Corporate Culture and Corporatism at the Company Level: A Case Study

Abstract

This article identifies two types of managerial strategies for integrating employees in companies, playing down the differences and conflicts experienced between employees and management, safeguarding employee loyalty and reducing the basis for unions to play a strong and independent role at the local level. These are referred to as bureaucratic-structural and sociocultural integrative strategies. The first focuses on fair treatment and long-term rewards as a means of securing employee compliance. The second entails a shared corporate culture through which a company-wide community is intended. In the article particular emphasis is laid on 'the sociocultural road to corporatism', which appears to be salient to the managerial practices of many companies in the advanced sectors of the economy during the 1980s and 1990s. A case study of a computer consultancy company illustrates these managerial practices and explores some of the principles and mechanisms involved.