Challenges in corporate culture effectiveness in Nemak Slovakia

Abstract

Abstract This master thesis deals with the analysis of the corporate culture of Nemak Slovakia, its evolution and with defining the obstacles standing in the way of its further development. Corporate culture is a broad theme and it can seem intuitively clear to many, but to define and correctly describe its important parts is usually difficult. It is however necessary to formalize and measure it to make it possible for the company management to take correct decisions that influence corporate culture. There are various methods of assessing the corporate culture; most frequently used are the questionnaires. The process of collecting and evaluating the results needs to be professionally correct in order to give meaningful and useful results. A self-evident component of such a process is an understandable and self-explanatory formulation of the questionnaire. In the opposite case, the results might be skewed and consequently, the decisions based upon these results might be suboptimal. In this master thesis two versions of a questionnaire were used, an original with the questions and answer options described by the correspondents as unclear, and a second version, reformulated to make it more understandable, using the language and expressions specific for the Nemak company. The results from using these two versions of the questionnaire were expected to be different. Corporate culture is often underestimated topic in automobile industry. Leaders are more focused on high performance than onto a soft theme of business. Corporate management is a key element in determining the corporate culture, in that it defines the directions in which the corporate culture develops. This direction is highly dependent on the values held by the management. If the corporate management team represents differing values, steering the corporate culture may become inefficient and its development either slow down considerably, or may even take an undesirable direction. This thesis attempts to assess whether the top management composition of Nemak Slovakia is aligned with the values internalized by the corporation and whether it has the preconditions suitable for steering the corporate culture in the desired direction. The results showed that globally, the formulation of the questionnaire did not significantly influence the answers chosen. There were however differences, when looking at the individual departments, which may help speeding up the development of the corporate culture. The second part indicated that the composition of the top management team is in alignment with the values presented by the Nemak corporation, even if partial deviations were visible. The diversity of the team is however beneficial and can bring different views on a number of issues. It is important to note the role the management of the corporation plays in relation to its development. It is very important, that every company that wants to be successful should take care of the corporate culture and its development. Right guiding of the development determines corporate success and ensure the motivation of the employees.