Cultural Geography

‘allow for highly productive and creative work to

develop collaboratively’.

So perhaps, after having considered some

recent empirical evidence on the matter, the non-

local flow of tacit knowledge is (still) more dif-

ficult to achieve than the sceptics might think.

Thus, we appear to have come full circle, back to

the starting argument that local culture matters.

But before we buy in, what about the global

reach of large, wealthy and powerful corpora-

tions? Aren’t their resources, organizational

structures, standardized practices and corporate

cultures sufficiently well developed to overcome

the simple friction of distance or the stickiness of

local and regional cultures? Surely corporate

culture and practice have the ability to trump

physical and cultural divides, bringing about a

convergence of practices across national and

regional boundaries, right? Certainly, one impli-

cation of the competence-based theory of the

firm reviewed above is that firms can be ‘masters

of their own destiny’ rather than ‘slaves to

geography’.^12 Recall that this approach argued

that the manner in which firms absorb, share and

transform (or process) knowledge is determined

by each firm’s unique knowledge context or

framework, which is constituted as a set of firm-

specificstructures, relationships and routines. In

other words, in this view the characteristic prac-

tices of firms are shaped or determined by a

socially constructed process internal tothe firm

itself – something very much akin to the idea of

corporate culture.

Corporate culture

Although this concept continues to be frequently

invoked without due regard to its specific meaning,

more careful analysts have sought to define it in

a variety of ways. Howells, for example, defines

it as ‘shared routines and patterns of working ...

common decision-making procedures ... a

common organisational information and routine

base ... a firm’s distinctive set of decision rules

or routines ... [which] in turn help shape a tradi-

tion of practice within the firm’ (2000: 55).

McDowell writes of organizational culture as

‘explicit and implicit rules of conduct’ responsi-

ble for ‘inculcating the desirable embodied

attributes of workers, as well as establishing the

values and norms of organisational practices’

(1997: 121). Hudson takes a slightly different tack

by observing that ‘Firms, governments and other

organizations have a collective memory beyondthat

of any individual or group of individuals’ (2001:

32). Glasmeier emphasizes the role of collective

identity and belonging in culture; she singles out

‘shared understandings ... the prevailing belief

system’ as well as ‘the rules and practices, iden-

tities and aspirations at the most intimate level’

which make possible ‘collective and purposeful

action’ (2001: 58).

Taking perhaps the broadest view of all (and

one embraced by Glasmeier), Schoenberger

argues that:

culture is inherently and deeply implicated in what we

do and under what social and historical circumstances,

in how we think about or understand what we do, and

how we think about ourselves in that context. It

embraces material practices, social relations, and ways

of thinking. Culture both produces these things and is a

product of them in a complicated and highly contested

historical process. (1997: 120)

She adds that culture and human action are

reflexively related: ‘humans, through their

actions and social relations, produce culture at

the same time that culture produces them’ (1997:

121). Concerning corporate culture specifically,

Schoenberger makes two further key points:

first, that it is ultimately about power, and

hence it is appropriate to speak of a ‘dominant’

corporate culture (1997: 121), produced by top

management; and second, that the most funda-

mental form of this is ‘the power to define a very

particular social order – the firm – and its relation-

ship to its environment’ (1997: 122), in essence,

the very identity of the firm itself.

Thus, a closer reading of the meaning and

origins of corporate culture reveals it to be as

much a product of its social-cultural-institutional

environment as it is a reflection of the firm’s own

volition (or the vanity of its senior managers). In

other words, while corporate culture certainly

cannot be ‘read off’ from the larger institutional

environment around it, it will surely be shaped,

influenced and constrained by this broader

framework.

Schoenberger’s fascinating case studies of the

frailties and myopia of large American compa-

nies such as Xerox, DEC and Lockheed under-

score the limits to the reach and potency of

corporate culture in the face of significant inter-

national and interregional institutional disconti-

nuities, shortcomings that amount to a ‘cultural

crisis of the firm’. Her approach resonates

strongly with the important findings of two other

recent literatures from outside geography: the

work on national business systems and ‘varieties

of capitalism’ (Berger and Dore, 1996; Boyer

and Hollingsworth, 1999; Soskice, 1999; Whitley,

1999) and a closely related literature on corpo-

rate practices, governance and national origins

(Doremus et al., 1998; O’Sullivan, 2000; Yeung,

2000). Based on both conceptual argument and

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