By Robert Budden, Ben Fenton and Kiran Stacey An inquiry into the culture and
ethics of the British press called for sweeping new regulation enshrined in law, reigniting a visceral battle between proponents of free speech and defenders of the individual right to privacy.
Concluding a nine-month investigation sparked by a scandal over the hacking of thousands of mobile phones by jour- nalists, Lord Justice Leveson said that the government should introduce legis- lation to put the regulation of the press on a statutory footing.
His report, which rejected an industry proposal for stronger self-regulation, excoriated the press and politicians for fawning on them, and divided the politi- cal establishment.
While welcoming the call to tighten regulation of the UK’s rumbustious press, David Cameron, prime minister, refused to back the proposal to under- pin the system with new laws. Speaking to the House of Commons yesterday, two hours after the publication of the Leveson report, he said that he had
‘serious concerns and misgivings’ about the proposal.
‘For the fi rst time we will have crossed the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land. We should think very, very carefully before crossing this line.’ He added: ‘I’m not convinced at this stage that statute is
Source: adapted from ‘British phone-hacking inquiry calls for press regulation with force of law’, Financial Times newspaper, 30/11/2012 (Budden, R., Fenton, B. and Stacey, K.), Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.
required to achieve Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations.’
The report called for a new independent self-regulating regime for the press, but backed by statutory measures that would incorporate an arbitration body for quick resolution of complaints.
Nick Clegg, deputy PM and leader of the Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in the UK’s coalition government, backed his call for a statutory underpinning.
‘A free press does not mean a press that is free to bully innocent people or free to abuse grieving families’, he told MPs.
The report had harsh words for the fawning behaviour of some politicians who made themselves ‘vulnerable to infl uences [by editors and proprietors of the media] which are neither known about nor transparent’. He also con- demned the behaviour of an ‘out- rageous’ element of the newspaper industry acting in the name of freedom of the press. Some papers had been reck- less about facts and appeared to reject complaints, he said.
[. . .]
Mr Cameron commissioned the Leveson inquiry after a series of scandals in which journalists intruded into the pri- vacy of celebrities and victims of crime, notably the hacking of the phone of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old abducted and murdered in 2002.
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Chapter 1 Determinants of culture
16
He takes mankind as an example: a human is both entirely determined biologically as well as culturally. Th is ‘dialogique’ can be found in every culture, but is particularly intensive within the European culture where there is an enormous amount of interaction and inter- ference within areas to do with values, e.g. religion/rationality, mythical thought/critical thought, and humanism/science.
Cultural assumptions in management
Aft er social norms and values comes the third layer of culture: assumptions. Th is layer is also identifi ed by Schein. His work is a useful guide in the examination of cultural assump- tions in a managerial context, and off ers insights into the question of managing relation- ships. He defi nes culture as:
a set of basic assumptions – shared solutions to universal problems of external adaptation (how to survive) and internal integration (how to stay together) – which have evolved over time and are handed down from one generation to the next.
Schein, 2004: 14 In terms of external adaptation, this means, for example, asking: to what extent does management within a culture assume that it can control nature or to what extent is it con- trolled by nature? Th is question is allied to that of the nature of human activity: is doing more important than being, acting more important than refl ecting? In terms of internal integration, this means asking a question such as: ‘Are humans basically assumed to be good or evil’, or trying to determine whether relationships at work are more important than the task itself.
Th e questions raised by Schein on cultural assumptions of organisations imply that management in an international context has not only to take account of the norms and values of the specifi c culture of a company, but also of its cultural assumptions.
Concept 1.2 Levels of cultures
According to Schein (1999), a culture starts developing in a context where a group of people have a shared experience. Members of a family, for example, share a life together and develop a certain togetherness through undergoing experiences inside and outside the home. Small groups without blood relations can develop the same closeness through sharing a pastime, a hobby or occupation; the experience they share may be rich enough to allow a culture to be formed.
In a business context, culture can develop at diff erent levels – within a department or at the various ranks of a hierarchy. A company or organisation can develop its own culture, provided that it has what Schein calls ‘suffi cient shared history’ (1999). Th is applies also for a collection of companies within a particular business or sector, or for organisations in, say, the public sector. Th is collective experience can be related to regions of a country, or regions across countries, or a grouping of nations themselves when they share a common experience, be it language, religion, ethnic origins or a shared historical experience in their development. In this concept we will try to distinguish levels at which cultures develop.
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Concept 1.2 Levels of cultures
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Culture and nation
When cross-cultural matters are under discussion, the terms ‘culture’ and ‘nation’ should be carefully distinguished, as Tayeb (2003) makes clear. She takes as an example the Kurds.
Although they are a people with a distinctive cultural identity, they nevertheless live in three nation states – Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Th is is an obvious example of one culture straddling the political boundaries of two or more nation states.
Th is culture/nation distinction can, as Tayeb points out, have a bearing on the way organisations operate. If ‘culture’ is defi ned as a set of historically evolved, learned and shared values, attitudes and meanings, then this has an infl uence on organisations at both macro and micro level.
At the macro level, the nation, in terms of its laws and economic institutions, must be taken into account by organisations going about their business. Th ey have to consider the measures taken by the state to protect its interests and those of its inhabitants. Th ese can range from specifi c employment laws and safety legislation to general economic and social policies. Th ese macro-level considerations are not only subject to change through political changes in government, but also through the desire of the nation’s rulers to share legislation at social and economic level with other nations within some kind of association.
At the micro level, the organisation is infl uenced by cultural elements relating to employer–employee relationships and to behaviour among employees. Th ose wishing to introduce any changes with a view to improving management eff ectiveness or increasing productivity must take account of these elements when implementing such changes.
National culture
Although cultural make-up has many facets refl ecting experience in life and membership of diff erent groupings at diff erent times in various environments, there is, as Tayeb (2003:
13) says, ‘a constant thread [. . .] through our lives which makes us distinguishable from others, especially those in other countries: this thread is our national culture’. Th is national culture may be heterogeneous in nature, but it will contain enough elements which together enable a national culture to be created.
Tayeb (2003) gives a list of these elements and considers their eff ect at both micro and macro level. She starts with two elements that contribute to the building of a nation and the creation of a national culture:
● the physical environment;
● the history the nation has undergone.
She then refers to ‘institutions’ that contribute to the establishment of a national culture:
a) Family. Th e basic social unit where ‘acculturation’ takes place, where the culture of a particular environment is instilled in a human from infancy.
b) Religion. Religious beliefs can have a signifi cant eff ect on a person’s view of the world.
Th is does not mean that people need to ‘believe’, but religion has helped in all sorts of direct and indirect ways to shape the environment in which people live.
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Chapter 1 Determinants of culture
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c) Education. Th e value system on which education is based and the choices it makes in terms of the curriculum both help in the formation of a culture, particularly where educational institutions are well developed. At the micro level, the teaching approach used and the manner of learning can also aff ect future learning. Th is, in turn, can deter- mine the quality and versatility of human resources in the labour market.
d) Mass communication media. Tayeb pays particular attention to the eff ect of recent advances in communication on the development of culture. Th e ever increasing presence of mass media has given a new meaning to shared experience: newspapers, magazines, television and radio, ‘bring people closer together irrespective of their geo- graphical locations, but also in terms of spreading values, attitudes, tastes, meanings and vocabulary – in short, culture’ (Tayeb, 2003: 20). She does not regard this, however, as being a threat to the distinctive cultural characteristics of a nation. Instead, the mass media have created a new common dimension in which people can share experiences if they choose to.
e) Th e multinational company. Th is is a powerful culture-building institution, whose products and services can infl uence the way people live, whose operations can aff ect how and where they work. However, the multinational is also infl uenced by the prefer- ences at national level with regard to product taste and form and the promotion of its goods and services.
Organisational culture
Edgar Schein (1999) refers to the power of culture on account of the extent to which it determines our behaviour individually and collectively. In organisational terms, he remarks on how cultural elements aff ect the way strategy is determined, goals are established and how the organisation operates. Furthermore, the key personnel involved are infl uenced by their own cultural backgrounds and shared experience since these have helped shape their own values and perceptions.
Schein (1990: 111) develops his defi nition of culture when defi ning organisational culture:
(a) a pattern of basic assumptions, (b) invented, discovered, or developed by a given group, (c) as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, (d) that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore (e) is to be taught to new members as the (f) correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to chosen problems.
Drawing on this defi nition, we can say that organisational culture is the acceptance – in a tacit or formal way – of norms of specifi c behaviour by the members of an organisation.
Corporate culture
Th e term ‘corporate culture’ takes the question of organisational culture a step further.
As Meschi and Roger (1994) point out, if an organisation develops into a multinational conglomerate, the culture at headquarters may infl uence that of subsidiaries abroad. In the same way, a fi rm involved in a joint venture with a company from another country may well fi nd that the presence of the ‘foreign’ partners infl uences the underlying culture of the
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Concept 1.2 Levels of cultures
19 fi rm. What evolves over time in terms of ‘corporate culture’ can have as its basis the ‘original’
organisational culture, or the national/regional culture – or a combination of the two.
Th e extent of the infl uence of corporate culture is disputed among experts in the fi eld.
Some regard a clearly defi ned corporate culture as key to a (multi)national company’s success. Others consider a fl exible culture to be the key to success because it can adapt to, and respond more eff ectively to, a local/national environment.
Although it is useful to know where the countries in question lie on the dimensions of national culture when working with other cultures, there are other factors at play, particu- larly the culture of the company itself. Th is is determined not just by external cultural factors such as the national and regional cultures, but also by internal cultural factors. Th e extent of cultural control, through company goals, manuals, instructions and the presence of long-standing employees, is important.