Organizational Culture: Procter And Gamble

Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is related to performance and encompasses both individual and group-level phenomena. However, individual-level dynamics of organizational culture have remained relatively neglected. In 1982, Peters and Waterman declared that they had identified the corporate cultural characteristics that lead to ‘excellence’. After a brief review of schema theory, the categories of schema knowledge relevant to understanding sense-making in organizations and the cultural influences on their emergence are examined. The individual-level dynamics implied by the group-level topics (e.g., culture as a mechanism of control ultimately implies the control of individual behavior) generally remain unexamined and rarely are

This 150 year-old consumer products giant is well-known as an innovator in such areas as innovative work design, advertising, profit sharing and brand management. Concentrating first on soap and then for decades on a range of "high quality consumer products found within every home," the corporation is now a $20 billion company with 127000 employees worldwide. The key factor in their steady doubling in size every decade is a result of their strong, methodical culture. While P&G has been quite profitable, performance is remarkable not so much for its level, but for its predictability. Heavy attention is paid to socialization by P&G. New employees in the brand management organization, for example, are socialized as a cohort, and many see this peer competition and cooperation as the real source of learning and motivation for new members. Structured training, included as a part of new assignments, are alternated on a regular basis in short cycles of 6 to 24 months. P&G careers, in general, are like a tournament in which the members continually move up or out. Conformity to the P&G way and performance requirements lead many new recruits to leave the organization after a few years. Ironically, P&G often trains the key employees of many of their competitors, although some in the organization will claim that they "never lost an employee that they wanted to keep." P&G is a classic example of a "strong culture" system. As many past and current members of the organization have noted, this characteristic of the culture has both positive and negative impacts on effectiveness; P&G is an organization that seldom makes big mistakes, but is often beaten to the punch by smaller, faster companies. Their historical limitation has been a difficulty in moving quickly primarily because of their commitment to research, objectivity, and methodical review. Their key capabilities are often described, as "science, not art." The P&G system is also generally