Building corporate culture in Vietnam: current situation and solutions for improvement

is a typical case. In the coming time, the State needs to have clear policies in managing cadres, assigning specific responsibilities to each level of leadership, strictly rewarding and punishing, avoiding the current situation of "Becoming a director of a State-owned enterprise is very difficult (because of having to bribe and compete a lot), but becoming a director of a State-owned enterprise is very easy (because there is no specific responsibility)". It is necessary to require State agencies to organize public recruitment exams, and the Recruitment Council needs to invite outside experts to participate, to avoid the situation of formal recruitment exams. Only then can the quality of human resources at all levels in the agency be improved, and the quality of Corporate Culture be improved. This is the starting point to create a clean business environment, creating conditions for business development.

1.3. Raising awareness of Corporate Culture

Up to now, the phenomenon of incorrect or incomplete awareness of the nature and importance of Corporate Culture is still very common. Therefore, the State needs to promote research and propaganda activities on the role of Corporate Culture. In other words, it is necessary to create a renewal of economic thinking in Vietnam. In this process, the mass media plays an important role, the regular appearance of articles and research works with a deeper and more thorough view of the aspects of Corporate Culture will help raise the awareness of Vietnamese enterprises on this issue.

To encourage Vietnamese enterprises to pay more attention to building corporate culture, the State plays a very important role. Currently, Resolution 5 of the Central Committee on "Building and developing an advanced Vietnamese culture with strong national identity" is gradually coming into life, while the culture of an enterprise can actually be considered a miniature social culture. Therefore, focusing on building corporate culture is also focusing on building and strengthening social culture. The State's incentive measures will be a great driving force for Vietnamese enterprises.

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1.4. Building management consulting centers

In the current economic conditions of Vietnam, when the awareness of the management team is still low, consultants are the ones who help businesses better understand the role of Corporate Culture and help businesses orient themselves in building their own unique Corporate Culture. Currently, Vietnam has consulting centers on economics, society, science and technology, law... but management consulting centers are not yet popular, especially in consulting, very little mention is made of the issue of Corporate Culture. In addition, consulting activities in Vietnam are currently developing spontaneously, without direction, practitioners are also rarely trained properly... so the efficiency of operations is still low, not gaining the trust of customers. Initially, organizations such as VCCI, Vietnam Entrepreneurs Association... can organize a number of Management Consulting Centers, helping businesses in the initial steps of building Corporate Culture, thereby replicating this model. To do this, the State needs to have policies to support and facilitate the operation of consulting organizations, such as creating a legal corridor (laws, guidance documents, etc.) for consulting activities, establishing an association of consultants so that members have the opportunity to learn and improve their qualifications, etc.

2. Solutions from the Business side

2.1. Focus on building core values for the business

Core values are the most important part of Corporate Culture, it is the fundamental source for businesses to build their own business philosophy. From a certain perspective, sometimes business philosophy is the core value of Corporate Culture. In the world and in Vietnam, many companies have succeeded with famous business philosophies such as Sony with "Always looking for new things through technical progress", Prudential with "Always listening, always understanding", Trung Nguyen with "The origin of all creativity"... However, many Vietnamese businesses still consider business philosophy simply as slogans that businesses still use to shout out. For example, those are slogans in advertising programs, exhibitions

such as “Quality is paramount”, “Customer is king”… Even when asked, many businesses do not know what a business philosophy is. In addition, negative business philosophies are popular in society with mottos such as “Where is the money first”, “Party B is a bunch of sweet star fruit” or “Without a mentor (official sponsor), you cannot succeed”…

To have a valuable business philosophy, considered the soul of corporate culture, leaders often have to spend one or two decades rolling around in the market. On the other hand, business philosophy must have inheritance, that is, between the founder and the successors there must be continuity in ideals, experiences and thoughts. The business philosophy of the enterprise can be the best tool to unify the activities of all members in a common understanding of purpose and values. Philosophy provides a standard for answering problems, presenting specifically and transparently what is important, what is not, bringing efficiency in planning and coordination between people of the same culture. It reflects the image of the enterprise, this image can even affect the image that individual members of the enterprise build about themselves.

2.2. Building a positive corporate culture model as a foundation for

sustainable development of business

As discussed in the previous sections, as soon as a business is established, a Corporate Culture is formed, whether the business members are aware of it or not. However, a spontaneously formed Corporate Culture can potentially contain factors that threaten the sustainable development of the business. Therefore, businesses need to research and propose an advanced and suitable Corporate Culture model to be able to connect all members of the business and serve as a foundation for the development of the business. There is no optimal Corporate Culture model for all, but in general, an advanced Corporate Culture must meet the following requirements:

- Corporate culture must be people-oriented: Experiences of successful businesses in the world and in Vietnam show that one of the

The key to success is the orientation of development towards people. However, this characteristic is not a strong point in Vietnamese Corporate Culture. Because traditional Vietnamese culture does not emphasize the role of each individual but only focuses on the collective and common work, this is also clearly reflected in Corporate Culture. In state-owned enterprises, although the Union activities are quite strong, due to the command economic mechanism, activities towards workers are still of a movement nature, not specific, and do not attract workers. This aspect is even more obscure in private enterprises. Many enterprises do not even establish a Union organization, so the rights of workers are not guaranteed. In particular, in the market mechanism, the situation of enterprises chasing productivity, forcing workers to work overtime, increasing working hours, affecting their health is increasingly common. Even in state-owned enterprises, the pressure to achieve results forces employees to devote more and more effort to work, affecting their private and family lives. The press has spoken out about the family crisis due to parents being too busy with work, neglecting their children, which is the breeding ground for serious social evils such as drugs, prostitution, etc. This will have a long-term negative impact on the human resources of enterprises and society.

Therefore, to ensure sustainable development, enterprises need to propose a corporate culture model that focuses on the comprehensive development of employees, not only pursuing achievements at work but also paying attention to other criteria such as participating in cultural and sports movements, praising exemplary families... In fact, companies such as FPT, Mai Linh... have organized such competitions and have achieved many positive results in encouraging the comprehensive development of employees and creating a friendly atmosphere in the workplace.

- Suitable for both the internal and external environment of the enterprise. From the concept of Corporate Culture by Edgar H. Schein, it can be seen that: Corporate culture is the values and styles of the members of the enterprise.

business, formed in the process of dealing with the internal and external environment of the business. Therefore, to be successful, the Corporate Culture model must be suitable to the specific conditions of each business. Only when exploiting the values of national culture and the characteristics of the business field, can Corporate Culture be successful and become the foundation for the development of the business.

2.3. The leader himself needs to be a role model of Culture in the enterprise.

Corporate culture is an issue closely related to the corporate governance system, so the final and most important responsibility belongs to the leaders. The experience of successful businesses in the world has demonstrated this issue. In terms of external affairs, leaders must determine the company's operating strategy in the market. In terms of internal affairs, leaders must be responsible for setting regulations and working methods to encourage employee creativity. Leaders must also make reasonable decisions in building a system of cultural values to promote the advantages of national culture and absorb cultural values learned from outside. Regardless of the field, leaders must be the pioneers in implementing the set goals to motivate members of the company. That is the basis for a sustainable corporate culture.

2.4. Raising awareness of Corporate Culture for business members

Corporate culture is not the result of the leader alone but must be created by the collective of employees. Therefore, although the leader plays a leading role in building Corporate Culture, this process can only be successful when there is active contribution from all members of the enterprise. There are many ways to attract employees to be interested in Corporate Culture, such as organizing training courses on Corporate Culture for all new members of the enterprise, circulating documents on Corporate Culture within the company, regularly promoting the company's traditions to employees, and consulting employees when it is necessary to innovate Corporate Culture.

One of the important measures to raise employees' sense of responsibility towards Corporate Culture is that companies need to connect with each other when recruiting human resources. Currently, the phenomenon of employees moving from one company to another is not uncommon. However, Vietnamese enterprises, especially private enterprises, do not require comments from the old company where the employee worked before applying to the new company, so they do not know the real reason why the employee quits that job. This practice can give rise to a mentality of contempt for the leader as well as the company where they work in some employees, because if they do not like it, they can move to another company to work without being affected much by their past. In many other countries in the world, when applying for a job, employees need a Professional Certificate and a Work History, including comments from all previous workplaces. If this procedure also becomes popular in Vietnam, it will raise the sense of responsibility of employees in their work, contributing to building a healthy corporate culture for the company.

2.5. Combining tradition and modernity in building corporate culture

Building a corporate culture is a long-term process, each business has its own way to create a culture with unique characteristics. However, no matter what kind of business culture it is, it must have the following two characteristics: strong national identity, the ability to adapt and integrate with the regional and global business environment. Or in other words, it must be a culture that is both sustainable and flexible.

There is no general formula for applying national cultural values to each enterprise because Vietnamese culture is rich and extremely diverse, plus different ways of perceiving and approaching national culture depending on the goals of each enterprise. However, in order to build a sustainable and human-oriented culture in the enterprise, it is impossible to ignore the factor of national cultural identity, which are sustainable values, the quintessence of the Vietnamese ethnic community cultivated through thousands of years of struggle to build and defend the country (Resolution of the 5th Conference of the Central Executive Committee of the Party

Course VIII). It is possible to identify some national cultural identities in the personality of Vietnamese people such as: ardent patriotism, sense of national independence and self-reliance, spirit of solidarity, compassion, tolerance, respect for sentiment, diligence in work...

This is a very correct orientation, in line with the strategy of "Building and developing an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity" of our Party and State, because one of the most practical measures to bring Resolution 5 of the Central Committee into life is for each enterprise to build, maintain and develop its cultural life in the spirit of the Resolution plus its own unique cultural features.

On the other hand, in the context of a constantly changing business environment combined with the rapid progress of science and technology (especially information technology) in the world, in order to adapt quickly and expand the market, enterprises need to build for themselves a culture that is not only imbued with national identity but also contains modern cultural elements. In other words, it must be a flexible culture, capable of learning and absorbing achievements, scientific and technical advances, and good cultural values from the outside, thereby promoting the creativity of all members of the enterprise.

2.6. Increase material investment in building corporate culture

In order for each member to absorb the spirit of the company's documents, philosophies or slogans, the leader's reminders and example setting are just one way. Another equally effective way is to link those documents, philosophies or slogans to employee festivals, entertainment activities, salary and bonus policies, uniforms, working equipment, and corporate rituals... These are superficial elements of corporate culture and are easy to perceive because of their tangible nature.

Festival activities to create a unique feature of the business must ensure the following factors: first, they must be organized periodically and regularly every year, every quarter...

with the goal of enhancing corporate spirit and building pride for all members, secondly is to be unique, creative and different from other businesses.

The common movements organized by the departments such as: building houses of gratitude, nurturing heroic Vietnamese mothers..., competitions between many enterprises such as "9th Hour"... are opportunities for members of the enterprise to affirm themselves "I am an FPT employee", "I am a member of Petrolimex"... with pride, the ego they express at this time is also the ego representing the enterprise. It can be said that participating in collective activities with other enterprises is an opportunity for employees to feel the "family atmosphere" in the enterprise, and feel more attached, have a greater sense of responsibility for common tasks.

Increasing investment in culture is very necessary, not only for long-standing businesses that have achieved high growth rates. The view that "we should only focus on building culture when the company has grown and prospered" is completely one-sided, considering culture as just an ornament to show off. Reality has proven that people work and contribute not only for material benefits but also for spiritual factors that motivate them, because of their attachment to their company. To create those non-material motivations, it is essential for businesses to have a strong corporate culture. Business leaders must be aware of these as necessary investments for the development of the business, not just focusing on business results. Because corporate culture is the glue that binds employees to the business, creating a foundation for businesses to develop sustainably.

Building corporate culture in Vietnam: current situation and solutions for improvement - 12

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