distinction to the importance of reality over perception, in this case related to the need for organizational values and the recognition of the need to adjust to new surroundings. This is a strategic shift rather than a cosmetic gloss suggested by a manipulation of the mind or an image or perception based on advertising.
Organizational Culture and Positioning 73 the firm’s internal message to its own people will be weak or cacoph- onous. Where that is the case the company cannot help but present a confused and confounded image to customers and distributors . . . If identity policies tell the firm, its personnel, and its customers ‘who the company is’ when it comes to marketing, direction policies inform about ‘where the firm is going’.
The image of an organization in the mind of the customer is clearly distorted by uncertainty or confusion to the answer of the question
‘Who are we?’ If the internal messages or the shared understandings are unclear, confused or misunderstood by employees, then the positioning of the business is likely to remain unclear, confused and misunderstood by customers. Strategic positioning is therefore closely linked with the culture, vision and mission, and therefore the need for change to reflect a changing environment. The culture and vision and mission of an organization is reflected through its behaviours and traits and possibly perceived as personality by the customer. A shift in market strategy may require a cultural change that itself can only be facilitated by a shared value of willingness to adapt. The shared values of an organization are a major influence on the implementation of the strategic plan (Muhl- bacher, Vyslozil and Ritter 1987). Leppard and McDonald (1987: 170) in their appraisal of the role of culture on the marketing planning process point out that how the process is managed will be congruent with the organizational culture and, more particularly, they note the following:
Since culture tends to act to maintain the existing power structure and the status quo, marketing planning interventions in companies must be recognised as having a political dimension and are not purely educational. Not least among the political issues is the ques- tion of whether or not a company’s management style can adapt suf- ficiently to enable the marketing planning process to deliver the rewards it promises.
If the planning process is influenced by an organization’s culture, the way in which an organization sees the world, and the embracing of either maintaining or changing the status quo, then positioning in the mind of the customer will reflect the parameters imposed by the culture:
‘Effective service requires people who understand the idea’ (Heskett, 1987: 124).
Internal marketing is a prerequisite for successful external marketing (Gronroos, 1990b). Internal marketing is a management philosophy in
which management creates, encourages and enhances an understanding of, and an appreciation for, the roles of the employees in the organization.
Customer-conscious employees reflect the marketing culture, the importance of the customer to the organization, and take a holistic view of their jobs. However, the alternative view is that this might simply reinforce any natural resistance to change or search for consistency:
‘Organizational structures resist change. They are the “personality” of the total system, and the idea that they can or will transform them- selves whenever new strategy is enunciated is wishful at best’ (Turner, 1990: 64).
Maljers (1990) notes, from his experience as chairman of Unilever, that each company is run in its own characteristic way with management methods and styles varying greatly from company to company. He points out that there is not a single prescriptive approach. Useful lessons can be learnt from the experiences of one company but it has to be rec- ognized that this does not necessarily recommend the same approach to any other business. No single approach and no single solution pro- vide all the right answers because every company is different, and each will need to tailor an appropriate approach to their particular require- ments. There has been a tendency for marketing practice and theory to focus on the sale as the vital event of a transaction, the culmination of marketing activity and the single most important variable for analysis (Webster, 1992). Yet the majority of transactions take place as part of an ongoing relationship:
Marketing is a central component of the guidance system of the firm and we need to understand its functioning in much richer detail, especially within the complicated structures of network organizations . . . organization culture, focused on the customer, will be increasingly seen as a key strategic resource defining the network organization’s uniqueness and co-ordinating its several parts toward common mission and objectives. (Webster, 1992: 14)
The culture of focus on the customer is one way to fulfil the mission of an organization. There is a suggestion that vision will also be influ- enced by the way an organization sees the world, by its values and beliefs. Vision is formulated by explicitly identifying competitive behaviour through sources of competitive strength and resource cap- ability (El-Namaki, 1992) and presumably if competitive strengths and capabilities are not sought then an alternative vision based on an alternative orientation will apply. Czepiel (1992: 42) comments: ‘Building
Organizational Culture and Positioning 75 marketing capability and competitive advantage entails integrating all the functions of the business around a common vision of how to deliver superior value at a profitable cost, and helping every employee understand the role he or she must play.’ The thoroughness of provision and communication of value by managers is a vital part of competitive advantage. The character traits of managers themselves as well as the organizational structure will be influenced by the culture of the organ- ization and reflect the personality through the behaviour of the organ- ization as perceived by the customer. The importance of this realization is recognized by Furnham and Gunter (1993: 222): ‘In today’s organiza- tions, management should strive to harmonise internally-directed efforts with externally-directed efforts.’
Kiernan (1993) believes that there is a cultural issue to Western business thinking because executives are trained to diagnose, analyze, and then
‘fix’ existing problems rather than generate creative alternatives that do not yet exist. This results in the focus of competitive strategy on com- peting with existing competitors’ products and services whilst only achieving incremental improvements. Strategy need not be deliberate but can emerge, a pattern of activities over time rather than a conscious plan, and strategy is made at the grass roots as much as centrally (Mintzberg, 1994). Grass roots make ad hoc adjustments to meet a changing envir- onment and anomalies in the strategy increase as a result. Companies then change their organizational structure to become more responsive to customer needs (George, Freeling, and Court, 1994). Mintzberg (1994) objects to the notion that structure must follow strategy and points out that organizational structures resist change describing them as the
‘personality’ of the total system. Some structures make certain types of strategy easy to implement and yet other strategies almost impossible.
The structure of the organization as a reflection of personality is therefore important to positioning in the market and the strategies on which it depends.
Company plans developed to take account of the interests of stake- holders will rely on the beliefs, values and expectations of managers in the context of corporate culture (Greenley and Foxall, 1997). Relation- ships between companies and consumers are troubled. Companies know more about their customers than ever before and yet consumers describe feeling trapped and victimized as a result of a confusing, stress- ful, insensitive and manipulative marketplace (Fournier, Dobscha and Mick, 1998). A relationship takes two and the perceptions of both parties to a relationship determine outcomes based on behaviours, displays of values and attitudes, and the personality of the organization.