Organisational Behaviour - Culture of BMW

ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
Interview of Mr. James..........................................................................................................................1
Culture of BMW....................................................................................................................................2
Culture impact on improving organisational effectiveness....................................................................5
Role of culture on employee motivation................................................................................................6
The way in which culture of organisation can enhance success.............................................................8
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Organisational culture plays a significant role in the success of the organisation. Culture acts
as a framework using which different types of operations within the organisation is done. It is
seen that if the culture plays a critical role in the way an organisation interacts with each
other. Culture has a significant role in the way in which employees get motivated. It also has
a role in the development of the communication which again plays a role in the way
organisations processes its work and ensures that they are able to deal with their
stakeholders1. This is also why all the organisations tries to make cultures that supports, its
mission, vision and objectives that they have made in the long and short term. BMW is one of
the biggest car manufacturing firms in the world. They have developed a different kind of
culture for them. In this report there will be analysis about the culture of the organisation as
well as the way in which organisational effectiveness is affected by the culture. It also
explains the role of culture on the motivation of employees. In the last section of the report
will suggest the way in which the uses of culture of the firm to further enhance the success of
the firm.
Interview of Mr. James
Mr James was working in the BMW’s headquarters on the post of marketing consultant.
1. What do you feel the major elements of culture within BMW.
Reply- I think the major elements are passion for work, enjoying the work, team work,
personal development, as well as providing equal opportunities and diversity.
2. What did you like about the culture of BMW
Reply- I love the way they implement the culture and values in the organisation.
3. How do they boost communication within the firm
1 D. Bowles, and C. Cooper, 2012. The high engagement work culture: Balancing me and we.
Palgrave Macmillan.

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Reply- BMW has placed the strongest communicational culture where the highest levels
of management personnel also communicate with the lowest level of people. I felt that it
was the best place to communicate anything with anyone.
4. How do BMW ensure that the people remain motivated
Reply- BMW uses their culture of reward very efficiently to motivate their employees.
They have worked towards organisational learning so that people remain motivated
towards their career and work with more motivation to achieve company’s objectives.
5. Do you think there is something that lacks in their culture
Reply- I believe they need to work more on diversity especially attracting talents from
other parts of the world.
Culture of BMW
Culture of the organisation is understood as the attitude, values and belief of the organisation
that defines a firm. BMW has been successful in the industry. One of the prime reasons of it
is the fact that they have preserved their values in their culture. The corporate culture of the
company has been valuable for them as it has helped them in keeping all their stakeholders
intact and helping them in managing their operations appropriately. The strength of the
BMW’s culture is reflected in the attitude of their workers towards their job roles.
In their organisation there is a culture of innovation is given priority where they are dedicated
towards making the cars that is unique. They are not stagnant with the culture rather they
continuously cultivate and foster their culture since they understand that the only way
through which they can reduce the challenges faced by the company. On the basis of the
interview some of the major components of their culture are:
 Passion and Enjoyment: BMW group culture has a very unique element in it where
they try to build and promote the passion among the people. It is the passion for doing
anything that has helped them in building new paths, thinking ahead of others and at
the same time they are dedicated towards breaking new grounds. BMW is looking for

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workers who have the team spirit and the ones that support new initiatives2. They are
also building a culture of learning within the organisation where they wat that each of
their employees learn on regular basis. They have a culture of enjoyment where they
ensure that employees do not feel any kinds of pressure and they enjoy the job role
they have been assigned.
 Teamwork and Personal development: They are focusing on building team culture
within the firm. BMW has a view that great work comes through unity and team
work. At the same they also have the culture of personal development where they are
promoting employees having higher amount of skills.
 Equal opportunities and diversity: They understand the importance of diversity and
hence they respect all the cultures from where their employees come from. They have
ensured that everyone treats everyone others equally and there is no bias or prejudices
against any culture3. They are providing equal opportunity for everyone to grow in the
organisation irrespective of their differences in any ways and the only basis for
gaining job at the BMW is that they must have required skills and knowledge4.
For better understanding of their culture use of Denison’s cultural model is effective. This
model is based on four essential traits of firms. These include:
Adaptability
Adaptability is about perceiving and responding to the business environment, consumers as
well as crucial behaviour if essential. It lies in the quadrant of external focus and flexibility
and it aligns with creating culture. BMW ensures that their culture is adaptive which allows
their organisation to make changes in their strategies according to the changing
environmental condition. Three adaptive areas are:
2 G Avery & H Bergsteiner, "Sustainable leadership practices for enhancing business resilience and
performance", in Strategy & Leadership, vol. 39, 2011, 5-15.
3 "Culture", in Bmwgroup.com, , 2020, <https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/verantwortung/kultur.html>
[accessed 7 April 2020].
4 G Avery & H Bergsteiner, "Sustainable leadership practices for enhancing business resilience and
performance", in Strategy & Leadership, vol. 39, 2011, 5-15.

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 Creating changes: For this BMW is welcoming new ideas and they are making new
approaches for their processes.
 Customer focus: In their culture they have inculcated innovation where they focus on
meeting the needs of customers.
 Organisational learning: As mentioned above there is a culture of personal
development and learning through the experience.
Involvement
This quadrant of the culture means aligning and engaging people where they create a sense of
responsibility and ownership. In this people feel them to be committed towards the firm and
there is sense of autonomy which is on the basis of internal focus and flexibility5. This
quadrant links with collaborate culture. This has several elements such as:
 Empowerment: They have a clear line of responsibility where workers know that
where they have to take decision on their own and where not. However they promote
leadership at every level of their organisational structure.
 Team orientation: As mentioned above they give special focus towards developing
and nurturing teams in all their processes.
 Capability development: They have skill development programs running at running
intervals which ensures that their employees develop capability.
Consistency
It is refers to as integration of activities, control and coordination as well as setting up an
internal governance system. It lies in the quadrant of internal orientation and stability as well
as aligns with control culture. In this the areas of interest are:
 Core values: There is a clear set of core values defined in BMW that assists them to
develop decisions that are efficient.
 Agreement: Every decision that is made in the BMW is made with full agreement of
all the stakeholders.
 Coordination & Integration: There is a culture in BMW where employees are working
with each other in a more coordinated manner.
5 G Avery & H Bergsteiner, "How BMW successfully practices sustainable leadership principles",
in Strategy & Leadership, vol. 39, 2011, 11-18.

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Mission
Mission is dedicated towards creating a mission that answers why of the firm as well as how
individual’s daily work contributes to shared results and goals. It is linked with external
orientation and stability that resembles whole culture of the organisation6. This dimension
addresses the areas such as:
 Strategic direction & Intent: They are making variety of strategies that its long term
and priority based so that they can achieve their mission7.
 Objectives and goals: They are making creative goals that are SMART and connect
their daily processes with their daily activities.
 Vision: Their vision is “To be the most successful premium manufacturer in the
industry” which suggests that they have given the customers as their first priority.
Culture impact on improving organisational effectiveness
The major role in improving the organisational effectiveness is of the communication. This
can be understood in terms of the fact that communication has a critical role in the
coordination and the team work. If the culture of communication is not designed
appropriately there is a higher chance that people can lose the market. There are different
types of challenges that are faced by the companies doing communication such as difference
in the communicational methodology of the people that comes from different culture8. In
order to deal with this challenge BMW has incorporated a culture where there is clear lines of
instruction so as to how and what are the ways in which a person can inform or communicate
with others effectively. There is a communication culture that reflects respect for everyone
else. Both digital mediums and verbal communication methodologies are used to ensure that
everything is informed.
6 I Irtyshcheva, "Corporate culture as an important factor in the organization competitiveness",
in Collection of Scientific Publications NUS, vol. 0, 2015.
7 "Culture", in Bmwgroup.com, , 2020, <https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/verantwortung/kultur.html>
[accessed 7 April 2020].
8 J.F. Taylor & J. Carroll, 2010. Corporate culture narratives as the performance of organisational
meaning. Qualitative Research Journal, 10(1), p.28.

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They ensure the organisational effectiveness by communication in terms of the fact that their
managers sets the goals for both short term and long term and it is being conveyed to
everyone on the regular basis. It is the communicational relationship that has helped the
leaders and managers of BMW to motivate the employees that are present in the company.
This helps the company in ensuring that all the employees perform well. Their managers
communicate regularly with every team members to ensure that whether they are facing any
kinds of challenges or not. BMW also ensures that team mate’s discuss everything and for
which they have a provision of weekly meetings9. They have also ensured that people that
whatever is being communicated by the management to the employees is being documented.
This communication culture ensures that everyone understands the challenges faced by others
and they work accordingly to achieve the desired benefits. They conduct regular meeting
among all their organisational units which helps them in making better coordination among
different departments and has positive impact on the organisational effectiveness.
This communication is different from the other companies as it did not let any loop holes to
left rather a clear line of communicational methodology has been underlined and in every
condition what communicational style has to be chosen.
Role of culture on employee motivation
The role of employee motivation in the organisational success is very high and hence it
becomes critical for the management to ensure that employees remain motivated. In this
regards the role of culture becomes critical. The first is the fact that cultures underlines the
way in which processes are run within the firm. If the processes are such that underlines the
need of the people then it is highly likely that people will also work with more loyalty10. A
high performing culture always motivates employees to work with higher motivation and
with greater zeal. For instance in the company like BMW where there is a culture of
innovation and performance culture people remains self-motivated that they will have to
work according to the objectives they have been given. In a high performing culture people
9 S Suwarsi et al., "Implementation of Competency Based Human Resource and Knowledge
Management to Organizational Culture and Organizational Performance Implication", in International
Journal of Human Resource Studies, vol. 4, 2014, 255.
10 D. Goodman & M. Watts, 2013. Agrarian questions: global appetite, local metabolism: nature,
culture, and industry in fin-de-siecle agro-food systems. In Globalising food (pp. 12-34). Routledge.

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understands that their individual contribution matters a lot to the firm and due to this they
work with higher concentration.
Any organisation having reward culture always tends to motivate the employees. The
employees of BMW also states that they remain motivated towards their work because they
know that their hard work will be appreciated in the company. This motivates them to work
harder and ensure that they can gain maximum benefits from the organisation. Employees of
the BMW also states that the culture of respecting other’s cultural difference also motivates
them to do work in an effective manner11. This mutual respect for each other’s culture helps
them to improve their feeling about the organisation which motivates them to do better. At
the same time this culture of respect has also ensured that company will make every process
and decisions according to the cultural needs of each and every people. In BMW there is a
culture of learning and knowledge gathering which also motivates people to enhance their
skills in order to stay competitive and remain in line with the requirements of the company.
This culture ensures that the overall motivation of the employees remains on the higher side.
In any organisation that is having culture of team work always motivates employees. This can
be understood in terms of the fact that team culture never lets anyone fail as the responsibility
of completing the job remains on multiple people. In this culture people in the organisation
support each other. This motivates them to take risks which help them to achieve the things
they wanted to. There is a culture of enjoyment where they run many kinds of programmes
that protect culture and art such as organising opera events and showing them the art12. The
analysis of employee’s feedback of the culture suggests that the employees feel that company
has been able to redesign the culture to bring more diversity and the company provides equal
opportunity to everyone. This helps them to stay motivated and work for achieving the given
targets. This is different from other companies because in other companies culture is to more
emphasize on the productivity, performance and they do not give much importance to
enjoyment of their employees.
11 F Jing, G Avery & H Bergsteiner, "Leadership Variables and Business Performance: Mediating and
Interaction Effects", in Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, vol. 27, 2019, 80-97.
12 H Christensen, "The Lure of Car Culture - Gender, Class and Nation in 21st Century Car Culture in
China.", in Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, , 2015.

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The way in which culture of organisation can enhance success
This company can use organisational culture of BMW in an effective manner to enhance the
success of the organisation. For instance they can use their culture of passion to support
generation of ideas and bring innovation within the firm. This helps the organisations to make
sure that they are able to face challenges in an effective manner. They can also use their
culture of communication better with the customers13. This will help the organisations to
reduce the gap in what consumer is demanding and what companies are planning to do. This
will ensure the success of the organisation as it will bring more coordination between their
units.
Culture of the firm of promoting diversity can help them in attracting people that are skilled
and are from other parts of the world. This will help them in achieving their objectives in an
effective manner and ensure their success in the long term14. They need to recruit people from
all across the globe. They can also enhance the success by increasing the motivational factor
in the firm by adding an extra reward for the people that that uses or suggests an innovative
idea for dealing with the challenges that is faced within the firm.
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be said that BMW has a culture that promotes passion, enjoyment, team
work, professional development, equal opportunities, and diversity. Their cultures have
helped them in keeping all their staffs and organisational units focused which helped them in
achieving the organisational objectives in an effective manner. Their communicational
culture has ensured that everything is communicated between stakeholders. Their cultures of
respect and rewards have helped in keeping all the employees motivated. They also need to
work more on their diversity to ensure long term success.
13 C. Zhang & P. Iles, 2014. “Organizational Culture”. Strategic Human Resource Management: An
International Perspective, p.383.
14 J. Anitha, 2016. Role of Organisational Culture and Employee Commitment in Employee
Retention. ASBM Journal of Management, 9(1).

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References
"Culture". in , , 2020, <https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/verantwortung/kultur.html>
[accessed 7 April 2020].
Anitha, J., 2016. Role of Organisational Culture and Employee Commitment in Employee
Retention. ASBM Journal of Management, 9(1).
Avery, G, & H Bergsteiner, "How BMW successfully practices sustainable leadership
principles.". in Strategy & Leadership, 39, 2011, 11-18.
Avery, G, & H Bergsteiner, "Sustainable leadership practices for enhancing business
resilience and performance.". in Strategy & Leadership, 39, 2011, 5-15.
Bowles, D. & Cooper, C., 2012. The high engagement work culture: Balancing me and we.
Palgrave Macmillan.
Christensen, H, "The Lure of Car Culture - Gender, Class and Nation in 21st Century Car
Culture in China..". in Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, , 2015.
Goodman, D. & Watts, M., 2013. Agrarian questions: global appetite, local metabolism:
nature, culture, and industry in fin-de-siecle agro-food systems. In Globalising food (pp. 12-
34). Routledge.
Irtyshcheva, I, "Corporate culture as an important factor in the organization
competitiveness.". in Collection of Scientific Publications NUS, 0, 2015.
Jing, F, G Avery, & H Bergsteiner, "Leadership Variables and Business Performance:
Mediating and Interaction Effects.". in Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 27,
2019, 80-97.
Suwarsi, S, E Sule, E Sule, H ., & A Helmi, "Implementation of Competency Based Human
Resource and Knowledge Management to Organizational Culture and Organizational
Performance Implication.". in International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 4, 2014,
255.
Taylor, J.F. and Carroll, J., 2010. Corporate culture narratives as the performance of
organisational meaning. Qualitative Research Journal, 10(1), p.28.

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Zhang, C. & Iles, P., 2014. “Organizational Culture”. Strategic Human Resource
Management: An International Perspective, p.383.