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The Elephant and the Stork: Organizational Cultures 343

need not be brilliant, but one does need good contacts; one should know
one’s way in the informal network, being invited rather than volunteering.
One should belong to the tennis club. All in all, one should respect what
someone called the strict rules for being a nice person.
This romantic picture, alas, has recently been disturbed by outside

influences. First, market conditions have changed, and HGBV finds itself in

an unfamiliar competitive situation with other European suppliers. Costs
had to be cut, and the workforce reduced. In the HGBV tradition, this
problem was resolved without collective layoffs, but instead through early
retirement. Still, the old-timers who had to leave prematurely were shocked
that the company did not need them anymore.
Second, and even more seriously, HGBV has been attacked by envi-
ronmentalists because of the pollution it causes, a point of view that has
received growing support in political circles. It is not impossible that
the licenses necessary for HGBV’s operation will one day be withdrawn.
HGBV’s management has tried to counter this problem with an active lob-
bying effort, with a press campaign, and with organized public visits to
the company, but success is by no means certain. Inside HGBV, this threat
is belittled. People are unable to imagine that one day there may be no
more HGBV: “Our management has always found a solution. There will
be a solution now.” In the meantime, attempts are being made to increase
HGBV’s competitiveness through quality improvement and product diver-
sification. These initiatives also imply the introduction of new people from

the outside. These new trends, however, clash head-on with HGBV’s tradi-
tional culture. 1

The Organizational Culture Craze

The short case study just presented is a description of an organization’s

culture. People working for Heaven’s Gate BV have a specific way of act-
ing and interacting that sets them apart from people working for other
organizations, even within the same region. In the past chapters this book
has mainly associated culture with nationality. English-language litera-
ture attributing cultures to organizations first appeared in the 1960s:

organizational culture became a synonym for organizational climate. The
equivalent corporate culture, coined in the 1970s, gained popularity after the
book Corporate Cultures, by Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy, appeared in