“Putting into practice of non-essentialist model of culture: Understanding corporate culture and fostering ‘employeeship’”

Abstract

Corporate culture is too often equated with national culture without much regard to specific corporate culture that differ in many aspects from national culture; not all corporations have similar culture within a nation. Moreover, widely practised paradigm of 5-7-9 cultural dimensions (Hofstede (5), Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (7) and GLOBE (9)) tends to essentialize national culture; such essentialist notions of culture in practice can lead to treating employees as ‘cultural dopes’ based on the nationality of origin suppressing their agency for change and choice with singular identity disregarding multiple intersecting and shifting identities in space and time (Nathan, 2015). This sort of treatment of employees can restrict employeeship constituted by autonomy, ownership and responsibility and encourage leadership subordinated to essentialist notions of culture. Employeeship can foster personal responsibility. Against this background, this workshop attempts to provide hands-on experience putting into practice of the non-essentialist model of culture presented by Nathan (2015), bringing together practitioners, towards an understanding corporate culture and fostering employeeship.