Corporate Culture: a myth?

As discussed in class the Topic of Corporate Culture includes the shares values, beliefs, symbols and behaviors of the group of people that form part in an organization, therefore to understand it is a key element when relating to an organization. But the proposed reading for this topic that is titled: "Corporate Culture: more myth than reality?", says that corporate culture is "weakening or disappear(ing)"[Gregory M.J. 2007] in the new globalized world.

The document supports this strong (because I disagree) affirmation by stating that the concept of corporate culture needs to be reviewed since it has been used to describe a wide variety of behaviors that are right, as opposed to others that are not, as it is stated in the text: "recipe for the right corporate culture"[Gregory M.J. 2007].
With this I do agree, as the author says it in the text the idea of corporate culture change is being used too much. Specially when considering that cultural changes are slow and take time, training and the good will of everyone involved, while the market strategies are fast and the company must react quickly.
So cultural change is not useful to face new market challenges because "compliance isn't culture. Culture is a matter of what people believe deep down, and no one can force or buy such belief"[Gregory M.J. 2007], instead, as proposed by the text, you should use "culture to make the changes that need to be made"[Gregory M.J. 2007].
Thus understanding the corporate culture is important in order to know how to take advantage on the synergies that the corporate culture of a company may create when facing change, not just creating shallow changes that may revert once the situation that forced them disappears (i.e. a boss).
But the text, despite acknowledging the previous conclusion, continues to support the affirmation herein discussed by stating that "corporate culture is less important than the norms and values"[Gregory M.J. 2007] so far this may be true in some contexts, but the author claims that "The fact that corporate culture may be weakening could merely be evidence that a changing environment demands a different, more ad hoc organizational model"[Gregory M.J. 2007] meaning that culture in an organization is no longer relevant.
But my personal opinion, despite the sound evidences that the author presents to support the arguments shown above, is that corporate culture may not be as strong as it once was, but is still a determinant factor when relating to a company, because despite the "project environment" that is taken as an example in the text, some common beliefs, values and attitudes will emerge from the way the things get done in a company, therefore creating a culture to which people may relate to.

The Garden of Earthly Delights - The Bosch, Photo taken from: http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/~litlgirlblue/SoundClass/Bosch.gif

Some traces of the corporate culture may be represented in the triptych above, as in the first part corporate culture may not be significant because everyone work by projects, or may be very strong because the people relate to the values and behaviors of the company, despite there are some degrees of attachment or can be vary bad causing the suffering seen in the third part.

But it must be said that culture is not always good, neither is always as relevant, when shifting from one organization to another. As an example of the first one is a company which is culturally resilient to change, and the second may be characterized by a company with a high turnover rates (because it wont allow the incoming people to adapt to the new culture).
As to the corporate culture being replaced by a professional culture stated in the text I think the corporate culture will not disappear completely, rather (in the most extreme scenario) it will become a co-culture.
As to conclude this summary I would like to show some text extracts of the conclusions drawn by the author:

• "culture matters immensely when crossing borders"[Gregory M.J. 2007], check the case of DaimlerCrhysler, which is given by the author. To this the text ads that the outsourcing, mergers and acquisitions are a part of these international activities that may take culture into consideration, because no matter how diminished corporate culture is the national culture, which is embedded in the  corporate culture, will structure the cultural responses around the frequent practices of the firm thus making relevant the corporate culture, and differentiating it from the same company's culture in another country.
• "even a single company may have a number of subcultures"[Gregory M.J. 2007] so the managers work, according to the author, is to make sure these subcultures create synergies between them, therefore contributing to the company.

So we can appreciate that corporate culture is not disappearing, is only adapting to the new challenges being imposed by the environment
For Further references read:
Millman, Gregory J. . 2007. "Corporate Culture: more myth than reality? ." The Free Library 23:44-47. Millman, Gregory J. (2007, July 1).