Managing Across Cultures

Question :

Compare and contrast the organisational culture of Alibaba Group Holding Limited and Amazon Inc.

Answer :

Organizational culture

Organizational culture is defined as a system of shared values, assumptions, and beliefs that guide as well as govern the behavior of people within the organization. The shared values that an organization has significantly affect the behavior and attitude of people within the organization and determine how they act, dress, and perform their work in order to accomplish the goals and objectives of the organization (Arditi et al., 2017). 

Culture of Alibaba Group Holding Limited and Amazon Inc. 

Alibaba and Amazon Inc. are among the great e-commerce companies in the world. Both have achieved tremendous growth based on their corporate strategies and organizational culture. Both organizations significantly focus on building a strong organizational culture in order to achieve the intended goals.

Alibaba maintains a common organizational culture with the help of its shared values. The management of the organization considerably focuses on developing an effective and happy organizational working environment so that every individual within the organization can work effectively and efficiently. The management provides different financial as well as non-financial motivational tools that help it to keep employees of the organization highly motivated (González-Rodríguez et al., 2019). One of the key shared values of Alibaba is “Today’s best performance is tomorrow’s baseline.” It encourages the employee of the organization to give their best and perform well to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization. The organization focuses on the welfare of every individual working for the organization. The culture of Alibaba has a strong influence on the employee's behavior, action, motivation, and morale. The culture of Alibaba has significantly decreased the rate of employee turnover and absenteeism. It has helped the organization to improve Alibaba’s performance and productivity (Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2016). Alibaba also promotes “Live seriously, work happily.” The organization respects the choice of every individual within the organization that gives them a sense of belongingness. Alibaba also promotes a culture of trust that is necessary to develop a healthy culture. 

Similarly, Amazon Inc. also believes in developing a healthy organizational culture in order to improve performance by motivating and encouraging employees of the organization. It believes that organizational culture improves the capacity of the organization to meet the demand of customers in the market. Amazon Inc. pushes employees to explore ideas as well as take risks (Kava et al., 2018). Thus, the employee of the organization can seek new opportunities in order to serve the customer effectively and efficiently. The management of the organization focuses on the growth and development of employees and hence they are provided with effective training. The organization also promotes effective cooperation and collaboration among employees that are needed to improve the performance, efficiency, and effectiveness of the organization (Gordon, 2017). Financial and non-financial tools are provided to keep employees of Amazon Inc. motivated. The organization is also experiencing low employee turnover and absenteeism. 

Thus, it can be said that the organizational culture of both Alibaba and Amazon Inc. is very effective to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. The organizational culture of both organizations has helped to achieve a high growth rate, organizational mission, and vision.

References 

Arditi, D., Nayak, S., & Damci, A. (2017). Effect of organizational culture on delay in construction. International Journal of Project Management, 35(2), 136-147.

González-Rodríguez, M. R., Martín-Samper, R. C., Köseoglu, M. A., & Okumus, F. (2019). Hotels’ corporate social responsibility practices, organizational culture, firm reputation, and performance. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27(3), 398-419.

Gordon, G. (2017). Guiding Organizational Culture. In Leadership through Trust (pp. 53-62). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Kava, C. M., Parker, E. A., Baquero, B., Curry, S. J., Gilbert, P. A., Sauder, M., & Sewell, D. K. (2018). Organizational culture and the adoption of anti-smoking initiatives at small to very small workplaces: An organizational-level analysis.

Naranjo-Valencia, J. C., Jiménez-Jiménez, D., & Sanz-Valle, R. (2016). Studying the links between organizational culture, innovation, and performance in Spanish companies. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 48(1), 30-41.