TITLE OF THE RESEARCH PAPER

CORPORATE CULTURE AND ROLE OF ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

SUBJECT:

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

NAME OF THE STUDENT: T.HARSHA SAI PAVAN YADAV

ROLL NO.: 2017115

SEMESTER: 9th / B

NAME OF THE PROGRAM: 5 year (B.A., LL.B.)

NAME OF THE FACULTY MEMBER: PROF. A. RAJENDRA PRASAD

DAMODARAM SANJIVAYYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

NYAYAPRASTHA “, SABBAVARAM,

VISAKHAPATNAM – 531035, ANDHRA PRADESH

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to sincerely thank my PROF. A. RAJENDRA PRASAD of Corporate

Governance faculty for giving me this subject and guiding me during the project. I learned a
great deal about the above mentioned subject through this project, and this in turn helped me
develop as a student.

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 CONTENTS

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………...

The Origin and Definition of Corporate Culture ………………………………………….

Different Terms and Prior Studies on Corporate Ethical Culture ………………………..

Corporate Culture ……………………………………………………………………………

Perceived Ethical Culture Model ………………………..…………………………………..

Development and creation of effective culture

………………………………………………

COLLABORATION ACROSS BOUNDARIES

…………………………………………….

CONCLUSION……………………..………………………………………………………….

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INTRODUCTION

Corporate culture now a days have become an important topics in academic world as well as
business world. Corporate culture although being intangible assets for any business has become
an important component for organizational success as well as an important component for an
employee performance. There are a lot of factors which affects the performance of the
organization, but corporate culture makes an organization distinct from the others in the market
and helps the organization to create a competitive advantage over others. Corporate culture have
different role to play in an organization and its affect over the performance of the employee and
the organization is different in different countries and situation also varies which, here we will
try to overview in the context of Coca-Cola a multinational organization. In this paper we will
try to find out the culture preached by Coca-Cola, what is the impact of the culture that Coca-
Cola follows over its performance and the performance of its employees, how the culture
followed by Coca-Cola differs in different countries and if needed, how it can be changed.

Several studies on how to improve organization’s performance are conducted in the past two
decades. The difference in organization’s performance is highly related to the strategies and rules
adopted by company to achieve its goals (Amah et al., 2013). Corporate culture as a set of
values, norms and strategies plays a vital role in successful performance of companies (Daft,
2003). The corporate culture is one of the main concerns of employees regarding the quality of
their work and such considerations mitigate the importance of profit maximization or other
economic goals in the organization’s objective function (Aghaei Chadegani et al., 2014).
Moreover, lake of enough attention to ethics in corporate culture leads to organization corruption
and collapse (Sims & Brinkmann, 2003). By investigating the significance of corporate ethical
culture, organizations can develop stronger adaptive cultures that can increase their performance
and effectiveness.1
The researches on ethical culture are progressed from defining different terms for this concept to
developing one- dimensional and multi-dimensional models for measuring ethical culture. In
spite of different studies on corporate ethical culture, there is little understanding of how it works
in practice (Alvesson, 2002). There is also a need for theory development stimulates research of
this concept in the management, accounting and other fields of studies. In this paper, corporate
culture and especially corporate ethical culture, different developed models of corporate ethical
culture and prior studies on corporate ethical culture will be explained. This article contributes to
corporate culture literature by explaining the gap on this issue and the current position of
corporate ethical culture in the literature. The reminder of this paper is organized as follows. In
next section (2) the origin and different definition of corporate culture are explained, in section
(3) different models of corporate ethical culture which are developed by prior researchers are
discussed, in section (4) different terms in the literature such as corporate, business, organization
and ethical culture are explained, in section (5) the difference between ethical culture and ethical
climate are discussed and finally in section (6) the conclusion of study and suggestions for future
researches are discussed.
The Origin and Definition of Corporate Culture

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The concept of corporate culture is a new concept which is around for only 25 years (Shafritz et
al., 2005). In the
1970s, researchers motivated to increase knowledge on organizational management as a result of
Japan’s business
success and the decrease in U.S production. Ouchi (1981), Peters and Waterman (1982) and Deal
& Kennedy (1982) examined how corporate culture can increase business success for the first
time. By introducing corporate culture to the research market through these studies, corporate
culture became a frequent headline in business studies and a tool for companies to increase their
performance and success (Denison, 1990).
The most widely accepted definition of corporate culture is given by Schein (1985). Schein
(1985) defines corporate culture as a pattern of shared beliefs and assumptions that individuals
learn from problems. He argues that culture is a complex mixture of values, control system,
missions, structures and symbols that fit together in order to define what is appropriate for a
particular organization.
Organizations may have different cultures such as corporate cultures that guide service and
product quality, selection of distribution channels, advertising content and treatment of
customers (Hunt et al. 1989). However, the foundation of all these cultures is corporate ethical
culture. Ethical culture establishes and maintains the standards that explain the right behaviour
and the right conducts which worth doing (Trevino et al. 1995). Trevino et al. (1995) extend the
concept of corporate culture by introducing the ethical aspect of the corporate culture into
practice. They define corporate ethical culture as a subset of corporate culture which promotes
ethical behaviours and ethical conducts. Corporate ethical culture created through management
practices which is known as “ethical tone at the top” (Douglas et al., 2001). Key (1999) describes
corporate ethical culture as the ethical aspects of an organization’s culture which are shared by
its members and may be logically conceptualized on a continuum bounded at one end by
unethical organizations and at the other, highly ethical organizations. Jacobs et al. (2011) argue
that corporate culture encourage co-operation and relationship among agents as an intra and inter
partnership working when interaction between parties is difficult to monitor.2
Based on Amah et al. (2013), corporate culture is a framework that guides day to day behavior
and decision making of individuals in organization and directs employees to reach the
organization’s goals. Strong corporate culture encourages organization’s members to achieve the
organization’s goals (Amah et al., 2013). Amah et al. (2013) argue that organizations with strong
corporate culture outperform organizations with weak corporate culture. Recently, Ushakov et al.
(2014) suggest that corporate culture is a set of core rules of conduct, traditions and customs sent
to all employees of the company as the correct way of perception and attitudes to specific
situations.

Different Terms and Prior Studies on Corporate Ethical Culture

Prior researchers have used different terms for ethical culture including Corporate Ethical
Culture (Hunt et al.,
1989; Baker et al., 2006; Schwartz, 2013), Organizational Ethical Culture (Key, 1999; Ampofo
et al., 2004; Huhtala et al., 2011; Riivari et al., 2012; Jondle et al., 2013), Business Ethical
Culture (Ardichvili et al., 2009; Jondle et al., 2014), Perceived Ethical Culture (Sweeney et al.,
2009; Lamontagne, 2012) and Ethical Culture (Kaptein, 2008; Park & Blenkinsopp, 2012;

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Svanberg & Ohman, 2013). These concepts and prior studies have used such terms are explained
in the followings.
Organization ethical cultures are those aspects of organizational culture and behaviors that
encourage the organization to operate in a sustainable way (Riivari et al., 2012; Kaptein, 2008).
When researchers used the term “organizational ethical culture”, they emphasized on the
difference between ethical culture and ethical climate (Huhtala et al., 2011; Riivari et al., 2012).
They argue that ethical climates are those aspects that determine what constitutes ethical
conducts, whereas ethical cultures are those aspects that stimulate ethical conducts. They
mention that as organizational culture includes shared assumptions, it is deeper and broader
construct than organizational climate that consists of shared perceptions.
Corporate ethical culture is considered by prior researchers as a composite of the individual
ethical values of managers and both the formal and informal policies on ethics of organization
(Hunt et al., 1989). In fact, the concentration of corporate ethical culture is on leadership and the
role of managers in conducting ethical culture in an organization. The researchers that used
corporate ethical culture term believe that when ethical standards and norms are accepted and
observed by top managers and widely shared among organization’s members, organizational
success will be enhanced (Hunt et al., 1989; Baker et al., 2006).3
Business ethical culture is defined as an environment where individuals are not only required to
discriminate right from wrong but also are expected to go beyond the minimum to implement
ethical decisions and behaviors when all choices seem right. Business ethical culture encloses
for-profit companies comprised of employees working commonly with internal/external
stakeholders (Ardichvili et al., 2009). Researchers that considered the business ethical culture
concept have used the perceptions of business practitioners or executives and believe that ethical
business culture fosters the company environment guided by shared values and beliefs (Trevino,
1995; Ardichvili et al., 2009; Jondle et al., 2013).
Perceived ethical culture is mostly associated with ethical decision making of individuals in
organizations. According to Sweeney et al. (2009), perceived ethical culture is an encouragement
by top management and also from an organization to make ethical decisions and avoidance of
unethical behaviors. In fact, perceived ethical culture is the perception of individuals who had
faced ethical and unethical dilemmas in the workplace (Lamontagne, 2012). According to
Lamontagne (2012), perceived ethical culture provides an understanding of how individuals
shaped their values in making ethical decisions based on ethical cultures in their organizations.

Different Models of Corporate Ethical Culture

Different models of corporate ethical culture are developed based on ethical culture dimensions
in prior studies. The most well-known models are 1) Corporate Ethical Virtue model (CEV)
developed by Kaptein (2008), 2) Center for Ethical Business Culture model (CEBC) developed
by Ardichvili et al. (2009), 3) Perceived Ethical Culture model (PEC) developed by Sweeney et
al. (2010), and 4) Ethical Corporate Culture model (ECC) developed by Schwartz (2013). All
these models are explained in the following sections.
4.1. Corporate Ethical Virtue Model (CEV)
Corporate Ethical Virtue (CEV) model is developed by Kaptein (2008). Kaptein (2008) argue
that corporate ethical virtues are the organizational conditions for ethical conducts which
formulates normative criteria and reflect the organization’s capacity to stimulate ethical conduct
of employees. In fact, Kaptein (2008) represent normative criteria for corporate ethical culture
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using CEV model. CEV model is grounded on Solomon’s (1992) virtue theory of business
ethics. According to this theory, organizations and also employees should possess special
characteristics or virtues in order to act ethically. Corporate ethical virtues are also certain
characteristics that promote ethical conducts. To define these virtues, Kaptein (2008) conducted
a qualitative analysis of 150 cases of unethical conduct by employees and managers associated
with organizational culture. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis suggest 8
dimensions for ethical culture. These virtues are as following:
  Clarity: the extent to which ethical expectations are comprehensive and understandable
to employees and managers.
  Congruency of management: the extent to which the board and middle management act
in accordance with ethical expectations.
  Congruency of supervisors: the extent to which local management act in accordance with
ethical expectations.
  Feasibility: the extent to which the organization provide sufficient equipment, budgets
and authority to
management and employees.
  Supportability: the extent to which the organization support ethical expectations among
management and
employees.
  Transparency: the extent to which ethical and unethical conducts are visible to
responsible managers and
employees.
  Discussability: the extent to which managers and employees have the opportunity to
discuss ethical issues.
  Sanctionability: the extent to which managers and employees believe about rewards and
punishments.
According to Kaptein (2008), the first three virtues are related to the self-regulating capacity of
the organization, the next two virtues are related to the self-providing capacity of the
organization and the last three virtues to the self- correcting or self-cleansing capacity of the
organization.

Kaptein (2008) believes that prior researches on corporate ethical culture have considered ethical
culture as a one- dimensional construct (Hunt et al., 1989; Trevino et al., 1998). However, he
tries to operationalize ethical culture from one-dimensional model to multi-dimensional through
specifying different sub-dimensions (Kaptein, 2008). Kaptein (2009) tested the CEV model
empirically by investigating the relationship between ethical culture (CEV model) and ethical
programs. The results show that except for the dimensions of feasibility and supportability, all
six other dimensions of ethical culture had a significant relationship with ethics programs.
Kaptein (2011) also investigates the relationship between observed unethical behaviors in work
groups and corporate ethical culture (CEV model). The results show that six of the eight virtues
are negatively related to observed unethical behaviors. He argues that multiple corporate virtues
reduce the incidence of unethical behaviors in work places.4

Corporate Culture:

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In an anthropological term, culture refers to the underlying values, beliefs and codes of practice
that makes a community what it is. Culture is the thing that defines the customs of society,
image of its members and makes societies distinct from one another. Culture is much subjective
matter and reflects the meanings and understandings that we typically attribute to situations, the
solutions that we apply to common problems. Organizations are only one constituent element of
society. People enter them from the surrounding community and bring their culture
with them. It is still possible for organizations to have cultures of their own as they possess the
paradoxical quality of being both ‘part’ of and ‘apart’ from society. Corporate culture has been
there in the organization from the beginning however, it has become an important topic in the
organization world and business from the last two decades. The Rites and Rituals of Corporate
Life (Deal and Kennedy, 1982) popularized the notion of understanding, establishing, and
fostering a positive corporate culture.
Organizational culture comprises of an organization's assumptions and experience, its values
which hold it as a unit in the past and in the present that it possess. Organizational culture can be
accessed on the image of the organization, its internal procedure and of course in it’s in
interactions with the outside world, and its future strategy. Organizational culture is based on the
organizations beliefs, customs, express or implied contracts, and written and unwritten rules that
the organization develops over time. Corporate culture, manifests in the ways the organization
conducts its business, treats its employees, customers, and the wider community, the extent to
which autonomy and freedom is allowed in decision making, developing new ideas, and personal
expression, how power and information flow through its hierarchy, and the strength of employee
commitment towards collective objectives. Organizational culture provides guidelines on
customer care and service; product quality and safety; attendance and punctuality.

Development and creation of effective culture

Creation of effective culture has played a role in formulating organizational goals, mission, plans
and creating future plans. It studies individual group behavior and patterns of structure in order
to improve performance and effectiveness
In Coca-Cola, there is high rank of unique culture and that is clearly reflected in what they do
and how they do. There is infinite number of combination in creating unique culture of this
company (http://en.coca-colahellenic.hr/Careers/Organizationalcultur/). They have developed
their effective culture with their own values norms and believe. The technical and analytical
changes and development in the company have helped them to create a unique organizational
culture. Similarly, constant growth in nature and behavior of organizational dimension and also
team work has helped to strengthen their culture. Leadership is the most important factor in
creating and developing the organizational culture in the company and in Coca- Cola the leaders
has always led from the front. Effective leaders are those persons who can manage employee
to bind inside the organizational environment and define a vision for the achievement of
organizational goal which, is implanted in the brain of everyone in the organization. Likewise for
an effective culture there should also be process and techniques to maintain the effective culture
and Coca-Cola have set effective and smooth processes, techniques.
Organizational Culture and Coca-Cola:
The Coca-Cola made by Pharmacist John Pemberton Atlanta, GA in 1886. At the first time John
Pemberton only sold nine glasses of Coca-Cola, but now the Coca-Cola Company can sell so
many Cola every day. The company is very successful multinational organization having its
presence in almost every country. The company is built around two core assets, its brand and its

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people. The perfection organization culture is the important part of the Coca-Cola Company
success.
First, the Coca-Cola Company has very strong market culture. They have very good product
Coca-Cola to sale. Coca-Cola touches the lives of millions of people each and every day.
Second, the Coca-Cola Company has a nice team culture. The company’s treat it’s employee as
its asset and the company believes that work in the Coca-Cola is more than a place that people go
every day. It should be a place of exploration, innovation, development and interpersonal
relationships. All people’s talents, skills, knowledge, experience combined together that make
the company who they are. As a result, the Coca-Cola Company culture is more and more
merging. The company opens for the employees to sharing ideas across departments and markets
in new ways. Their employees are increasingly enthusiastic about their work and inspired to turn
plans into action.
The Coca-Cola Company realizes that it should be able to meet the ever changing demands of its
customers. This is why the company pushed towards decentralization in the nineties, and even
more so recently. The organization has two operating groups called Bottling Investments and
Corporate. There are also operating groups divided by different regions such as: Africa, Eurasia,
European Union, Latin America, North America, and Pacific. Each of these divisions is again
divided into geographic regions. By allowing decisions to be made on a more local level, the
organization can quickly respond to changing market demands, and higher-level management
can focus more on long-term planning.
The Coca-Cola Company’s business-level strategy is one of differentiation. This is evident in the
previous example of consumers preferring identical beverages just because the Coke brand name
was attached. They have been successful pursuing differentiation because the focus of the
company has always been on marketing.

Changes in Corporate Culture:

Positive/strong culture can play a significant role in the organizational success while
negative/weak one can lead to failure. While it is easy to define a desirable corporate culture
during a company’s infancy, it has been established in practice that culture can be changed for
the better. In order to change the corporate culture, top management of the organization must
first understand what is the current culture is, and can be done by interaction with the employees
about their understanding of organizational perception, values and missions and also by
interaction with the customers regarding their perception about the quality of service provided by
the organization, attitude of the employees towards them etc. This will help management to
understand the type of culture that exists and to identify areas for change, if any. In case of Coca-
Cola the management at every country should first try to analyse the facts in their country and try
to understand what type of culture is best suited to the organization and accordingly decide
which culture to accept and which to leave behind.5
Once the existing current culture is identified and understood, management must decide how the
culture should be changed in order to improve the performance of the employees and at the end
the performance of the organization. For a culture to be effective, it should be consistent with the
business environment in which the organization operates (Goffee and Jones, 1996). For example,
high technology firms tend to operate better using a culture that encourages sharing of
information (to support research and development) and that responds quickly to external events.

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Management should decide to make the cultural change by being sure which behavior, values
that they wish to encourage, and then reinforce the desired culture.

Center for Ethical Business Culture Model

Ardichvili et al. (2009) developed Center for Ethical Business Culture (CEBC) model in order to
introduce ethical business culture components from a holistic perspective. Ardichvili et al.
(2009) divided business culture into formal and informal cultures. Formal business cultures
include leadership, policies, socialization mechanisms, reward systems and decision making
processes. However, informal business cultures include implicit behavioral norms, rituals, role
models, historical anecdotes and language.
EBC model is a list of attributes of ethical culture based on business practitioners or executives’
perceptions. This
model is based on the grounded theory approach (Creswell, 1998). Grounded theory focuses on
discovering a framework to explain a phenomenon under investigation by analyzing data which
are collected through field investigations. Ardichvili et al. (2009) argue that prior studies are
exploring only one or two dimensions of ethical corporate cultures (e.g., decision making or
leadership), and none of them attempted to create a comprehensive list of attributes of ethical
cultures based on the perceptions of business practitioners or executives. Ardichvili et al. (2009)
found five clusters that have emerged from interviews with business practitioners and executives
regarding ethical culture. These dimensions include Mission and Value-Driven, Stakeholder
Balance, Leadership Effectiveness, Process Integrity, and Long-Term Perspective.

Based on Ardichvili et al. (2009), organizations possessing ethical cultures with these 5 clusters
create and maintain a shared pattern of values, customs, practices, and expectations which
dominate normative behaviour in the organization. The first cluster, mission and value-driven
explains the clarity of missions and values reflected in ethical behaviours. The second cluster,
stakeholders balance relates to creating balance for all stakeholders including customers,
employees, owners and community in their entire decision making. The third cluster, leadership
effectiveness represents the ethical cultures set at the top of organization and observed by CEOs
and senior managers. The forth cluster, process integrity explains the dedication to quality and
fairness in organization’s processes, products and people. Finally, long-term perspective relates
to act in the best interests of customers over the longer term.

Perceived Ethical Culture Model

Perceived Ethical Culture model (PEC) developed by Sweeney et al. (2010). Sweeney et al.
(2010) argue that perceived ethical culture has two dimensions: A) ethical tone at the top and B)
ethical pressure.
Managers in the organizations through “tone at the top” are responsible to create and embed
ethical culture in the organization (Morris 2009). In fact, a strong corporate ethical culture starts
with organization’s leaders which called “tone at the top” (Amernic et al., 2010). Aquila and
Bean (2011) define tone at the top as a level of commitment to integrity which leads to the right
conducts at all costs regardless of the consequences such conducts might have on financial
performance. Cunningham (2005) argues that tone at the top is a set of shared beliefs that an
organization has emanating from the top managers. Mahadeo (2006) also defines ethical tone at
the top as ‘the ethical atmosphere which is created in workplace by an organization’s leadership’.
Mahadeo (2006) argues that if employees think managers bend the rules, they will bend the rules

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too. Therefore, top management has the potential to create ethical mental space in organization
by embedding their values, beliefs and ethical rules by generating corporate ethical culture.
Although encouragements set by leaders to behave in an ethical manner play a vital role in an
organization, another
component of perceived ethical culture (PEC) model relates to the organization’s pressure of
reprimanding employees when they engage in unethical conducts (Gurley et al., 2007). Prior
studies have shown that the organization’s rewards and punishment systems influence
employees’ ethical conducts (Gurley et al., 2007; Trevino et al., 1986). Pierce and Sweeney
(2010) suggest that in addition to the tone at the top, the pressures in an organization can also
influence ethical conducts. Sweeney et al. (2010) investigate the effect of perceived ethical
culture on ethical evaluation and intention to act ethically. The results show that two components
of perceived ethical culture (ethical pressure and ethical tone at the top) are significantly related
to ethical evaluation and intention to act ethically. These results suggest that higher perceived
pressure in an organization to engage in ethical conducts and higher perceived ethical tone at the
top are lead to more ethical conducts of employees (Sweeney et al., 2010).

Ethical Corporate Culture Model

Recently, Schwartz (2013) developed Ethical Corporate Culture (ECC) model as a multi-
dimensional model of corporate ethical culture. ECC model has three dimensions include A)
Core ethical value B) Formal ethical programs and C) Ethical leadership.
Schwartz (2013) defines corporate culture as a representation of the organization’s shared values,
beliefs and
assumptions which has three pillars. The first pillar is core ethical value. The core ethical value is
the existence of a set of core ethical values infused throughout the organization in its policies,
processes and practices. The core ethical value pillar includes trustworthiness, respect,
responsibility, fairness, caring, citizenship. The second pillar is formal ethical program. Ethical
program refers to the establishment of a formal ethics program including a code of ethics, ethical
training and ethics hotline and an ethics officer. Finally, the third pillar, ethical leadership is
related to the presence of ethical leadership that is an appropriate “tone at the top” as reflected by
the board of directors, senior executives and managers. This model is not empirically examined
and future studies need to examine this model empirically.6

Discussion and Introducing PP Model

In summary, most of prior researchers have found that ethical culture is based on alignment
between formal processes and policies consistent ethical conduct of top management, and
informal recognition of stories, rituals and language that influence organizational members to act
in a manner consistent with high ethical norms and standards. However, these studies are
exploring some dimensions of corporate ethical cultures including leadership or decision making
and none of the studies consider a comprehensive list of rules and strategies of ethical cultures.
Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to introduce the new framework for ethical culture
by reviewing previous models and studies that have conducted in the literature. This paper has
taken the first step to refine prior models on corporate ethical culture and introduce the new
design.

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Corporate ethical culture can be defined as some aspects of organizational culture that promote
ethical conducts and prevent unethical conducts among employees. In fact, corporate ethical
culture has two main dimensions; promoting ethical conducts and preventing unethical conducts.
Both dimensions have three sub dimensions including policies, practices and norms. For
example, the organization has special policies such as reward system or special practice and
norms for promoting ethical conducts among employees.

OVERSIGHT OF RISK AND RESPONSIBILITY

The status and effectiveness of groups that conduct oversight, manage risk, and set ethical
direction is critical in driving the positive impact of any efforts at culture change but this process
is becoming more challenging. It is no longer sufficient to manage governance, risk, and
compliance solely via a focus on detecting what is illegal and responding to regulatory risk.
Ethical issues are becoming broader and more difficult to evaluate, and are increasingly
converging with sustainability risks. Obvious examples include labor standards in the supply
chain, carbon emissions and climate change, human rights, and civic activism.
Compliance teams are increasingly well resourced, but they are being asked to oversee issues of
ethical conduct and behavior that range beyond legal compliance and to address the challenges
arising from new and unregulated products and services, as well as wider questions of corporate
values. This raises immediate issues of oversight and integration. One team tends to conduct risk
assessments and oversee compliance, but the management of ethical issues needs to be
implemented throughout the business.
There are examples of companies trying more innovative approaches to address the oversight of
existing and emerging ethical challenges, in the process becoming more responsive and able to
anticipate reputational and ethical challenges and stakeholder pressures. Some large
organizations, including Microsoft, Telenor Group, and Telia Co. AB are driving closer
integration among audit, legal, and sustainability functions, aligning these teams beneath a single
senior executive leader. Operational risk committees are more inclined to consider ethics and
sustainability issues beyond legal compliance as material factors for such companies. It has also
become standard practice to integrate sustainability into a formal board committee. Finally,
recent moves have significantly reduced the obsession with quarterly reporting and short-term
performance, as evidence continues to emerge that companies that focus on long-term value
creation perform better.
If these moves are meaningful and well-resourced and are able to influence corporate strategy
and mission, they will provide significant support for ethical culture. Still, integration presents its
own challenges, as we shall discuss next.

COLLABORATION ACROSS BOUNDARIES

For groups and teams to work together across organizations, they need to overcome a range of
boundaries, including physical distance, time zones and schedules, status and authority, and
differentiated knowledge bases. Accelerating technological developments have made remote
work and collaboration more achievable than ever, but tools to enable communication and
collaboration are not an end in themselves. Teams still need to overcome miscommunications,
misunderstandings, competing assumptions, and social norms that drive deference to authority.

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Cross-functional committees and shared issue ownership are often presented as the best way to
manage ethics and values in an organization. It is not difficult to see why. Many ethical issues
facing organizations require interaction among diverse functions, including internal audit, risk,
sustainability, compliance, and human resources, and policy then needs to be implemented by the
“core” business functions. Committees comprise representatives who need to advocate for the
interests and agendas of the groups they belong to while also responding to subtle pressure to
take a big picture perspective, lest they be perceived as parochial.38 The relative power and
status of these various groups can also show up in cross-functional meetings, affecting the
objectivity of the resulting analysis.
Without careful planning and attention to potential unintended consequences, such cross-
functional groups can easily suffer from diffuse accountability, leading to conflict or neglect of
the core task and resulting in ethical lapses. The General Motors Co. ignition-switch scandal
illustrates this phenomenon: Managers failed to make connections, and there was no clear
responsibility for organizational risk.39 One interviewee noted: “Much literature concerns a
mythical ethical man making decisions with the facts in front of him; this isn’t real. The realities
of hierarchy mean that thriving in an organization involves suppressing bad news, which means
that taking responsibility is hazardous. The decision maker checks only that the paperwork is
complete, and those who complete the paperwork are relieved of responsibility for the decision.
Then everyone is protected individually, but it can add up to widespread harm.”
For an organization to consistently implement an ethical culture, attention needs to be paid to the
boundaries among groups in general, and to their consequences. Strategies to address the
challenges presented will increase intergroup understanding and cooperation, and will also
support organizational ethics. Visits to other teams and sites, and the creation of consistent
structures and shared resources, can be helpful.
Leaders can model inclusion and minimize the negative impact of status and authority gaps.
Knowledge management and knowledge sharing are also critical. Groups can and should
acknowledge their different perspectives and organizational values and discuss their potential
consequences. Raising and considering differing values, assumptions, and beliefs—rather than
pretending they don’t exist—is an important step in addressing any gap between explicit
messaging and implicit understanding.

MISSION, VALUES, AND STRATEGY

Organizations interested in building an ethical culture focus on systems, processes, and norms
for good reason. These are the building blocks that form culture and are the obvious areas for
intervention. However, the organization’s mission, vision, and core values—often described as
its “purpose”—will also have a very direct impact on culture. It may be stating the obvious to say
that the organization’s core task may support an ethical culture or may undermine it, but this fact
is often absent from discussions on culture, which can wrongly suggest that the challenge is the
same across organizations and industries. A nonprofit organization that aims to tackle child labor
in the supply chain has a very different core purpose from that of an investment bank. To be sure,
mission-driven organizations can suffer from weak oversight systems and unethical behavioral
norms, but their core task is at least aligned with an ethical imperative, and this will help
motivate employees to drive and support an ethical culture.
For publicly listed corporates, this presents a number of strategic challenges. The most
immediate is how an organization should drive a strategy that allows it to grow, make money,
and satisfy its fiduciary duty to shareholders while also maintaining a meaningful commitment to

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values beyond the proliferation and duration of business.7 In contrast, an exclusive focus on
shareholder value enables clear decision making and priorities, even if these may generate
problems over the longer term. One expert commented: “Short- term business cycles and long-
term client care are out of balance. We reward people for shifting product, not making customers
happy. This results in hit-and-run selling, the myth that customers don’t understand anything.
This removal of real world externalities plays to a certain type of pathology. A focus on money
and bonus to the exclusion of everything else legitimizes and normalizes deviance. Anyone who
has walked on a trading floor for even a few minutes wouldn’t believe for a second that there is a
commitment to client welfare.”
There are two challenges here. They are closely related but not synonymous. The first concerns
planning and time horizons, and the other relates to strategic priorities over these time horizons.
There is growing evidence that managing companies with a view to the longer term can act as a
proxy for high-quality management and generate superior commercial success, compared with
the fruits of an obsession with short-term value. Given that effective consideration of
environmental, social and governance risks requires thinking about the ultimate consequences of
issues such as economic inequality and climate change, it is argued that any boost to long-term
thinking automatically provides the “business case” that has been the holy grail of the
sustainability field for many years. Practitioners are relieved that there is finally compelling
evidence that ethical and financial imperatives need not contradict one another. Given that the
dominant paradigm in the corporate world is still based on quarterly financial reporting, shifting
to a new model is not without challenges. How to value and plan for more nebulous and long-
term sustainability risks, particularly where the impact is indirect, remains an obvious hurdle.
However, there is growing support from influential investors to reward longer-term management
approaches, and this will certainly help the sustainability field.
The question is whether this shift to longer-term thinking can be sufficient in itself. One of the
reasons that concepts of shareholder value have remained so dominant for so long is that the idea
provides a considerable amount of strategic direction. As the sustainability, corporate
responsibility, and human rights agendas have matured, companies have aimed to incorporate
social and environmental considerations into their strategic planning, with varied success. Once
additional social responsibility issues are incorporated, companies must then balance and
prioritize a set of complex ethical considerations for which it is not easy to directly compare risks
and benefits. Concepts of shared value and the triple bottom line have gained a lot of traction,
and the dominant concept in the sustainability field today is that companies should focus on
issues that are both material to their business and to their stakeholders, prioritizing decisions that
are in the sweet spot of being important to both cohorts.

Conclusion
Corporate culture has become a very popular topic in the business now days. A positive culture
should be established during a company’s infancy which, should be reviewed on periodic basis
and if required should be changed. In today’s competitive business environment has made a
positive corporate culture a critical aspect of success for firms. No longer just a competitive
advantage, it has become a prerequisite for success, allowing companies to attract and retain top
employees. The organizations of all sizes should assess and categorize their corporate
cultures, considering the impact of that culture on employee productivity and morale. Coca- Cola
at different country of its presence have different type of culture however, the core values
7
https://www.icsi.edu/media/webmodules/publications/EGAS_04_Sep_14%20pdf.pdf

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and missing of Coca-Cola remains the same at every country which make them unique from
other organization. Diversification culture and team culture is the most preached culture at Coca-
Cola. However, there are issues with other culture being practiced in different countries and even
in some country the culture is still at infant level. Where the culture is serving to
lower morale, the management should take proactive steps to change the corporate culture using
a top-down approach, establishing a new vision and demonstrating new behavior
consistent with the revised vision. In conclusion, companies should shape their corporate culture
to their advantage in improving both their employees’ experience of the workplace and, in turn,
improving their own profitability.

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