Question

How can a strong, positive culture enhance a firm’s competitive advantage? How can a week negative culture rode competitive advantages? Explain and provide examples.

Answer 1

Strong and Positive Culture:

A strong, positive working culture is one of the biggest asset that a firm holds which can't be stolen or replicated by any other firm/organisation. Also it cannot be manufactured or generated scientifically or technologically. But when it exists, firm has the biggest competitive advantage in the market.

Positive working culture enables employees to be always motivated and dedicated towards work. The outcome of this positive culture is high employee layalty and low attrition rate because of which firm can focus more on the core competencies. This highly inspired group of employees, with confidence and pride about the firm, have great ability to satisfy customers with their services and attains higher productivity. Thus higher the customer satisfaction, higher is the customer loyalty which results in strong competitive position in the market.

Facebook is one of the great example of positive work culture and one of the secret factor for their success is keeping employees happy by providing positive culture in the firm.

Negative and Weak Culture:

The result is exactly opposite if a firm has weak and negative work culture. When there is negative culture around, employees' morale is always low and they always work under pressure which results in lower productivity of the individual. With this culture, if employees are not satisfied then it is very difficult for them to satisfy customers through their service. Employees always try to get out of pressure and negative culture, thus resulting in high attrition rate.

The negative working environment leads to decrease the employee loyalty towards the firm and enhances the unethical practices within companies which are always very harmful for the firm. With these problems, a firm can never give tough competition to its competitors.