Culture and Organization (Case Study Sample)

Culture and Organization
Name
Institution
Culture and Organization
Background to Unilever Company and its Environment
Initially named Lever Brothers, Unilever began as a British soap making company which majored in the making of Sunlight Soap in the 1890s. The company’s idea of making soap was born from the founder of the Lever Brothers, William Lever, who saw the company rapidly grow as the most popular in promoting cleanliness in Victorian England. The company’s growth was eminent (Barth, & Wolff, 2009, pp. 161). In the 1930s, the Lever Brothers merged with a Dutch margarine making company, Margarine Unie, to form the Unilever Company, a strong global corporation which would result in the creation of new opportunities (Unilever, 2014).
Despite some economic difficulty which was characterized by a great depression and the Second World War, Unilever Company continued to expand in growth. The company’s growth featured the widening of its business areas and the creation of new business areas such as food and chemical manufactures. Today, Unilever is the world’s leading manufacturer and seller of consumed product brands in food, beverages, personal care and home care. The company mainly deals with fast moving consumer goods. Unilever’s product range is comprised of, but not limited to, Blue Band, Vaseline, Rexona, Lifebuoy, Brooke bond and Surf. The company stands as a dual-listed company which comprises of Unilever PLC in London and Unilever NV in Rotterdam (The Guardian, 2010).Unilever’s deals in producing, distributing and the eventually selling of the most essential commodities has made it the most revered player in the fast moving consumer goods industry.
Introduction
The planet earth is composed of a vast three dimensional interconnected web of energy flows and life forms. Years ago, the world appeared to be the size of whatever culture we lived within and felt as if it were stable and unchangeable. Presently, the world is understood to be planetary in scale, characterized by a very fast change and situated either at the threshold of a planetary disaster of unprecedented magnitude or at the beginning of a new era of sustainability. According to Linnenluecke, and Griffiths (2010), the adoption of sustainable development takes place through changes in the values and beliefs adopted by organizations towards moreethical and more responsible values. Essentially, these values and beliefs adopted by organizations form what is referred to as organizational culture.
More specifically and according to McLaughlin (2013), culture can be defined as the values and beliefs which govern the behavior of stakeholders of an organization. These values and beliefs are shared among the various stakeholders in an organization and they dictate how an organization performs its operation in order to meet stakeholders’ expectations. It is this culture that influences how organizational decisions will affect an organization’s stakeholders. In their own unique ways, organizations develop and maintain cultures which provide guidelines and limits to how stakeholders behave. Indeed, culture forms the basis for treating an organization’s stakeholders with the respect and dignity they deserve.
Robertson (2014)notes that sustainability is about seeing and recognizing the dynamic, cyclical and interdependent nature of all the parts and pieces of life on earth. Put in a more business specific terms, sustainability can be perceived as the attempt by corporations to balance today’s business practices while at the same time maintaining the environment for future generations. Therefore, sustainable development encompasses all the economic and social development which preserves the earth’s ecosystem for the present and future generations (Western Libraries, 2014). Mirrored on the above, this paper aims at analyzing Unilever’s sustainable development as a theoretical framework used in the study of organizational culture to conduct an analysis of Unilever’s culture.
Justification
As highlighted above and as noted by Sustainability Indices (2014), sustainable development or sustainability can be viewed as a business practice that fosters the creation of long term stakeholder value by embracing opportunities and bringing risks deriving from the economy, environment, and social development to a manageable level . It is important to consider sustainable development of any corporation because sustainability is critical to the creation of long term stakeholder value in a world which is increasingly becoming resource constrained. Additionally, sustainable business practices represent risks and opportunities that companies in a competitive environment must address. Sustainability factors have a major contribution on the changing business world which impact on companies’ top and bottom lines. Challenges which can be viewed in the long-term such as climate change, resource scarcity and demographic shifts are redefining the expectations of the society, regulatory frameworks, and public policies (Searcy, 2009). Consequently, the business environments and investment outcomes are affected. These challenges provide for new risks and opportunities that must be addressed by companies now in order to remain competitive in the future.
As noted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (2014), Companies that expect and manage today’s and tomorrow’s economic, environmental and societal opportunities and risks by putting focus on productivity, innovation and quality will come out as leaders and are more likely to have a competitive advantage and a long-term shareholder value. Developing and implementing sustainable business strategies enable companies to gain competitive advantage. Sustainable practices are therefore seen as business opportunities, a perspective which represents a new paradigm in corporate culture. The shift is revolutionary and is a force that is reshaping today’s business world.
Moreover, in efforts to promote sustainable development among companies, world environmental organizations such as the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), requires that corporations participate in corporate sustainability reporting. In this reporting, companies measure and disclose sustainability information integrated with the company’s reporting practices that exist. Sustainability information contains information on how companies utilize and impact upon financial, natural and human resources (UNEP, 2014). It is therefore relatively important that an organization practices corporate sustainability.
Nevertheless, rapid globalization that began in the 1990s has had a profound impact on the perception of the global business community on matters sustainability. The business community has become more conscious than ever of the importance of sustainability as it relates to the environment, ethical issues and the economy. Contemporary organizations and businesses have generally progressed in their attitudes and commitments toward the importance of sustainability (Brockett, &Rezaee, 2012, pp. 167). Indeed, every business sector has its own unique impact on global sustainability but the general importance of sustainability for the business environment is somehow common in all the business industries. These factors form the basis for analyzing Unilever’s sustainable development as compared to other theoretical framework that might have been considered for organizational analysis.
An Explanation of Sustainable Development and its Concepts
Sustainable development became popular as a term after the publication of the Brundtland report in 1987. In the report, the definition of sustainable development is provided for as the ability of the present generation to meet its needs without disregard of the future generation’s ability to meet its own. This definition is viewed as the classical definition of sustainable development (Drexhage& Murphy, 2010). Relative to sustainable development, sustainability can be defined as the process of delivering products and services that are competitively priced and yield satisfaction to human needs, while at the same time reduce environmental impacts and utilize the minimum possible resources at most to a level that corresponds with the estimated carrying capacity of the Earth (Australia's financial sector in sustainability).
Over the past two decades, the business environment has seen firms being scrutinized and put under great pressure with their stakeholders comprising of the government, regulators and investors to focus on sustainability. The fast moving consumer goods manufacturing companies such as Unilever bear the potential to promote the principles of sustainability through its activities which include manufacturing, supplying and selling of products as well as through its internal policies and processes. Traditionally, firms in various industries have considered corporate sustainability reporting just as an economic issue. However, the contemporary business environment has made firms to be aware of the social, ethical and environmental issues of corporate performance, which have gained momentum over the years (Rezaee, 2011, pp. 55).
According to Anderson (2014), the major issue of concern for firms is the public perception that any business is guilty of exploiting its customers as well as the general business environment in which it operates. As a result, companies are not viewed entirely as a sustainable entity by the general public but only as a business sector which functions to fulfill only the shareholders’ interests. Nonetheless, as a result of the growing global attention given to issues of sustainability, there is increasing evidence that sustainability is a way of doing good business let alone just busin...