Over the past decade, the management of a firm's entire supply chain has become the process for building improved and stronger upstream and downstream business linkages. "Win-win" relationships, that utilize the strengths of other channel members, are created between supply chain partners (Katzorke and Lee 2000). While there are considerable discussions about the importance of supply chain relationships, less emphasis has been allocated to the concept of corporate culture and its role in facilitating or hindering these relationships.Corporate culture is similar to a firm's personality in that it provides an organizational memory that minimizes the need to start over whenever personnel changes occur (Walsch and Ungson 1998). Organizational memory regulates communication flows both within the organization and between channel members by ensuring continuity of norms. In addressing this issue, Mohr and Sohi (1995) state: "shared norms implies that the manufacturer and dealer share the belief that information sharing is important and expected" (p. 398). Conversely, when shared norms are not reinforced by an organizational memory, information sharing appears to be less important and less expected. Research confirms that shared values positively influence both commitment and trust between a firm and its channel members (Morgan and Hunt 1994).Human resource management policies, which directly influence and are influenced by corporate culture, also significantly impact supply chain members. That is, human resource decisions are important because, when firms hire personnel that meld with their company culture, these actions enhance shared social knowledge and increase consistency between employee and firm goals (Wilkins and Ouchi 1983). Shared social knowledge guides employees in making the right decision when confronted with novel situations (Weitz and

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