Organizational culture is a distinctive set of values and norms that develop within an organization to guide the action of its members. Organizational culture is related to national culture because organizations interact with their environment; for example, employees bring their culture into the workplace. However, within national cultures there is variation among corporate cultures. It is likely that the cultures of computer companies across cultures are more similar than are computer companies with retail stores within the same culture. In other words, the processes, structure, and goals of an organization have a great influence on its culture which may significantly modify a particular national culture.

Organizational culture exists at many levels including artifacts such as building design and employee clothing and at deeper levels that include the core values of the organization. The artifacts are relatively easy to interpret while core values are difficult to understand because they often affect behavior in ways that even organization members are unaware of and cannot fully appreciate.

Organizations develop different cultures even when they are in the same national culture and business. Using the Web sites listed below see if you can identify distinctive organizational culture features of three corporations in the automotive industry and three corporations in the computer industry.

1. What are the distinctive artifacts of the culture?
2. What values does the culture present as important?
3. Are there any hidden or deep messages presented in the corporate image?

1. Are there different corporate cultures?
2. If the cultures vary, are the similarities the result of industry characteristics?
3. What elements of the cultural differences are the product of national culture or competitive strategies?

1. Toyota
   http://www.toyota.com
   
   
2. Mercedes-Benz
   http://www.mercedes-benz.com/
   
   
3. Honda
   http:www.honda.com
   
   
4. Chrysler
   http://www.chryslercorp.com/
   
   
5. Lincoln-Mercury
   http://www.lincolnmercury.com
   
   
6. General Motors
   http://www.gm.com
   
   

1. Canon Computer Systems
   http://www.ccsi.canon.com
   
   
2. Fujitsu PC Corporation
   http://www.fujitsu-pc.com
   
   
3. Toshiba America Information Systems
   http://www.computers.toshiba.com
   
   
4. Microsoft
   http://www.microsoft.com
   
   
5. AT&T
   http://www.att.com
   
   
6. Siemens Microelectronics
   http://www.siemens.com