Organizational Culture Analysis

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KCC) has a strong organizational culture that allows employees to balance work life easier and they perceive each other as family. The company culture inculcates values of accountability and authenticity among its employees, an aspect that plays a key role in helping the organization remain faithful to its core values. KCC’s management monitors employee accountability by tracking the performance record of every member of the staff.  Consequently, the human resources department lays-off any individual who does not meet the expected performance threshold. The emphasis on accountability has enabled the Kimberly-Clark Corporation to establish a performance- based remuneration package involving the recognition and rewarding of the top performers within the organization.

This performance-oriented culture plays a vital role in improving the company’s innovativeness. Authenticity and accountability are the two major constituents of the organizational culture at KCC. These components have a significant influence on the nature and value of innovations made by the company. Invention takes up a lot of capital investments, thus the need for accountability and authenticity. The experts tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the success of all innovations must, therefore, be able to articulate the need for such changes and demonstrate the feasibility and benefits that accrue to the company as a result of their adoption.

 For the company to achieve exemplary success in its innovations, the management must ensure total accountability the financial resources as well as the individual employee performance (Hogan & Coote, 2014). Additionally, the organization is entirely committed to implementing new ideas that are of great value and provide positive returns, based on the company’s values. The existence innovation as a core value of Kimberly-Clark Corporation makes it easy to implement new innovative ideas since the organizational structure supports attempts to improve the innovativeness of the company. There is no cultural element within the company that requires redesigning since the corporate culture encourages all forms of innovations that add value.

Strengthening an organization’s innovation culture requires the use of viable strategies that promote the sustainability of such transformations in the long term (Normore, Javidi, & Long, 2016). Such measures include conducting market research frequently to gather information on the current developments within the industry, as well as identifying competitor activities that pose a threat to the company’s current innovations. The research and development department must provide proposals with clear and creative ideas, which upon implementation guarantee the success of the firm’s innovation (Hogan & Coote, 2014). Additionally, the company should inculcate a culture among employees that encourages them to voice their ideas no matter how simple they perceive them to be. This strategy allows the company to promote creativity among its staff force. As a result, the organization ensures that it does not lose out on ideas which could be of value in innovations. Besides, the company should ensure that it has adequate budgetary allocation for the research & development and innovations department.

Communication within an organization should be done using appropriate tools to ensure that the message reaches its intended recipient (Normore, Javidi, & Long, 2016). The effective communication of the innovative structure to employees through the use of participatory mechanisms acclimatizes the creative culture across the organization. Capacity building for innovative thinking is, therefore, achievable by allowing the employees to participate in the critical decision-making processes, thus promoting the development of creative ideas from within the organization.

References

Hogan, S. J., & Coote, L. V. (2014). Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein’s model. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), 1609-1621.

Normore, A. H., Javidi, M., & Long, L. W. (2016). Handbook of research on effective communication, leadership, and conflict resolution. Hershey: IGI Global.