Organizational culture as differentiator in international retailing

Abstract

Much of the international retailing literature echoes major retailers' assertions that inimitable organizational cultures can create competitive advantage. However, the culture concept remains ill-defined and systematic international empirical analysis is lacking. Based on website analyses of nine international retailers, the paper investigates how organizations define their cultures, codify and transfer them into practice, and aim to homogenize them across borders. Although some evidence for organization-specific cultural aspirations is identified, findings suggest that retailers' cultures become homogenized within and between countries. This supports previous work on the existence of industry-specific macro cultures and challenges the resource-based view, which sees culture as a source of competitive advantage.

The effect of employees’ behaviour on organisational competitiveness in hospitality

“…Another reason that causes negative employee behaviour in the hotel is the "uneven distribution of" monetary benefits and non-monetary benefits. Previous research by Pioch and Gerhard (2014) indicates that in order for employees to perform well, the company needs to find a balance between monetary and non-monetary benefits. Based on results provided by the study at hand, it can be seen that almost half of the employees in job bands 7 and 10 in the hotel do not agree that the salary they earn is equivalent to the jobs they perform, which leads to negative attitudes and possibly negative employee behaviour ultimately.…”

The Impact of Social and Cultural Factors on Success of Trade Internationalization

“…Among other factors, cultural factors that exist in one country are also important for trade internationalization (Pioch and Gerhard, 2014). In this regard, it is impossible to understand the trading system of a country without understanding its culture, since it determines what people buy and the purpose of using certain products.…”

Critically problematising existing organisational identity theory against practice: Part 1 – The thinking framework of organisational identity

“…as part of interrogating the continued relevance of the organisation's purpose (Murray, 2019;The British Academy, 2019). Under these conditions, the concepts of organisational and individual identities have become critically important (Pioch & Gerhard, 2014) in providing secure and referent anchors in the emerging Viccas world of hyper-fluidity and hyper-turbulence (Sillince & Golant, 2018).…”

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Numerous studies position organisational identity (OI) as a key competitive differentiator through providing a competitive edge, retaining talent, driving performance and creating an engaged, purpose-driven workforce (Pioch & Gerhard, 2014;Rockwell, 2019). It is contented that OI is of central importance as root metaphor in organisational studies (

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