Nowadays, the effectiveness and growth prospects of international companies directly depend on the development of internal corporate culture. After studying such aspects of the work of large organizations as the relationship between employees, the subordination system in the company, and employees’ attitudes and views on the development of the MNCs, Trompenaars states that the fundamental orientation should be on the personality and objectives of the company. Thereby, the scientist identified four types of corporate management culture, which received symbolic names: family, guided missile, incubator, and Eiffel Tower.
Family Culture
The family type of culture is strictly hierarchical and focuses on the execution of instructions from leaders. The system as a whole is based on a paternalistic attitude: the initiative and efforts of subordinates should correspond to the leadership’s goals, but people do not call the functions of employees formalized. Decisions, abilities, and even the mood of a leader determine everything. Moreover, leaders conduct a policy of approaching themselves often. That means they are carefully observing employees and giving them broader powers after they prove their loyalty.
In the represented type of organizational culture, the leader plays the role of the father, while employees are his children. Usually, in the presence of the father, full delegation remains in the sphere of the desired. That happens because the children are too used to looking back at their leader and seeking his approval. The effectiveness of the family type of a company is determined by unconditional respect for the leader. Moreover, it is remarkable how much the leader knows the strengths and weaknesses of employees, their affection, and what they dislike. Usually, families use the language of ethical assessments of the approval or disapproval of the father.
Eiffel Tower Culture
Eiffel Tower culture is a fairly standard feature of hierarchical, bureaucratic, and functional companies. Organizations support a strict division of labor and activities, each worker executes their functions, implements in the area of their mastery. Same as the Eiffel Tower, tall, wide at the bottom and narrow at its apex, stable and resistant to outer impacts, any employee submits to their direct supervisor because the role of the latter is to give instructions to subordinates.
An employment contract obliges an individual to work in accordance with job descriptions. Leaders regulate everything in companies, and they assign roles and responsibilities; everyone acts are based on instructions and stated rules. Unlike the family, personal relationships do not count, and close friendships are rare. People are only performers of roles, “cogs,” that leaders can always change due to insufficient qualification. This organizational culture is common in France, Austria, and Germany.
Guided Missile Culture
The represented kind of culture is not relevant to the hierarchical model; it belongs to the egalitarian type. As well as the Eiffel Tower, a guided missile is task-oriented. This means that the main focus of the leadership is not on reaching goals, but on specific goals. It is essential that the company maintains its stands and reaches its goals. A culture like the guided missile focuses on objectives fulfilled by teams of specialists. Based on the tasks and goals, specialized teams autonomously make decisions on achieving them.
Specialists’ activities are not pre-scheduled; there are quite a lot of possibilities for creativity and self-expression. The guided missile culture focuses on professional work within multiple areas. Leaders select the team on the complementarity principle: each person is an expert in the field, and power disperses among team members. In such corporations refer to supple organizational forms, people reconfigure teams quickly, which does not imply the formation of long, close ties. A culture like a guided missile is prevalent in big organizations in the USA, Great Britain, and Norway.
Incubator Culture
Apart from other kinds of corporate culture, an incubator is based on the idea that the self-fulfillment of people as individuals comes above organizations. The main task of the company is to be an incubator for creativity and self-realization of workers. It is essential to release employees from routine so that they can truly devote themselves to creativity. People should not waste their time resolving organizational issues, following perpetual instructions, and unnecessary procedures. Meanwhile, these organizations should include employees who allow the most talented people to produce progressive projects and ideas. There are those people who carry out the normal functioning of the company as an efficient machine. Likewise, some get leadership in the organization with their creativity and innovation thinking.
Silicon Valley American companies, IT companies Google, for example, and others can be the right parts of this kind of culture. These are people who could work by themselves, but in the unit, it is much easier for them to overcome different bureaucratic blocks. Firstly, it is an egalitarian culture, where everyone has exceptional value as a person and, of course, professional. Secondly, the organization has a sense of universality, a sense of “us.” Organizations of the incubator type are quite well-known in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the USA.
The described corporate cultures rarely exist in their pure form. In real life, companies mix cultures under the dominant influence of one of them. Nevertheless, in each national culture, its own type of corporate culture prevails. In 1991, the Center for International Business Studies led by Trompenaars began to create a database of corporate cultures in various countries. The scientists observed the following trend: small companies, no matter where they are, show a tendency to family or incubator cultures. In contrast, large companies with a complex structure have features characteristic of the Eiffel Tower and guided missile.