How Culture Is Expressed in Henkel Group - Case Study Example

MM324 Name: Institute: How Culture Is Expressed in Henkel and How this Expression Helps or Hinders Henkel’s Organisational Effectiveness. Introduction Organisational culture can be defined as an environment in the workplace prepared from workers’ interaction in the place of work. According to Fortado and Fadil (2012, p. 283), organisational culture is characterized by every form of life nurture, education, strengths, weaknesses, experiences, and all that of the workers. Whereas top leadership of the organisation plays a crucial part in defining organisational culture through their leadership as well as actions, Su-Chao and Ming-Shing (2007, p. 156) posits that all workers have a say on the organisational culture. Basically, an organisational culture that is shared assists in uniting workers of distinct demographics. Scores of workers in any organisational setting hail from different traditions, families and backgrounds, and so they have their individual cultures. Therefore, having a shared culture at the place of work offers the workers a sense of understanding and utility towards each other; thus, encouraging less conflict as well as improved communication. What’s more, a shared organizational culture as per Ortega-Parra and Sastre-Castillo (2013, p. 1074) supports fairness by making sure no worker is mistreated at the place of work and that all are treated evenly. Silverthorne (2004, p. 595) posits that healthy competition amongst workers is one of the outcomes of a collective organizational culture. Workers will endeavour to work at their best to get acknowledgment and gratitude from their managers, and as a result, boosts their work quality, which enables the organization flourish and thrive. This essay seeks to critically discuss how culture is expressed in Henkel Group and how this expression helps or hinders Henkel’s effectiveness. Overview of Henkel Henkel Group produces competitive technologies as well as brands that make the lives of the people/customers easier, healthier and better-looking. Henkel was founded in 1876, and today it is the world’s leader in beauty products (Henkel, 2013). Henkel operates in three strategic areas of business: Adhesives technologies, Personal Care, and Home Care. In 2006 economic year, Henkel achieved sales worth $12.74 billion as well as profits worth $1.3 billion with over 52,000 workers across the globe. Customers in more than 125 nations around the globe have confidence in Henkel brands as well as technologies. In the past ten years, Henkel has grown considerably worldwide, and out of its total employees hired by Henkel Group as at 2012, majority (65%) work in Middle East, Europe and Africa, while 14 percent work in Asia-Pacific, 13 percent in North America, and 8 percent in Latin America (Henkel, 2013). These days Henkel remains to be one of German’s international companies with over 80 percent of its workers working outside Germany. In its three aforementioned strategic areas, the company holds market positions in its four business sectors, and most importantly the company continues to inflate its market positions globally. The first business sector is Laundry and Home Care, which according to Henkel holds key positions in the market all over the world, steering growth from a well-built North American as well as European base. What’s more, the business sector is internationally active in the Home Care and Laundry branded businesses. In this case, the Laundry business involves not just specialty and heavy-duty detergents but as well laundry care products, laundry performance enhancers, as well as fabric softeners. The collection of Henkel’s Home Care business includes machine-dishwashing and hand-dishwashing products, and bath, glass, as well as household cleaners. Beauty Care is another Henkel’s business sector, and the sector is functional in business area with branded consumer goods having products such as Oral Care, Skin Care, Body Care, Hair Cosmetics, and in the skilled Hair Salon business. The final business sector is the Adhesive Technologies, and in this sector Henkel enjoys a big market share in adhesives, sealants as well as functional coatings for industrial, craftsmen, and consumers applications. According to Henkel, Adhesive and Technologies are supplied in various industries such as packaging, electronics, transportation, metal, and consumer goods. From its long-standing tradition, Henkel is believed to possess a stable portfolio of local, regional, and international brands. Henkel provides a mass of applications to meet the desires of distinct target groups; that is craftsmen together with consumers as well as industrial businesses. The first adhesive technology manufactured by Henkel was delivered in mid 1923, and this historical highlight marked the beginning of business sector wherein Henkel is at the moment the worldwide market leader. The Henkel Culture The innovative creativity, quality orientation, suppleness, as well as the organisation’s market focus and its workers are the major factors steering success at Henkel. The human resources strategy of the company has generated a framework as well as conditions set intended for promoting the development of such vital drivers of performance and make sure that this prospective is rehabilitated into realism. This human resources strategy according to Simons amd Kindred (2012) fits agreeably with Henkel's conventionally approving approach toward workers and one of its main company values that is dedication the company’s success to its workers. What’s more, Henkel expresses its acknowledgment of all its workers across the globe as the tide driving the performance of the company as well as the pillars of company’s organisational culture. This organisational principle as per the Lord (2012, p. 349) is the rational extension of the approach and its historic roots that constantly has been espoused by Henkel. Besides that, Henkel’s approach basic premise in handling their organisational culture is a obliging one. This is because the culture of the company as well as the ability of its workers is a vital basis of competitive advantage. According to Edwards (2005, p. 271), developing an organization anchored in such principles could be the perfect thing to accomplish, but so as to continue to exist overtime, the culture must positively impact the performance. In the last two decades, Denison et al have examined the connection between business performance and organizational culture, in attempt to comprehend the cultural qualities of organizations that are highly performing. From the study results, Denison et al built an approach, rooted in the Denison Organizational Culture Survey, which according to Casida (2008, p. 106) is broadly employed in aiding to drive the process of change and also diagnosing organizational culture. For this reason, the approach of Henkel in managing their organisational culture has espoused Denison Organizational Culture Survey as well as employed it in their individual unique manner as a key element to assist in reinforcing their culture. Therefore, worker surveys have remained to be a normal feature in the Henkel organisational setting since mid 80s. Henkel's time-honoured dedication to a dialog bound for supporting the company’s commonalities has been promoted by such surveys. After every five years new projects are implemented, to establish respondents' contentment, their attitudes, as well as their recognition with the organisation. In Germany, and in the wider global milieu, Henkel was among the first companies to examine such worker orientation on account of methodically established questionnaires. Before espousing the Denison model, Henkel’s last survey was carried out in 1995, which established that Denison model was a decidedly appropriate technique for-offering insight into the internal image of the company. The surveys carried out by Henkel between 1990 and 1995 offered a comprehensible hint of the changes that had occurred as well as the present setbacks and areas wherein further improvement as well as action were needed with regard to corporate culture. Then again, there was as well loads of interpretation scope and in depth discussion was needed so as to establish which changes and challenges had truly been disclosed by the questionnaires results. In addition, it turned out to be obvious that the questions slotted in such surveys tackled so many distinct issues that developed momentous prospects for workers that tangible as well as extensive change was coming. To a certain extent thanks to such high expectations, the introduced changes as well as activities were considered somewhat inconsequential and barely registered. Generally, these surveys yielded an underlying intuition that not much had taken place and that as a result, small changes should be anticipated sooner or later. According to Beidokhti amd Ghaderi (2011, p. 75), such insights have an enormous disappointing effect on worker readiness to take part in organisational culture surveys. It as well turned out to be more and more noticeable that surveying worker contentment, whilst possessing an inbuilt value, fails to ease description of the factors steering the corporation success or defining the character of its culture. Henkel's internal examination of this issue as well as the scores of debates carried out with experts perceptibly pointed out that the organisation required knowing in excess of just the satisfaction level of its workers. The assertion that organisational culture is connected to performance is instigated on the noticeable function played by the culture in brought about competitive advantage. Beidokhti and Ghaderi (2011, p. 86) study based on how to triumph over a number of drawbacks in measuring organisational culture, found out that there is no helpful connections between workers performance and organisational culture. Theorists as well argue that sustainable competitive advantage results from the organisational competencies formation which according to Simons and Kindred (2012) is both advanced as well as erroneously imitable by competitors. Academics as well as practitioners recommended that the organisational performance is reliant on the level to which the organisational culture values are broadly shared. Therefore, learning of organisations as a management style as well as new demands in the organisational setting is somewhat within the state-of-the-art, has guided Henkel to think that competitors corporate culture is less orientated towards learning. Changing organisational culture to resemble that of the competitors or to surpass it is a daunting undertaking that not even Henkel is ready to pursue; therefore, Henkel has worked hard to improve its organisational culture with the available resources. Importantly, Henkel understands that contributes of organisational culture to performance is considerably less unchallenging, and for that reason scores of managers including those from Henkel knows that well-built organization culture is extremely fundamental for business thanks to the three vital functions: Firstly, organisational culture is exceedingly attached to the social control that could result in making influence on the worker’s behaviour as well as decisions. Secondly, organizational culture according to Henkel operates as social adhesive to tie the workers together as well as make them experience a well-built element of the organisational know-how, which is valuable in drawing new employees as well as retaining those performing excellently. Lastly, organizational culture is extremely valuable to aid in the process of the sense making, also assists the workers to comprehend the organisational objectives as well as events, which improve the workers’ effectiveness in addition to efficiency. Through the Denison model, Henkel realised that a well-built culture is a driving force in improving the workers performance. What’s more, Henkel organisational culture has improved self confidence as well as loyalty of workers and has also reduced job-related stress and improved the worker’s ethical behaviour. According to Ortega-Parra and Sastre-Castillo (2013, p. 1077), both strong as well as weak culture greatly impacts the organisational behaviour; however, at Henkel’s strong culture, worker’s objectives are in support with management objectives and useful in heightening the overall performance of the organisation. Henkel understand that culture has to be feasible, rare, possess attributes, and have to may be short-term or carry on for many days. What’s more, long term increase in performance of the organisation has made Henkel realise long run competitive advantage, particularly in adhesives technology business sector. The Henkel culture decides the manner in which its workers interrelate at the place of work and also has encouraged workers to remain inspired and devoted towards the company. According to Su-Chao and Ming-Shing (2007, p. 156), the organisation culture as well goes far in supporting healthy competition within the place of work. Therefore, workers work harder to perform better as compared to their fellow employees and get acknowledgment and admiration from their bosses. According to Henkel, it is the workplace culture which in fact inspires the workers to perform better. Basically, organisational culture represents particular predefined policies which for years have guided Henkel’s workers and offered them a sense of direction at the place of work. At Henkel, all workers understand clearly their organisational roles and responsibilities and also understand how to complete the tasks prior to the deadlines. Study by Fortado and Fadil (2012, p. 296), established that no two companies can have similar organisational culture since it is the culture that make the organisation different from the others. Besides that, Henkel’s work culture has gone far in generating its well-established brand, and also has offered an identity to the company. Simply, Henkel is recognized by its organisational culture. Henkel’s organisational culture has brought all the workers on a common platform. The company understands that workers have to be treated evenly and nobody has to feel uncared for at the place of work. Therefore, as mentioned by Lord (2012, p. 352) it is important for the workers to become accustomed in the organization culture so as to deliver productively. Observably, Henkel’s culture has united the workers who without doubt are from distinct cultural backgrounds, and have different mentalities as well as attitudes. The culture offers the workers a sense of unity at the place of work. Some companies pursue a culture where every worker regardless of their titles has to arrive on time. This culture helps the workers to reach on time which ultimately benefits the company sooner or later. It is worth noting that it is the organisational culture that makes the workers a triumphant professional. Policies implementation has never been a setback at Henkel since workers always follow the set culture. Moreover, the new workers are required to try to comprehend the organisational culture and make Henkel a better workplace. Undoubtedly, the culture in the organisation promotes healthy association among the workers. Conclusion Conclusively, it has been argued that culture has assisted Henkel keep workers enthused and devoted to the company’s management. When workers see themselves as part and parcel of their corporate culture, they become keener in contributing to the success of the organisation. Organisational culture makes employees feel a high sense of achievement for being part and parcel of the company they work for and for that reason they work harder devoid of being compelled. Henkel’s way of carrying out their business is apparent to both the workers who make up the organization and its customers and clients, and has been established by its culture. The beliefs as well as values brought about organisational culture add to the brand image through which Henkel has become recognized and appreciated. As a successful company, Henkel has an understandable sense of direction as well as purpose, which has allowed it to define its organizational strategies as well as goals. The key significance of organizational culture assists in shaping and determining the success or failure of the company. From Henkel’s point of view, organizational culture connotes the type of activities workers do to improve the organisational productivity, and the company’s achievement has solely emanated from well-established organisational culture. References Beidokhti, A. A., & Ghaderi, M. M. (2011). Studying The Relationship Between Organizational Culture And Customer Satisfaction In Bank Mellat. International Journal of Business and Commerce, 1(4), 74-89. Casida, J. (. (2008). Linking Nursing Unit's Culture To Organizational Effectiveness: A Measurement Tool. Nursing Economics, 26(2), 106-110. Edwards, M. G. (2005). The integral holon: A holonomic approach to organisational change and transformation. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18(3), 269-288. Fortado, B., & Fadil, P. (2012). The four faces of organizational culture. Competitiveness Review, 22(4), 283-298. Henkel. (2013). About Henkel . Retrieved from Henkel AG & Co. KGaA: http://www.henkel.com/about-henkel-11779.htm Lord, A. S. (2012). Reviving organisational memetics through Cultural Linn?anism. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 20(3), 349-370. Ortega-Parra, A., & Sastre-Castillo, M. Á. (2013). Impact of perceived corporate culture on organizational commitment. Management Decision, 51(5), 1071-1083. Silverthorne, C. (2004). The empact of organizational culture and person-organization fit on organizational commitment and job satisfaction in Taiwan. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25(7/8), 592-599. Simons, R. L., & Kindred, N. (2012, February 7). Henkel: Building a Winning Culture. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/product/Henkel--Building-a-Winnin/an/112060-PDF-ENG Su-Chao, C., & Ming-Shing, L. (2007). A study on relationship among leadership, organizational culture, the operation of learning organization and employees' job satisfaction. The Learning Organization, 14(2), 155-185. Read More