Culture at Digital Chocolate We think that Digital Chocolate as an organization is heavily influenced by Trip Hawkins appreciation for creativity

and being part of strong culture organizations. Some of the observations on DCs organization culture are, E-I-E-I-O: Digital Chocolate has a core value system in place which leads to a development of social norms. With a common value system in place, the company has been able to manage running its operations from distributed locations since there is a central norm for all employees. A common value system is known to help with cohesion and teams are aligned to a central motive. DC being highly dependent on technology and creativity hires a lot of young employees. Even in the acquisitions made by DC, the team acquired has been largely youthful which could have helped the company avoid cultural clashes to a certain extent. Communication: The case suggests a free-flowing communication policy at DC. Frequent communication happens between teams spread across different locations using multiple channels (e-mail, phone, in-person etc.). Tim Hawkinss communication patterns reveal him receiving e-mails from employees of all levels indicating a flat organization culture to some extent where the employees have direct access to the founder. DC has hired Saurin to head the product development based on his prior experience in social gaming. A lot will depend on whether Saurin is able to adapt to DCs organization culture and confirm to the norms already in place. If Saurin is able to internalize the culture fast enough then she will be able to drive the team to a common objective of developing great social games.

At an overall level, DC has strong cultural values which set the base for a successful organization. However, strong organizations also face liabilities in terms of resistance to change, cultural clashes and pathology. Even though DC has managed acquisitions well so far, their culture is vunerable to any changes introduced in the organization