Corporate culture as a management tool: an observational study in Akbank

In the last decades, organizations faced the reality that they must adopt new approaches that aim at more and more quality in every aspect of their working lives in order to be successful; thus, the human factor has re-appeared as the most important element in organizations. Many organizations slowly or quickly are understanding the importance of the social and cultural factors that might affect the motivation and performance of their employees and are taking these into account when effectiveness is in question. Beginning with industrial ethnographers and social anthropologists, many scholars from a vast variety of disciplines paid and are paying attention to the corporate culture. Different professional training and different reasons to explore the subject result in disagreements on the concepts. This thesis aims to integrate different definitions, theories, and findings on organizational culture, trying to be both inclusive and selective. This work may contribute to the discussion whether corporate culture is a management tool that guides the members of an organization, or a metaphor used to describe an organization. The conclusion suggests that corporate culture which establishes the environment in which members learn the history, shared values and behavioral norms of the organization and sets boundaries that influence the conversations, actions, even the thoughts of the members, can be an effective management tool. Techniques used are (1) secondary research for the first part of this work, (2) primary research which involves a case study; using the suggested observation methods by Deal and Kennedy (1992) and Schein (1999).