Apple's Corporate Culture

After studying a company for any length of time, it does not take long to get a good sense of what the company’s corporate culture consists of, and how it permeates among all of its employees. Corporate culture is defined as being “the shared values, ingrained attitudes, and company traditions that determine norms of behavior, accepted work practices, and styles of operating,” or in other words, “the organizational DNA” (Thompson 2016). Therefore, everything that a company represents, the actions taken, the strategies made, and the stories told tend to all stem from the company’s corporate culture.

Apple would appear to have a very strong, adaptive type of culture. “Technology companies, software companies, and Internet-based companies are good illustrations of organizations with adaptive cultures. Such companies thrive on change—driving it, leading it, and capitalizing on it” (Thompson 2016). One of the first things that has definitely led to establishing Apple’s adaptive culture, are charismatic top executives who have been able to ignite, and maintain a spirit of innovation from the top of the chain all the way down to the bottom of the chain of command. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook have been both been exceptional leaders in their own unique ways for Apple by constantly encouraging innovation. It would seem that Apple is powered by a work culture that endlessly cranks out new products, while spearheading any challenges along the way. Indeed, a major part of what makes Apple so competitive is their ability to produce product upgrades at a quicker rate than most of its competitors.

The second notably important thing that has contributed to Apple’s culture is the company’s core value of diversity. As stated on the company’s website, “At Apple, we take a holistic view of diversity that looks beyond the usual measurements. A view that includes the varied perspectives of employees as well as app developers, suppliers, and anyone who aspires to a future in tech” (apple.com). It makes sense that diversity would be essential for a company such as Apple so as to be able to combine their employees skillsets, educational backgrounds, and various working experiences all in the effort to produce the best kind of products possible. This also explains why the Apple will not just hire anyone, but they are extremely selective with who they employ and the screening process.

A third important aspect of Apple’s working culture is the large degree of independence that is given to employees or small work groups to work on projects. Apple utilizes work groups to accomplish many of the company’s goals and to gain new ideas for their ever-changing products. It is clear then that the strong working culture of Apple is powerfully innovative, diverse, and full of independent workers. This working culture greatly impacts its employees by helping them know that they are highly valued, unique individuals who are expected to work hard toward making great products even better and great processes even smoother.

After identifying a little of what Apple’s culture is like it is important to note how the working culture aids in helping implement the company’s strategy. Apple possesses a generic strategy that focuses on having a broad differentiation with their products ranging from computers, phones, televisions, iPod’s, and more recently watches. The innovative mindset of Apple, established by top executives, helps stimulate new ideas for products. Clearly, this then helps assist the strategy for the company to be broadly differentiated and flexible. Part of Apple’s strategy has been simply to be different from its competitors in quality and the features that it can provide within its products. Apple’s working culture constantly strives for diversity in all aspects of the word. Diversity aids in the company strategy indirectly because diverse people general diverse ideas and in turn these ideas create diverse products for people all across the world. Also, the working culture of independence aids in the strategy implementation by giving more freedom to managers and employees to take more initiative toward coming up with solutions.

In conclusion, Apple’s working culture is the vary fiber of its existence and each aspect of its culture plays an important role in helping the company implement its strategy. A company that has conflicting cultural working values and strategic goals will not be effective in the long run. Apple has shown time and time again that it has a consistent working culture that greatly complements it strategic goals. Apple unmistakably exemplifies that it possesses the power to execute strategy effectively with its highly innovative, diverse, and independent mindset and employees.

References

Apple. (n.d.). https://www.apple.com/

Thompson, A. A., Peteraf, M. A., Gamble, J. E., & Strickland, A. J. (2016). Crafting and executing strategy: Concepts and readings. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.