Abstract

“Assessment and identification of prevailing Corporate Culture is one of the main influencing factors for successful implementation of Business Excellence (BE) models such as European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). Methods for Corporate Culture analysis often focus on a specific assessment purpose with consideration of particular requirements. Recent studies have addressed the main idea that how BE can be designed successfully in the context of an existing Corporate Culture without considerable efforts to change the Corporate Culture, However; the specific requirements and characteristics for Corporate Culture assessment in terms of BE have not been investigated. In this paper these issues have been addressed. Existing methods for assessing Corporate Culture were identified, cultural characteristics used in the methods were classified and the main requirements for assessing Corporate Culture in connection with EFQM implementation were clarified. Based on the identified requirements existing methods as well as related cultural dimensions were evaluated and as a result a framework for EFQM-oriented assessment of Corporate Culture was developed. The findings indicate how to capture and consider the Corporate Culture in EFQM programs and are relevant to all different sized organizations in various sectors and industries.”