Managing Culture

This chapter describes the different approaches taken by two companies (Glaxo Pharmaceuticals UK and Hewlett Packard) to managing culture. Despite the difference in approach, both organizations manage culture relatively successfully in terms of the individual contexts in which the approaches are applied and the specific outcomes that each company wants to achieve. The chapter focuses on three main themes: (i) a comparative analysis of values or behaviours as a starting point for instituting cultural change; (ii) a comparative analysis of top-down or imposed cultural change and incremental and emergent cultural change; and (iii) a consideration of cultural management as a form of labour control. The chapter begins by reviewing the current debates under these three headings. Two case studies are then presented, and the chapter concludes with a discussion of the comparisons to be made and the general lessons learnt from the analysis. In particular it draws out the contextual features that are pertinent if companies choose to manage culture and the different outcomes which that management intervention may seek to achieve.