**2.1. What is the company culture?**

Each organization has its own culture. "Organizational culture" is similar to the personality of individuals, that is, it is an intangible, always-present fundamental characteristic that provides a meaning, a direction, and a basis for individual action. "Culture" lies in shared values, beliefs, and expectations, and in the norms seized as a part of the work in the company over time.

As much as the personality influences the behavior of the individual, the shared culture exerts a predominance in the pattern of activities, opinions, and action within the company. Company culture influences how employees and managers surface problems, serve consumers, deal with suppliers, respond to competitors, and conduct current and future activities [3].

In other words, culture is the basic assumption of what the organization is and how its members should proceed and define themselves in relation to their external environment. In a word, culture is the reality of organization. That is, it shapes everything that goes on internally, it represents unwritten (i.e., informal) norms that bind all elements in almost everything they do, and it is reflected in organizational philosophy, rules, climate, and symbols.

culture is the means by which people communicate, develop, and perpetuate their attitudes

The Need to Develop a Corporate Culture of Innovation in a Globalization Context

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It should be noted that the essence of culture is not what is superficially or clearly visible on the surface, the most important are the shared views through which people understand and interpret the events they face. In the figurative sense, the understanding of the culture

The metaphor of onion, like that of the iceberg, illustrates the "culture structure" from the "explicit" (visible outside of artifacts and products) to the "implicit" (invisible, inner part of the constituents of culture). In the "outer layer," explicit culture is the observable reality of language, food, buildings, monuments, markets, fashion, and art. The "intermediate layers"

Culture consists essentially of basic assumptions about a fundamental question: what leads different groups of people, consciously or subconsciously, to choose distinct, right, or wrong definitions? Culture emerges in organizations because of the need, on the one hand, to address internal and external aspects of survival and, on the other hand, to obtain good results from the influence and options of their clients, suppliers, regulators, and other entities in their

To successfully address the external environment, companies must develop cultural solutions in order to (i) adopt a sense of purpose (i.e., a mission) and (ii) define both the objectives procedures for evaluating and reviewing the course of. As regards the adaptation of their internal environment, companies have to take into account factors such as the following: (i) delineate a long-term, shared vision; (ii) have a flexible organizational structure; (iii) adopt human

In short, we can speak of organizational culture as a dynamic mix of efforts that innovative

Culture can contain a perspective of continuous innovation, ranging from "incremental innovation" (doing better) to "radical innovation" (doing differently). This constitutes a basis for the development of "archetypes," which are introduced to facilitate the descriptive representation of the characteristics of incremental and radical innovations. Archetypes are of two types:

**i.** *Incremental application of innovation* tends to maintain or improve in small incremental steps existing products or services, setting an attitude of "do better," which is typical of a

**ii.** *Radical application of innovation* aims to explore and expand the strategic borders, setting an attitude of "do different," which is typical of an entrepreneurial company or "new

Greenwood and Hinings [7] report that organizations tend to operate with structures and systems that "bring" the two types of archetypes. The passage between archetypes (i.e.,

resource management policies; and (iv) institute continuous improvement practices.

companies enclose in support of new product or business development.

toward life and work in order to interpret their experience and guide their actions.

resembles the peeling of an onion by layers.

context of action [6].

**2.2. Culture of innovation**

company in the mature stage.

company" (start-up).

contain rules, values, and attitudes invisible directly.

Schein and Schein [4] suggests that organizational culture is what a group learns over a period of time while solving their survival problems—that is, it is the pattern of pretensions discovered, developed, or established by a certain group while learning to face their problems of external adaptation and internal integration at the level of basic artifacts, values, and assumptions.

"Artifacts" are visible organizational structures and processes, include written and spoken language, physical space, operational plans, and attitudes of individuals, and can be divided into (i) physical artifacts (company logos), (ii) procedures (company rituals), and (iii) organizational histories and myths.

"Values" are the social principles and patterns possessed within culture that are of real importance, rooted in unwritten rules that allow members of the organization to know what is expected of them, and define what interests the stakeholders in a corporate culture. Organizational culture reverberates the values of individuals whose use enables them to make decisions and develop solutions to solve problems and functional issues.

"Basic assumptions" are accepted as true beliefs and habits of perception, thoughts, and feelings that are rarely made explicit. When the solution to a problem works over and over again, it becomes accepted as true, that is, assumptions begin to be learned responses that guide behavior and determine how members of the organization feel, think, and act.

These three elements are continually interacting, focusing on what artifacts and values reveal about basic assumptions. Thus, we are talking about a dynamic model in which all processes occur through continuous reproduction and production of culture under stable formal conditions or organizational change.

In other words, company culture can be described in two "levels": (i) "higher level," which is outwardly observable and contains phenomena such as artifacts, patterns of behavior, language, formal rules, technical knowledge, use and production of physical products and objects, and (ii) "lower level," which is hidden (deeper), since it is located in the minds of people, integrates the mental structures—such as ideas, beliefs, values, attitudes and assumptions and modes of understanding the environment, and contains internal processes by which the operation is determined.

These two levels of culture are easily distinguishable, but it is almost impossible to separate them. They are two parts of the same entity, being the hidden level of culture usually inferred by observing the behavior of organizational members (especially, top management). To make the two cultural levels consistent, collaborators instinctively modify their behavior and thinking.

Hofstedeet al. [5] consider culture as the software of the mind, that is, the operating system that enables individuals to share and understand the experience. "Experience" consists of a set of shared norms and attitudes possessed by the members of an organization. That is, culture is the means by which people communicate, develop, and perpetuate their attitudes toward life and work in order to interpret their experience and guide their actions.

It should be noted that the essence of culture is not what is superficially or clearly visible on the surface, the most important are the shared views through which people understand and interpret the events they face. In the figurative sense, the understanding of the culture resembles the peeling of an onion by layers.

The metaphor of onion, like that of the iceberg, illustrates the "culture structure" from the "explicit" (visible outside of artifacts and products) to the "implicit" (invisible, inner part of the constituents of culture). In the "outer layer," explicit culture is the observable reality of language, food, buildings, monuments, markets, fashion, and art. The "intermediate layers" contain rules, values, and attitudes invisible directly.

Culture consists essentially of basic assumptions about a fundamental question: what leads different groups of people, consciously or subconsciously, to choose distinct, right, or wrong definitions? Culture emerges in organizations because of the need, on the one hand, to address internal and external aspects of survival and, on the other hand, to obtain good results from the influence and options of their clients, suppliers, regulators, and other entities in their context of action [6].

To successfully address the external environment, companies must develop cultural solutions in order to (i) adopt a sense of purpose (i.e., a mission) and (ii) define both the objectives procedures for evaluating and reviewing the course of. As regards the adaptation of their internal environment, companies have to take into account factors such as the following: (i) delineate a long-term, shared vision; (ii) have a flexible organizational structure; (iii) adopt human resource management policies; and (iv) institute continuous improvement practices.

In short, we can speak of organizational culture as a dynamic mix of efforts that innovative companies enclose in support of new product or business development.
