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When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk?

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When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk?

Company practices often conflict with corporate values. Closing the gap starts with communication.

MIT Sloan Management Review,

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Your business touts its corporate culture and core values. Do your employees believe in them – or in you?

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Companies often promote their values and corporate culture, but does that hype impress their insiders or motivate their employees? Probably not, though you can make a difference. Donald Sull of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and co-authors Stefano Turconi and Charles Sull consider an array of corporate values in light of how the employees of those corporations perceive them. The results aren’t pretty. When it comes to corporate culture, employees don’t always buy what their employers are trying to sell. If you want your values to reach your workforce, make them real.

Summary

Businesses publicize their values and culture to promote themselves to their stakeholders.

Statements of corporate culture are meant to serve as internal guideposts to explain to employees what their organization values, how they should act, and how they should make moral and practical choices. These value statements tell the marketplace what norms govern the actions of the company’s leaders. 

Issuing statements of corporate values is a practice that has continued to grow ever since Johnson & Johnson promoted the first company creed in 1943. Now up to 80% of large US companies publish a set of corporate values, a common topic in CEO interviews.

But how well do organizations live up to their declared values? Previous ethics scandals at corporations like Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, and Boeing – which specifically touted the values of integrity, quality, and safety – increase the temptation to describe such statements as nothing more than virtue signaling.

Corporate culture statements usually list three to seven values that guide their practices. The popularity of specific values varies across industries...

About the Authors

Donald Sull, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Charles Sull are co-founders of Culture X, an AI-powered workplace culture analytics company. Stefano Turconi is an organizational strategy researcher and collaborator with the Sulls on studies of corporate culture and strategy.

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