Corporate Culture in

Bangladesh
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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

Contents
Contents..................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ............................................................................................................... 2
What is Corporate Culture? ........................................................................................3
Why is it Important to Understand the Corporate Culture? ........................................4
How can one identify the Corporate Culture?.............................................................6
Corporate culture and Bangladesh.............................................................................8
Corporate Example: Grameenphone..........................................................................9
Comapy Profile........................................................................................................ 9
Corporate Culture in GP.........................................................................................10
CSR of Grameenphone..........................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................ 12
Reference.................................................................................................................14

Introduction
As an executive, identifying, understanding, and influencing the
organizational culture can ensure corporate agility and financial
success. As a potential employee, catching a glimpse of the true
culture of an organization will help one decide if the company is a
place where one can contribute and flourish. In both cases,
misunderstanding the culture can lead to disaster. Corporate
cultures have both gross and subtle manifestations that provide
clues to the underlying norms and beliefs. Paying attention to the
work practices, environment, communication paths, and even the
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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

level of humor in a company, will give one a hint of the dominant

organizational culture. Identification and understanding the
culture is necessary to affect any minute or large scale changes in
response to market imperatives. If one does not have a clear
picture of the culture one cannot effectively modify it.

In Business society, corporate culture is significantly important to

identify a corporation’s norms, values and principles in the mean
time of doing business. So it strongly influences the environment
of an individual or group. In Bangladesh the corporate society is a
newly established social system which has been enlighten the
business environment with different cultures of different
corporations.

Bangladesh is a country of rich cultural norms, values, tradition

and festival. Bangladeshi’s are totally influenced by the culture
they adore. Corporations both national and international maintain
and reconcile the true common culture of Bangladesh in their
corporate strategies to maintain a rich working environment
which will be productive and overall healthy for the corporation or
company.

What is Corporate Culture?

Corporate culture is the personality of the organization: the
shared beliefs, values and behaviors of the group. It is symbolic,
holistic, and unifying, stable, and difficult to change.

Made up of both the visible and invisible, conscious and

unconscious learnings and artifacts of a group the culture is the
shared mental model. This model is taken for granted by those
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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

within the group and is difficult for outsiders to decipher. It is

important to remember that the corporate culture is not the
ideals, vision, and mission lay out in the corporate marketing
materials. Rather, it is expressed in the day-to-day practices,
communications, and beliefs. According to Borgatti (1996) a
strong culture:

· Is internally consistent
· Is widely shared, and
· Makes it clear what appropriate behavior is.
Resulting in an organization with a vision that everyone
understands to which everyone is committed. Whenever human
beings gather and particularly when individuals with a common
purpose begin working together, work strategies and thinking
processes will develop and an organizational culture will be
created.

Most corporate or organizational cultures have key features in

common with the larger culture in which they exist. For example,
corporate cultures in America all have some similar underlying
thread. Corporate cultures in other countries also have a unifying,
cross-company flavor. However, even within a social culture, each
corporate culture is unique. Put more simply, corporate culture is
the way things get done in an organization. It is what drives
action in the organization, guiding how employees think, act and
feel. It is the systematic set of assumptions that define day-to-day
working behavior.

Why is it Important to Understand the Corporate

Culture?
Corporate culture is a hidden mechanism of coordination directing
each individual towards the common goal. The goal and the ways
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of achieving the goal cannot be changed without understanding

key attractors and drivers in the culture. The causes of many
profitability and responsiveness issues in corporations are not
found in the structure, in the leadership, or in the employees. The
problems are found in the cultures and sub-cultures of the
organization.

Understanding the culture of an organization facilitates:

• Hiring employees that will succeed in the organization

• Creating policies and assignments to increase profitability

and respond to market demands. Having a firm grasp of a
company’s culture and its nuances gives an executive the
edge.

• Making significant changes to the corporation in response to

real threats to its continued existence.

• Facilitating mergers, joint ventures, and acquisitions.

• Increasing profitability and growth.

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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

How can one identify the Corporate Culture?

Corporate culture can be identified and analyzed. Many focus on
identifying workforce attitudes, behavioral preferences, and the
work environment including structure, physical artifacts, and
communication channels. All agree that attention must be paid to
the intangible (unconscious) as well as the tangible (conscious)
aspects including the deeply rooted basic assumptions that are
often taken for granted by those inside the organization.

Other artifacts, key to identifying aspects of a particular culture,

include:

· Architecture and décor. What does the actual physical

environment look like? Is it a pleasant airy space with areas
intended to encourage chats over coffee? Are employees working
in cubicles with management offices along the windows?
Remember to consider the type of work being done when looking
at the environment.

· The clothing people wear. Is the dress formal or informal?

Does dress change depending on the day or the week or
interaction with external clients? Does the official dress code say
one thing but employees dress a different way?

· Organizational processes and structures.

· Rituals, symbols and celebrations.

· Commonly used language and jargon.

· Logos, brochures, company slogans.

To confirm that the analysis of the artifacts is creating a true

picture of the corporate culture, talk to employees who have been
with the company for between four and six months and who are
planning to stay. Find out what they have run up against,
identified, and learned to work with and around. Their continued
existence and happiness in the organization depends on their
being able to integrate with the existing culture. They have a
vested interest and will have identified key cultural aspects that
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may not be obvious in the artifacts and may be invisible to those

who have been there over a year.

Giles (2000) provides a series of questions to identify the

dominant corporate culture.

· Is the company primarily market based, technology based,

customer based or owner based.

·How do people in this company communicate, is the dominant

form of communication verbal or written, formal or informal,
personal (face-toface) or technological (phone, email, fax)?
Include in this consideration, the level of joking, sarcasm, critique
and appreciation visible in the organization.

·What is the level of diversity in terms of hours, personality, and

language, as well as the traditional (age, gender, ethnicity,
disability, etc).

· What are the repetitive patterns?

· What are the primary value criteria of most of the workers?

Listen for value words that are used over and over. “Best price,
fastest, most durable, least bugs, most innovative, newest,
perfect, reliable, popular, most needed.”

· What is the primary motivation direction? Is it toward an

objective or away from (preventing) problems? What is the
primary reference for quality and motivation, internal or external?
The guiding question to ask is: How do you know you have done a
good job or have a good product?

· What is the dominant work flow process, options or procedural?

Does work get accomplished through teams, collaboration or
individual effort?”

· Finally, how much change does the company culture allow? The
majority of us (about 65%) like sameness with some exception.
We seek major change only once every 5-7 years.
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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

Corporate culture and Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a developing country with numerous numbers of
populations. For this reason the market is huge and the interest of
business organization on this country is significant. Mainly MNCs
(Multinational Corporation) has a tremendous interest of making
profits from this market. So many of MNCs has entered into
Bangladeshi market in Different industries.

After the reincarnation of privatization in Bangladeshi economy,

the private business organizations spread rapidly and changed
the working environment. Government organizations are far
behind in maintaining a good working environment than the
private companies. The reason for this success of maintaining
good trend of environment is:

• Efficient management body

• Updated with the foreign customs in office management

• Less beurotratic influence

• Strong organizational tree

• Efficient recruitment policy and more.

Strong and friendly working environment is the outcome of a

strong corporate culture. In Bangladesh, MNCs are the pathfinder
of practicing unique corporate cultures in different corporations.
Bangladesh has many industries and every industry maintain
some common characteristics in their day to day cultural practice.
In Bangladeshi corporate culture one factor is clear, that is the
CSR
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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

Corporate culture of the corporations in Bangladesh can be

identified by some factors like Architecture and décor, the
clothing people wear, Rituals, symbols and celebrations,
commonly used language and jargon, Logos, brochures, company
slogans and how do people in this company communicate.

In Bangladeshi corporate culture one factor is clear, that is the

CSR (Corporate Social responsibility). Every corporation of
Bangladesh has some CSR achievements to develop the economy
and social system of Bangladesh. In achieving the CSR MNCs are
far more ahead then the domestic corporations.

Based on the factors we can classify the culture of different

industries corporations. The classification chart is drawn below.

Corporate Example: Grameenphone

Comapy Profile
• Grameenphone launched its service on the
Independence Day of Bangladesh in March 26,
1997.

• 4200 employees as of July 31, 2010

• Key business areas:

⊗ Communication Solutions

⊗ Information technology

• Corporate and institutional IT services

Grameenphone Ltd. reported BDT 5,515 crore revenues for the

first nine months of 2010 with 14% increase from the same period
of 2009.
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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

Corporate Culture in GP
Grameenphone is Bangladesh’s top company in
telecommunication industry. Telenor, originated in Norway; is the
parent company of Grameenphone. Having a strong brand
reputation all over the world Telenor has emphasized
Grameenphone with the same values, norms and principles to run
business in Bangladesh. When it is the matter of practicing the
corporate culture of MNCs, they formulate the culture with the
influence of operating countries culture. Telenor has done the
same in case of Grameenphone. The Corporate culture of
Grameenphone is formulated by the values, norms and respect of
Bangladeshi culture.

Considering the identifying factors of a corporate culture, we can

easily charachterise the culture which is being practiced by GP
employees in their day to day working life. The factors are
demonstrated below:

 Architecture: Grameenphone is the first Company of

Bangladesh which has been successful to create a healthy
and modern infrastructural milestone named “GPHOUSE”. It
is the CHQ (Corporate Head Quarter) which accommodates
more than 2500 employees in a wireless working
environment. Every other office building are well equipped,
safe and built by maintaining the building code of
Bangladesh.

 Clothing people wear: Telecommunication business is a

service oriented business. So it has back end and frontline
service provisioning. So the dress code is different for
different sector. GP understands the comfort ability and the
present ability of the employees both in backend and
frontline. So dress code is maintained formally in weekdays,
and in the weekend employees of customer service or
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Corporate Culture in Bangladesh

emergency calls are allowed to wear smart casuals to be

comfortable as well as presentable.

 Organizational structure: Grameenphone has strong

organizational tree to maintain the proper and perfect chain
of command for smooth working operations. In this Company
every employee is free to talk and propose their opinion in
an organized way. The company strictly maintain the “Code
of Contact” which is the main strength to operate and
maintain the behavior and actions of employees interaction.

Grameenphone considers its employees to be one of its most

important assets. GP has an extensive employee benefit
scheme in place including Gratuity, Provident Fund, Group
Insurance, Family Health Insurance, Transportation Facility,
Day Care Centre, Children's Education Support, Higher
Education Support for employees, in-house medical support
and other initiatives.

 Celebrations: GP is famous for its festive working

environment. They always celebrate every general holiday,
company events, PRPs (performance recognition
programme) and other events throughout the year. It helps
to stay close with each other in the day of celebrations and
the company also celebrates the days with respective
customer in some different manners.

 Communication: Grameenphone is the friendliest working

environment in Bangladeshi corporate culture. They have
established a unique way of communication in their work.
They named it the “Bhaia-Apu” culture. Everyone is
respected with appropriate one. There is no bossy
environment in this working place. The supervisor and
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supervisee relationship is more likely than friends or mentor-

disciple.

In GP the verbal culture is also influenced in their written

language. But the written language is strictly structured
and maintained by every employee. Though it is a
technology based organization, the industrial jargons are
highly used to speed up the work. Formal language is
applied in day to day operation.

CSR of Grameenphone
"Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step..." -
Chinese proverb. This is the principle of Grameenphone’s
corporate social responsibilities (CSR). To contribute in CSR is a
corporate strong culture in Bangladesh. Grameenphone is not
also behind from it. GP’s core strategy in this area is to be
Bangladesh's partner in developing the country, particularly in its
promise, as a United Nations Millennium Declaration signatory, to
meet the eight targets known as the Millennium Development
Goals by 2015. GP have consolidated its social investment
initiatives in four core areas related to the Millennium
Development Goals namely,

• Poverty alleviation,

• Healthcare,

• Empowerment

• Education.

Conclusion
Changing a corporate culture is a complex, long-term, and
expensive undertaking that will either revitalize or kill the
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company. It should not be undertaken lightly. Corporate culture

cannot be changed through changing a policy or issuing an edict.
It can also not be accomplished overnight. “The only way to
change organizational culture overnight is to fire everyone and
hire a new staff with the working behaviors you now want.” (Giles,
2000) Culture change requires consistency of message, goal,
direction, and leadership to succeed. To change a culture one
needs to change the images and values, the evaluative, and the
social elements of the organization. This requires a strong leader
who knows where they want the company to go, why they want it
to go there, ca articulate both these points, and who has the
power to drive the change throughout the organization.

Bangladesh is a country of possibilities and future progress. So it

should maintain the trend of the corporate culture to maintain the
healthy working environment. These helps an organization to
higher its productivity and strengthen the country’s economic and
social structure. Despite all due diligence, commitment, and
application, the culture may not change or it may not change in
the intended direction, or even in an appropriate direction. It is an
expensive and long process without guaranteed results. So In
case of Bangladesh, the corporate culture the country is
practicing now; the trend of this should be continued till the
visions of the corporations are not yet achieved.
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Reference

Mowat, Joanne(2002). Corporate Cultures. The Herridge Group

Publications.

Grameenphone ©(2006). Grameenphone hompage, About

Grameenphone / About Us. Retrieved March 10, 2010, from

http://grameenphone.com/index.php?id=63

Azim, Mohammad I. (2008). A study of Corporate Social

Disclosure in the Finance Sector in Bangladesh. Swinburne
University of Technology