| Summary: | ABSTRACT Helena Nowachek The purpose of the following study is to focus upon the possibilities and challenges associated with the transference of corporate culture from one organization to another. I have chosen to address this by looking at the franchise company Jobzone, which works specifically with recruitment and outsourcing. As a method I have interviewed three people in Jobzone: one person who is responsible for education, one franchising boss in Sweden and one franchisee. To delineate the concept of culture I apply both Schein’s model, in which he divides culture into the three levels of artifacts, values and basic assumptions, as well as a general theory of communication. My initial analysis displays that Jobzone, through education and a protocol handbook, is able to transfer artifacts. This may be possible because Jobzone successfully encodes artifacts in such fashion that new organizations can easily decode the information. In order to teach franchisees corporate values, Jobzone distributes ethical rules and arranges franchise meetings. However, because of the communication process, transferring values proves more difficult. Values are harder to encode and decode than artifacts insofar as each corporate culture possess basic assumptions that are themselves likely inexpressible as rules. Jobzone was founded in Norway but now also has companies in Sweden—a factor which may make the process of transferring culture even more difficult. An example of this is the difference in interpretation of the symbol timmermän between Norway and Sweden. A possible conclusion is that transference of a culture becomes more difficult as one moves into deeper levels, and cultural difference renders this process even more complex.
|
|---|
