1、外文出处： European Management Journal Vol.19,No.3,pp.268275,2001 1 附件 2：外文原文 Source： European Management Journal Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 268275, 2001 Corporate Culture During the past decade it has become recognized that corporate culture has a significant impact on overall organizational performance (Siehl
2、 and Martin, 1990； Kotter and Heskett, 1992). Explicitly or implicitly, 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
3、. In one notable exception, Kotter and Heskett (1992) conducted 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
4、 the effects of culture on financial performance of a single firm. 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 st
5、udy of the impact of corporate culture on the bottom line, or financial 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 corp
6、orate culture has become embedded in management vocabulary and thought.Although there are many different definitions of the concept, the central notion is that culture relates to core organizational values. In turn, values are things which are important to organizations and underpin decisions and be
7、havior. All organizations have cultures or sets of values which influence the way people 2 behave in a variety of areas, such as treatment of customers, standards of performance,innovation, etc. An increasing number of successful organizations have, at least in part, attributed their success to effe
8、ctive culture management. For example, Starbucks Coffee Company, which has 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, 199
9、8). Specifically, the companys paradigm is that: the way we treat our people 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
10、feeling of being valued by the company. These include the widespread use of 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
11、to be four key areas in which all organizations must manage their culture or 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
12、concern for all organizations. Naturally, there are also many other areas of 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
13、well as others. Culture and Organizational Performance The basic paradigm underlying the notion that culture affects performance is based upon a few keyideas. 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 are
