars mainly use quantitative methods to study corporate culture, trying to transform intangible corporate culture into tangible systems and norms for evaluation, so as to achieve the goal of strengthening corporate culture.
1.2 overview of domestic research
Since the reform and opening up, enterprise culture, as an important content of enterprise management, has also been paid much attention in China. The study of enterprise culture in China is divided into mainland school and Hong Kong and Taiwan school. Hofstede's quantitative research methods are mostly used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, such as Chen Zhengnan and Huang Wenhong's enterprise culture types of successful enterprises, Xu lianen and Lai Guomao's enterprise culture attributes and enterprise performance, Zhan degan and Zhang Binglin's Empirical Research on enterprise culture construction, which are published in "management world", and so on.
In the mainland, most scholars favor Schein's clinical research methods of "in-depth", "participation", "observation" and "interpretation", such as Chen Chunhua's "transformation and innovation of enterprise culture", published in the Journal of Peking University. Hu Xiaoqing (1998) pointed out in the article "social and cultural problems in China's construction of modern enterprise system" that "contemporary Chinese society lacks mainstream culture, which is a transitional culture". The absence of such mainstream culture is restricting the external environment faced by the establishment of modern enterprise system in China. Wang Liping (2000) summarized the cultural characteristics of China's management on the whole, pointed out that the traditional management mode in China is a management culture that complements Confucianism and law and combines military tactics, and put forward new opinions on China's enterprises and institutions [5]. Zhong Weizhou et al. (2000) believe that "enterprise culture is an internalized embodiment of enterprise personality and an image of the whole social culture in the enterprise. The construction of enterprise culture is the most complete incentive and identification mechanism in the enterprise by using the multi-level needs of customers. It is an effective supplement to the economic means of the enterprise and the best way to reduce the internal transaction costs of the enterprise" [6].
In a word, the research on enterprise culture in domestic management circles and business circles has made some achievements, but it is still in the preliminary exploration stage and has not formed a systematic theory. Since most enterprises in China are in the transition period from family management to modern enterprise management, the theory also focuses on the research of family management culture, trying to provide theoretical support for the difficult problem of enterprise culture construction in China.
(2) connotation of enterprise culture
2.1 definition of corporate culture
According to various views on enterprise culture at home and abroad, modern enterprise culture (company culture) should be a reflection of enterprise management culture, organizational culture and economic culture. The enterprise culture must reflect the basic concepts and ideologies of the management subjects, must produce the values and codes of conduct recognized by the industrial groups, and must form a clear sense of operation, economic interests and corresponding material forms [7]. To sum up, the enterprise culture can be expressed as: the enterprise culture is the spiritual wealth and material form with the characteristics of the enterprise and reflecting the subjective consciousness of the manager, which is cultivated by the enterprise in the long-term production, operation and management activities.
2.2 composition system of enterprise culture
The theory circle divides the enterprise culture into four levels: material level, behavior level, system level and spirit level. See the following table for details.
(1) Enterprise material culture is an instrumental culture composed of products and various material facilities created by enterprise employees. It includes two aspects: one is the results of the production and operation of the enterprise, that is, the products and services provided by the enterprise; Second, the working environment and living environment of the plant and equipment of the enterprise. The material culture of an enterprise directly affects the perceptual knowledge of customers, and then determines the judgment of customers on the advantages and disadvantages of the enterprise.
(2) Enterprise behavior culture reflects the shallow enterprise culture in the behavior form of enterprise people, which is located in the second layer of the system structure. It is a cultural activity produced by enterprise people in production, operation, learning and entertainment, and it involves all cultural phenomena produced in enterprise management, education and publicity, interpersonal relations activities, cultural and recreational sports activities.
(3) Enterprise system culture, also known as the system layer of enterprise culture, mainly includes enterprise leadership system, enterprise organization and enterprise management system.
(4) Enterprise spiritual culture, that is, the spiritual layer of enterprise culture, is at the core of the whole enterprise culture system. It is a kind of spiritual pillar and cultural concept with the characteristics of the enterprise, which is gradually formed in the process of enterprise production, operation and management activities under the influence of certain social background and ideology, including enterprise spirit, enterprise management philosophy, enterprise ethics and values, etc. it is a synthesis of enterprise ideology.
(3) reflections on modern enterprise culture
3.1 enterprise culture should be started from an early age
Regardless of the size and history of the enterprise, the bud of enterprise culture has been brewing since the day when the enterprise was established. Perhaps this enterprise culture is scattered and good and bad coexist, but it plays a role in promoting or hindering the development of the enterprise. The longer the history of the enterprise, the thicker the cultural accumulation of the enterprise and the stronger the penetration. The results of the questionnaire survey conducted by the China entrepreneur survey system on 2881 enterprise managers in 2005 show that nearly 60% of the respondents agree with the statement that "enterprise culture is only available when enterprises have developed to a certain stage". It is precisely this kind of erroneous understanding that misleads many of our country's sluggish or "Inaction" behavior in the construction of enterprise culture.
The construction of enterprise culture has a process from its own development to its gradual maturity, and can not exceed its own development stage. However, this does not mean that the construction of enterprise culture can not be guided and ruled by inaction. Instead, it should start from the "early childhood" of the enterprise, consciously shape the construction of enterprise culture in the early stage of entrepreneurship, make it conform to the trend of economic and social development, Create a management mode and cultural atmosphere conducive to promoting the development and quality improvement of enterprises.
3.2 enterprise culture construction focuses on shaping connotation
Due to the lack of understanding of the essence of western culture, Chinese enterprises inevitably deviate from the purpose of corporate culture construction. Many enterprises have the same slogan culture of "unity, progress and pragmatism", which is a model of external formalization. Building enterprise culture does not require employees to wear the same clothes and show the same professional smile. This surface form is difficult to sustain and cannot reflect the values and internal concepts of the enterprise. Therefore, it can not form an effective cultural driving force to stimulate the vitality of the team and the creativity of employees.
The introduction of CIS concept is an effective means to enhance the connotation of enterprises. CIS concept is not simply "grafted" into enterprise production and operation as technology and experience. Instead, it analyzes the values and behavior norms settled in the enterprise through concept identification (MI), behavior identification (BI) and visual identification (VI), so that consumers can easily identify the differences of the enterprise in the fierce market competition, so as to shape the brand image of the enterprise and enhance the soft power of the enterprise.
3.3 execution is the guarantee for the implementation of enterprise culture
The results of a questionnaire survey of 2881 enterprise managers show that the "code of conduct" is the most satisfactory content of enterprise culture. It can be seen that the deviation and force of the executive force of corporate culture have made many corporate culture construction confined to the cabinet and lack of corresponding rules and regulations to support. From the perspective of the corporate culture composition system, the weak implementation of the system level makes the enterprise lack of appropriate restraint and incentive mechanism.
The formation of the system culture is based on the institutionalization of the enterprise spirit, that is, by embodying the enterprise spirit in various rules and regulations of the enterprise, it plays a role in guiding, regulating and encouraging the behavior of the organization members. "The essence of management lies not in knowing but in doing", the management master Drucker told us that enterprise managers are not just shouting slogans, but must be practitioners of enterprise culture, create an executive organization within the enterprise, ensure that the rules and regulations are consistent with the corporate culture concept, and improve the system guarantee for improving the cultural executive power [7]. When talking about the secret of his success, Li Ka Shing, the richest man in Hong Kong, China, said that everyone knows the management ideas and methods. I just "just do it!", This is a strong proof of the importance of cultural execution.
3.4 ensure the continuity of corporate culture implementation
Excellent enterprise culture can promote the formation and development of excellent enterprises. Excellent enterprises must have their own excellent culture, which is just a line away from ordinary enterprises. The shaping of corporate culture is not an overnight process, but a long-term dynamic implementation process. Therefore, it is essential to maintain a relatively stable supporting environment for cultural construction and the continuity of implementation [8].
However, in the actual operation process of enterprises, many enterprises change the leadership, but also implicitly implant the leadership personality style and management mode into the enterprise. The frequent change of this cultural concept will make employees lose interest and confidence in the construction of enterprise culture, and it is difficult to establish a stable and unified corporate image externally. Only by persistently instilling the awareness of enterprise culture and guiding the employees' behaviors with the idea of enterprise culture can we fundamentally make the culture take root, germinate and even blossom in the hearts of employees.