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1、 毕业设计（论文）外文翻译题 目: 企业文化和底线 英文题目: Corporate Culture and the Bottom Line 系 别: 工商管理系 专 业: 工商管理 班 级: 07工商管理本科（1）班 学 号: 8053107017 企业文化和底线作者：Eric Flamholtz资料：欧洲管理杂志卷，2001年 第268-275，3号，19介绍在过去的十年里，人们意识到企业文化对整个组织绩效有重大影响（西尔和马丁1990，科特和赫斯科特1992）。明里或暗里，人们已经认定企业文化会影响一个公司的整体财政绩效。尽管这样，却很少实证研究涉及企业文化的财政影响。在一个明显的例外中，
2、科特和赫斯科特（1992）对不同的公司展开了宏观研究。在22种不同的工业中，将文化意识强的代表公司和文化意识弱的代表公司作比较（1992）。然而，非但他们没有做很多关于企业文化对单一公司的财政绩效影响的研究。一部分，这可能是由于找到一个适合的研究地点是困难性。不过，这却是我们对这种现象理解的代沟。相应地，这篇文章的目的是报告了一个领域研究的结果，企业文化对一个公司的“底线”和财政绩效的影响。它陈述了对一个单一公司的企业文化和财政绩效之间关系调查研究的一个相对突出的一个机会的结果。文化的本性企业文化的概念慢慢地在管理词典和思想中扎根。尽管对于这个概念的定义有很多。文化跟核心的组织价值观有关系是中
3、心概念。反过来，价值对于一些组织，重大的决定和行为来说是重要的。所有组织都有影响人们在许多地区的行为方式的文化或价值观念，例如，对待客户的方式，执行的标准，革新等等。越来越多的成功组织，至少一部分，已经将他们的成功归结为有效的文化管理。例如，星巴咖啡公司，在过去的十年间从仅仅为美国西雅图的两家零售点成长为遍布全世界的2500家商店。星巴咖啡公司视文化为组织成功的关键性因素。（舒尔茨和杨，1997；弗兰霍尔茨和兰德尔，1998）确切地说，公司的典范是：“我们对待我们员工的方式会影响他们对客户的方式，并且，反过来，我们的成功包括财政的绩效。 这个信念引导公司进行许多人力资源进行实践，这些实践是公司
4、为了增加员工的存在价值感而制定的。这些包括股票期权的广泛使用和给所有一星期工作时长超过20小时的雇员们提供一切利益的实施。许多地区的企业文化影响着运转情况和决策的制定。然而，似乎有四个关键领域， 在这四个领域中所有组织必须管理好自己的文化或价值：（1）对待客人的方式，（2）一个组织的人或人力资源的出来方式，（3）组织的执行标准，（4）责任性的概念。这些是所有组织的文化关注的重要区域。当然，组织效益所关注的还有许多其它区域，而且这些区域对于一些特定的公司趋向于更非同寻常。另外的这些区域和他们领域一样可以包括创新方面的信念，企业的公民意识和改变意识。文化和组织的绩效 潜在于文化影响绩效这个概念之中
5、的典型范例是基于几个关键观念的。首先，文化影响目标的实现。更确切地说是，有强烈文化意识的公司同那些文化意识相对较弱的公司相比，前者实现其目标的可能性更大。所谓的“文化意识强的组织“被认为是拥有更大的组织成功机率（在市场价值或其它财政绩效衡量标准时得出的数据）也是因为对动机的坚信的链接。就像科特和克赫斯特所说，强烈的文化意识通常被认为对经营成绩有益，因为他们使员工们产生了一个不同寻常水平的动机（1992，p.16）。 除文化和财政绩效之间的假设关系之外，文化还开始被看做是其他组织的有效性或成功模范的成分 (弗兰霍尔茨和兰德尔，1998，2000)作为六因素框架的部分，文化的角色已经被认为是组织有
6、效性和，反过来，财政效益的解释（弗兰霍尔茨，1995；弗兰霍尔茨和兰德尔，1998，2000）确切地说，文化被看做是成功组织的一个重要的组织发展区域，或是关键的策略制定块。反过来，进一步的实证研究支持着这个框架（弗兰霍尔茨和Aksehirli，2000）研究策略 这个研究作为在中型工业型企业进行的行为调查一个计划的部分而被进行。 公司从事于一个被设计为增加整个组织的有效性的组织发展程序中，并且，也在相应地提高财政绩效。在这个过程中，很明显，在下文会更深入讨论到的文化管理对公司的组织发展是一个重要的区域。因此，作为正在进行的组织发展的副产品，其有可能评价一个公司的文化对它的财政绩效的影响。研究对
7、象描述：“邦纳公司” 这个研究地址（其实我们应该用它笔名，邦纳公司）是美国一家中型企业。邦纳公司代表了标准的“古老经济”它是一家为工业，载重汽车以及其它汽车行业制造零件的公司。是像福特汽车公司，纳威司达和德纳公司等的零件供应商。研究的理由 在一个经典的“卷起”战略中，通过收购，公司初步形成。这个战略是通过收购使得产业整合。它包括了几个不同的部门，其中每一部门都独立地代表了企业性质的公司，这些部门每年盈利都在25百万美元到1亿美元之间。总之，这20个部门总年利润大约是8亿美元。在这个研究进行的时候，这些部门组成了一套有合理联系的技术，像铸造和锻造。铸造厂的加工能力介于从“灰生铁”到“球墨铸铁”到
8、“消失模”再到其他类似的技术。这些实体的商业性质的“生产订单” 这些部门的相似点为对比呈现一个相对独特的机遇。邦纳公司是由一些独立的公司集合而形成的，所以没有共同的邦纳公司企业文化。每个独立的公司，或者说是像他们之前被称呼的那样“部门”，已经在美国的许多区域运作。在被邦纳公司收购之后，许多公司仍然用它们自己的公司名称和商标。一个组织的评估已经确认了有些邦纳的员工不知道哪个是母公司，并且甚至其他人似乎都不在乎。 尽管似乎有一个充分的理由去承担一个文化管理项目，但是实际的驱动因素是支持在企业策略中做一个基本的改变。特别是，之前的旧策略整合了一个无条理的产业，并且允许那些只有少许操作方针和系统的个体
9、公司（部门）自主的操作。新的策略是用来平衡公司重要的那块并且利用它的综合资源为那些大客户服务，像福特，纳威司达，德纳等。 这需要在部门的销售和订单的完成中作共同的努力。 因此，这个研究是总体文化管理项目的一个组成成分，这个项目是为了营造一种共同的邦纳公司文化。组织的发展目标有：(1)为邦纳公司发展一种文化或一系列价值，亦或是一种渴望的文化，（2）衡量人们贯通那些被赞同提议的文化的公司，（3）衡量人们感知组织的运作方式和规定的文化实际上是一致的程度。（4）构思策略去加深规定的或渴望的文化在组织中确实普及了的程度。 整个文化管理项目在图像1中的图表表示出来了。正如在图1中所看到的，文化管理过程首先
10、要以辨别企业文化的存在而开始的。这些都是跟某些重要方面有关的组织的当前真实价值，例如，对待客人的方式等。接下来是制定该组织的理想或期望文化。组织希望真正的文化是这些或是成为这些。 另外，这种渴望文化可以看做是组织的策略文化，因为它旨在支持企业的整个战略发展。应该指出的是第一步和第二步的顺序可以颠倒，首先要认同期望文化，然后，就是当前文化的认同。在没有强烈的原文化的情况下，这个是必要的。文化管理过程的第三步是评价现有文化和期望文化是一致的并且认同任何“文化差异”的程度，即，现有文化和期望文化之间的显著性差异。这是以文化问卷的方式完成的， 文化问卷如以下描述。上文的三个步骤在这个研究中对我们来说是
11、关键的。然而，要完整的话，还要包括剩余的步骤（4）改变文化行动的发展， 和（5）监控评价文化管理项目的效能和决定未来必要的干涉的文化改变。研究问题这篇文章演说的一般的研究问题是：在组织企业文化和组织财政绩效有联系吗？在这个研究的情景中，还有更为具体的研究问题。我们对确定在（1）在部门中人们接受公司的特定文化的程度和（2）公司的财政效能之间的关系很兴趣。更确切地说，作为该公司的形成性质的结果，没有共同或统一的“邦纳公司”文化， 所以我们可以注意到邦纳的财政绩效文化的全面影响。注：图表、致谢及参考文献已略去（见原文）Corporate Culture and the Bottom LineAuth
12、or: Eric Flamholtz Source: European Management Journal Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 268275, 2001IntroductionDuring the past decade it has become recognized that corporate culture has a significant impact on overall organizational performance (Siehl and Martin, 1990;Kotter and Heskett, 1992).Explicitly or imp
13、licitly,it has been presumed that corporate culture affects the overall financial performance of a firm. In spite of this presumption, there has been very little empirical research dealing with the financial effects of corporate culture. In one notable exception, Kotter and Heskett (1992) conducted
14、macro-level research on different companies, and compared samples of (a priori) strong culture companies with weak culture companies (1992, p. 19) from 22 different industries. However,neither they nor others have done much research on the effects of culture on financial performance of a single firm
15、. In part, this might be due to the difficulties of gaining a suitable research site. Nevertheless, there is a gap in our understanding of this phenomenon. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to report the results of a field study of the impact of corporate culture on the bottom line, or fin
16、ancial performance, of a firm. It presents the results of a relatively singular opportunity to investigate the relationship between corporate culture and financial performance in a single firm.The Nature of Culture The concept of corporate culturehas become embedded in management vocabulary and thou
17、ght. Although there are many different definitions of the concept, the central notion is thatculture relates to core organizational values.In turn, values are things which are important to organizations and underpin decisions and behavior. All organizations have cultures or sets of values which infl
18、uence the way people behave in a variety of areas,such as treatment of customers, standards of performance,innovation, etc.An increasing number of successful organizationshave, at least in part, attributed their success to effective culture management. For example, Starbucks Coffee Company, which ha
19、s grown from just two retail stores in Seattle (USA) to more than 2500 stores world-wide during the past decade, views culture as a critical factor in the organizations success (Schultz and Yang, 1997; Flamholtz and Randle, 1998).Specifically, the companys paradigm is that: the way we treat our peop
20、le affects they way our people treat our customers, and, in turn, our success, which includes financial performance. This belief has led the company to a number of human resource practices that are designed to enhance peoples feeling of being valued by the company.These include the widespread use of
21、 stock options and the practice of providing full benefits to all employees who work more than 20 hours per week.There are many areas in which corporate culture influences behavior and decision-making. However,there appear to be four key areas in which all organizations must manage their culture or
22、values: (1) the treatment of customers, (2) the treatment of an organizations own people or human capital, (3) standards of organizational performance, and (4) notions of accountability. These are the key areas of cultural concern for all organizations. Naturally, there are also many other areas of
23、organizational performance that are of concern, but these tend to be more idiosyncratic to specific firms. Such additional areas can include beliefs with respect to innovation, corporate citizenship, openness to change, as well as others.Culture and Organizational PerformanceThe basic paradigm under
24、lying the notion that culture affects performance is based upon a few key ideas. The first is that culture affects goal attainment.More specifically, companies with strong cultures are more likely to achieve their goals than those with relatively weak cultures. So-called strong-culture organizations
25、 are thought to have a higher degree of organizational success (measured in market value or other financial measures of performance), because of a believed link to motivation. As stated by Kotter and Heskett, strong cultures are often said to help business performance because they create an unusual
26、level of motivation in employees (1992, p.16).In addition to the hypothesized relationship betweenculture and financial performance, culture also has come to be viewed as component of other organizational effectiveness or success models (Flamholtz and Randle, 1998, 2000). It has been theorized that
27、the role of culture, as part of a six factor framework,explains organizational effectiveness and,in turn,financial performance (Flamholtz, 1995; Flamholtz and Randle,1998, 2000). Specifically, culture has been viewed as a critical organizational development area,or key strategic building block,of su
28、ccessful organizations.This framework has, in turn, been supported by further empirical research (Flamholtz and Aksehirli,2000).Research StrategyThis study was conducted as part of a program of action research on a medium-sized industrial enterprise. The company was engaged in an organizational deve
29、lopment program designed to enhance overall organizational effectiveness, and, consequently,financial performance. During the program,it became apparent that culture management, discussed further below, was a critical area for the companys organizational development. As a result, it was possible to
30、assess the impact of a companys culture on its financial performance as a byproduct of the ongoing organizational development program.Research Site Description: Banner CorporationThe research site (for which we shall use the pseudonym,Banner Corporation) is a US-based, mediumsized industrial enterpr
31、ise. Banner represents the classic old economy. The company is a parts manufacturer for industrial, truck and other automotive businesses. It is a supplier of parts for such companies as Ford Motor Company, Navistar, and Dana Corporation.Reasons for the StudyThe company was formed primarily through
32、acquisitions in a classic roll up strategy, a strategy ofindustry consolidation through acquisitions. It consisted of several different divisions, each of which had been stand alone entrepreneurial companies,with revenues ranging from about $25 million annually to about $100 million. Altogether, the
33、 twenty divisions totaled about $800 million in annual revenueat the time of this study. These divisions consisted of a set of reasonably related technologies,such as foundries and forges. The foundries ranged from processing capacity for grey iron to ductile iron to lost foam to other similar techn
34、ologies. The nature of the business of such entities is job order manufacturing.The similarities between the divisions present a relatively unique opportunity for comparison. The company had been formed from a set of stand-alone companies,so there was no common Banner Corporation corporate culture.
35、Each of the individual companies,or divisions, as they were termed, operated in various parts of the United States. Many still kept their own names and logo after acquisition by Banner Corporation.An organizational assessment had determined that some employees of Banner did not know who the parent c
36、ompany was and others seemed not even to care.Although this might even have been a sufficient reason to undertake a culture management project, the actual driving reason was to support a fundamental change in corporate strategy. Specifically, the old strategy had been to consolidate a fragmented ind
37、ustry and allow the individual companies (divisions) to operate autonomously, with a few corporate policies and systems. The new strategy was to leverage the companys critical mass and use its combined resources to serve large clients, such as Ford, Navistar,Dana, etc. This required a cooperative ef
38、fort among the divisions of sales and order fulfillment.Therefore, this research was a component of an overall cultural management program designed to create a common Banner Corporation culture. The organizationaldevelopment objectives were to: (1) develop a culture or set of values, or a desired cu
39、lture, for Banner Corporation, (2) measure the extent to which people throughout the company agreed with the proposed culture, (3) measure the extent to which peopleperceived that the organization was actually behaving in ways consistent with the stated culture, and (4) design strategies to increase
40、 the extent to which the stated or desired culture actually pervaded the organization.The overall culture management program is shown graphically in Figure 1. As seen in Figure 1, the culture management process begins with the identification of the existing corporate culture. These are the current a
41、ctual values of the organization with respect to certain key dimensions, such as treatment of customers,etc. The next step is to formulate the ideal or desired culture of the organization. These are whatthe organization wants the culture to actually be or become. In addition, this desired culture ca
42、n be viewed as the organizations strategic culture because it is intended to support the overall strategic development of the enterprise. It should also be noted that steps 1 and 2 can be reversed, with the identification of the desired culture first and then identification of the current culture. T
43、his can be necessary in situations where there is no strong preexisting culture.The third step in the culture management process is to assess the extent to which the current and desiredculture are consistent and identify any cultural gaps, that is, significant differences between the current and des
44、ired culture. This is accomplished by means of a culture questionnaire, as described below.The three steps above are the key steps of concern to us in this research. However, for completeness, the remaining steps include: (4) the development of action programs to change the culture, and (5) monitori
45、ng cultural changes to assess the effectiveness of the culture management program and determine the necessary future interventions.Research QuestionThe general research question this article addresses is: Is there a relationship between a corporate culture and the financial performance of an organiz
46、ation? There was also a more specific research question in the context of this study. We were interested in determining the relationship between: (1) the extent to which people in the divisions accepted the stated culture of the company and (2) the companys financial performance. More specifically, as a result of the nature of the formation of this company, there was no common or unified Banner Corporation culture, so we were able to observe the full effects of a culture on Banners financial performance.
