Research on Building and Developing Corporate Culture

To avoid the above situations, the problem for businesses is to have a correct understanding of the current corporate culture of tourism companies in order to build a suitable culture and develop it throughout the organization. Therefore, the topic "Building and developing corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies" has very practical significance in both theory and practice.

2. Research situation

2.1. Research on corporate culture

On the content of corporate culture

Maybe you are interested!

There are many different research works on corporate culture in the world today. Therefore, there are many other approaches to defining corporate culture, such as Hofstede (1991), Trice & Beyer (1993), Schultz (1995), Deal & Kennedy (1999), Cameron & Quinn (1999), Ashkanasy, Wilderom & Peterson (2000), Martin (2002) ... Recently, there are also authors who have given their own definitions of corporate culture such as Porter et al. (2016), Robbins and Judge (2018), Rooji and Fine (2018), Tahir et al. (2019), ... Each of the above approaches has its own characteristics to define and explain the concept of corporate culture, but that is a good sign of recognizing corporate culture as a category, a scientific concept. Denison, an author with many research works on this topic, also pointed out the view on the connotation of corporate culture and the factors that need to be considered when studying corporate culture in the works Denison (1990), Fey and Denison (2003), Denison et al. (2003), Denison et al. (2014), ... Researcher Schein (Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2004), an author specializing in research on the field of organizational culture and corporate culture, analyzed the common issues related to corporate culture and their relationship with leadership in the book "Corporate Culture and Leadership". In addition, there are many other studies on corporate culture such as "Conquering the cultural waves" by Trompenaars (1980), Studies on cultural differences at the international scale such as "Five dimensions of culture" by Hofstede (2010).

In Vietnam, the issue of corporate culture is also increasingly concerned. Author Nguyen Manh Quan (2012) wrote the textbook "Business Ethics and Corporate Culture", providing theories and philosophies on business ethics, as well as some theories on building a unique identity for businesses. Author Do Thi Phi Hoai (2009), author Nguyen Duc Chinh (2015) with a research work called "Corporate Culture"

"Business Culture", has proposed theories on corporate culture including concepts, levels of corporate culture, and the impact of corporate culture on business activities. Author Duong Thi Lieu (2012) is the editor of the textbook "Business Culture", inheriting previous research works, providing general theories on business culture and necessary skills to organize the application and development of knowledge about business culture in economic and business activities... In the scientific article titled "Assessing corporate culture in small and medium enterprises in Vietnam" published in the Science Journal, Hanoi National University, author Do Tien Long (2015) presented a typical study on culture assessment in small and medium enterprises in Vietnam.

These are the fundamental studies for the author to learn, inherit and synthesize a general concept of corporate culture in the thesis. The thesis will inherit these studies to synthesize the contents of corporate culture and from there study the actual corporate culture that Vietnamese tourism companies have built and developed. The detailed contents will be presented in chapter 2 of the thesis.

On the structure of corporate culture

When talking about the structure of corporate culture and reviewing theoretical studies on the levels of corporate culture, there are three main theories: Hall's iceberg model (1976), Schein's model (1985, 2010) and Hofstede's model (1991, 2010). The iceberg model is built on Hall's sociocultural iceberg model (1976), identifying corporate culture as consisting of two parts, visible and invisible, like an iceberg - or the visible and invisible elements. The model of corporate culture levels was proposed by Schein in his book "Restructuring Organizational Culture". Schein (2010) divided the elements of corporate culture into three groups: (1) the group of visible cultural values, (2) the announced values and (3) the group of implicit values. Later, Hogan and Coote (2014) also conducted their own research to use and evaluate the reliability of this model. At the same time Schein proposed the 3-level model of corporate culture, Hofstede (2010) proposed a model consisting of 4 layers in order from outside to inside: Symbols - Heroes - Rituals - Values. In general, the models have in common that corporate culture includes both tangible and intangible elements.

On methods of measuring and evaluating corporate culture

Schein (1989) proposed an interactive model - a 10-step interview method called “Collaborative Discovery through Interactive Interviewing”. After

In the interview, he also presented a way to analyze the collected data on implicit views, the fundamental values of corporate culture are evaluated on 5 aspects: (1) The relationship of the organization to nature, (2) The nature of reality and trust, the basis for decision making, (3) The nature of people, (4) The nature of human action, (5) The nature of human relationships.

With the research method using questionnaires with questions assessed by level, there are two commonly used methods: the OCI (Organizational Culture Inventory) method of Cooke & Lafferty (1987), the DOC (Denison Organizational Culture) model of Denison (1990), O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell (1991) also proposed the OCP (Organizational Culture Profile) method. This method is based on a questionnaire consisting of 54 affirmative sentences to identify the values and characteristics of an organization. Interview participants will be asked to answer based on a specific scale. According to this method, corporate culture is divided into 7 aspects: Innovation, Stability, Respect for individuals, Results orientation, Detail orientation, Team orientation and Competitiveness. The OCI method is a quantitative corporate culture analysis and assessment tool that allows quantification of corporate culture values clearly, built and developed. developed by Cooke and Lafferty (1987). Denison's corporate culture model is used by the Questionnaire when applying Denison's corporate culture model, which includes 12 aspects, these 12 aspects are classified into 4 main groups: Mission, Adaptability, Participation, Consistency. In this thesis, the author will use Denison's model (1990) to research and evaluate the corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies because of the popularity and reliability of this model.

2.2. Research on building and developing corporate culture

On the content of building and developing corporate culture

In general, building and developing corporate culture is a process of defining corporate values and sharing them widely to spread those values to members of the business. These two words often go hand in hand because when a business has built its culture, it will share, spread and strengthen this culture so that it becomes stronger and more influential to members of the business. There have been a number of studies on this issue such as: Denison (1990), Kotter & Heskett (1992), Gordon & DiTomaso (1992), Fey & Denison (2003), Denison et al. (2014). Or when talking about the steps to build and develop corporate culture, the authors

Authors Gostick and Elton (2015) also have a research work "Building corporate culture, 7 steps to success". In Vietnam, the book "Business ethics and corporate culture" by Bui Xuan Phong (2006) presents the concept, characteristics, manifestations of corporate culture, factors that create corporate culture; principles of building corporate culture... In addition, the work also presents culture in business activities such as marketing activities, culture in behavior, in negotiation and bargaining... These studies have shown the basic foundations of building and developing corporate culture.

Corporate culture as well as the building and development of corporate culture play an important role in creating a strong and suitable culture for the business. There have been many studies pointing out the importance of corporate culture to the performance of the business such as studies (Gordon, 1985; Schein, 1985; Barney, 1986; Denison, 1990, Calori & Samil, 1991; Kotter & Heskett, 1992; Gordon & DiTomaso, 1992; Denison & Neale, 1996). Authors Sadri & Lees (2001) also pointed out the need to develop corporate culture through studying the cases of Wal-mart, Southwest Ailines and HP. Building and developing a strong culture has an impact on the performance of the organization (Fey & Denison, 2003; Schein, 2010). Leaders will develop their corporate culture to improve corporate performance. (Flamholtz & Randle, 2011; O‟Reilly and Chatman, 1991). In particular, Denison & Neale (1996) pointed out the impact of aspects of corporate culture that can impact criteria in corporate performance. From there, businesses can choose to develop which aspects of corporate culture (mission, employee involvement, adaptability, consistency) to increase their performance. To improve and develop these aspects of corporate culture, business leaders can use human resource management tools to develop their corporate culture: recruitment and selection of employees, training and development, performance appraisal, rewards and incentives, and communication systems within the business to share, spread, and reinforce the values of corporate culture to members (Guest, 1987; Keyton, 2005).

In Vietnam, author Bui Xuan Phong (2010) published a number of research topics such as: "Maintaining and developing corporate culture for sustainable development and international integration of VNPT" (March 2010); "Discussing the process of building corporate culture" (April 2010); "Maintaining and developing corporate culture" (April 2010);

Developing corporate culture to develop VNPT sustainably and integrate internationally” (June 2010). These topics have applied the theory of corporate culture to Vietnamese enterprises, specifically VNPT, through assessing the current situation to propose solutions to help VNPT move towards sustainable development. In addition, there are also a number of master's theses researching corporate culture of some specific enterprises such as FPT, Viettel. Recently, there have also been a number of articles on developing corporate culture such as author Vi Tien Cuong (2012) with the article "Building corporate culture towards sustainable development of Vietnamese enterprises", author Duong Thi Thanh Mai (2015), "Building corporate culture in Vietnam - Current situation and solutions", author Nguyen Quang Trung (2015) with the article "Developing corporate culture in Vietnam: Proposing concepts and research models"; Author Le Hai Linh (2017) with the article "Building corporate culture in response to practical demands", author Phan Y Lan (2020) with the article "Building and developing corporate culture for enterprises in Vietnam in the digital transformation era". These articles have pointed out current issues and the importance of building and developing corporate culture today for enterprises.

On factors affecting the building and development of corporate culture

With scientific research articles in general and the topic of corporate culture in particular, current authors tend to study the factors affecting the research object to indicate appropriate development directions. With Schein (2004), he focused on studying organizational culture related to leadership, so his theory also focused on leaders. He raised the question of why two businesses in the same environment and the same business field can still have contrasting corporate culture, and from there found three main factors affecting the birth of corporate culture: (1) the values and beliefs of the founder, (2) the learning process in the team when the organization increasingly adapts and changes, (3) Communication to new leaders and employees. Schien also proposed 6 primary and secondary mechanisms for founders and managers in building corporate culture. In the study “The impact of strong corporate culture during a period of growth and acquisition”, Carmen (2014) pointed out both positive and negative impacts from external organizational changes on employee awareness and culture in a company, which also mentioned factors affecting corporate culture. Or Blum (1998) contributed to pointing out the leadership style factor and its impact on corporate culture through the study “A cause-and-effect

relationship between leadership and corporate culture: An educational perspective”. Another study called “Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on an Organization‟s Culture: A Multisite Case Study of a Global Nonprofit Organization” by Tracey and Odenwelder (2015) tested and studied small groups in the same non-profit organization, successfully demonstrating the role of social responsibility in the company's goals and missions, thereby positively affecting corporate culture. Discussing this content, Essounga (2009), Hofstede (2010), Tsui and Nifadkar (2007), Naraziana et al. (2014), Szczepańska and Kosiorek (2017), Naraziana et al. (2017), Ansah and Louw (2019) pointed out that national culture has an impact on corporate culture and values as well as the construction and development of corporate culture. In addition, founders and leaders over time, internal communication also have an impact on corporate culture and values as well as the construction and development of corporate culture according to studies by authors Toor and Ofori (2009), Flamholtz & Randle (2012), Andish et al. (2013), O'Reilly et al. (2014), Mumby (2013), Sebastião et al. (2017). Another factor that has an impact on corporate culture is imported culture or learned culture (Nguyen & Aoyama, 2014); Uddin et al., 2013).

In Vietnam, author Phung Xuan Nha (2010) has a state-level topic "Entrepreneurial personality and business culture in Vietnam in the process of innovation and international integration", building hierarchical structural models with a ladder of detailed values of entrepreneurial personality and Vietnamese business culture in the period of innovation and international integration, thereby drawing lessons for Vietnam, making recommendations for the development of entrepreneurial personality and business culture, Vietnamese corporate culture in the process of innovation and international integration and also emphasizing the role of entrepreneurs in building and developing corporate culture and business culture in general. In addition, author Mai Han (2009) also mentioned some key factors for building successful corporate culture in the article "Transforming corporate culture to suit the digital age".

These studies will create a premise for the author to clarify how important the issue of building and developing corporate culture is and thereby emphasize the urgency of the topic and propose solutions to improve the work of building and developing corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies.

On corporate culture, building and developing corporate culture of tourism companies

There have been studies on the construction and development of corporate culture of companies in industries and fields such as banking and finance, manufacturing, but there are very few studies published specifically on the construction and development of corporate culture of tourism companies. Regarding the corporate culture of tourism companies, there are a few studies that have explored this topic, for example, Robaki et al. (2020) studied the relationship between corporate culture and business results in the tourism industry, studying the case of Luxury Tourist. This study showed a positive relationship between corporate culture and some indicators of business results of this enterprise, thereby showing the importance of the construction and development of corporate culture of tourism companies and making administrators pay more attention to this work. Previously, author Tepeci (2005) also pointed out the positive impact between corporate culture and employee satisfaction in the tourism sector in Türkiye. Yusof et al. (2012) also pointed out the positive impact of corporate culture on tourist satisfaction. Regarding the construction and development of corporate culture of tourism companies, Noonan (2017) also pointed out the important contents that leaders need to pay attention to and the questions they need to answer to build and develop their corporate culture to support the company's strategy.

3. Research Gap

Researching previous works both domestically and internationally shows that research on corporate culture is not a new content. However, regarding the research on the construction and development of corporate culture of tourism companies in general and Vietnamese tourism companies in particular, there are some gaps that the author sees as follows:

Firstly, the tourism industry is one of the key industries of our country, with important contributions to the economy. The increasing number of tourism companies makes competition in the industry more and more fierce, besides, new issues such as epidemics have a great impact on the tourism industry and tourism companies. Meanwhile, corporate culture has been considered one of the key factors affecting the performance and competitive advantage of enterprises since the early days. However, up to now, the construction and development of corporate culture of tourism companies has not attracted much attention from scholars and researchers.

Second, although research on corporate culture or building and developing corporate culture is not new (there are many studies but they only focus on assessing the current state of corporate culture of a specific enterprise or a number of enterprises in general). These studies have shown the relationship between corporate culture, building and developing corporate culture with criteria of performance such as revenue, profit, market share, product development, employee satisfaction. However, these studies focus on enterprises in the US, Russia, Europe, Hong Kong and enterprises in many different fields, but there has not been any specific research on building and developing corporate culture and those factors in Vietnamese tourism companies.

Third, in previous studies, there has been no in-depth research on solutions and orientations for Vietnamese tourism companies to be able to build, maintain and develop their corporate culture.

From studying previous research works on related topics both domestically and internationally, the controversial issues have motivated the author to find gaps in research on corporate culture as well as building and developing corporate culture of tourism companies. This is also the key basis for the author to choose the topic "Building and developing corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies".

4. Research objectives and research tasks

The research objective of the thesis is to analyze the current status of building and developing corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies to find out the advantages and limitations, thereby proposing solutions to help Vietnamese tourism companies complete the building and development of their corporate culture.

To achieve this research objective, the research tasks of the thesis are:

- Systematize theoretical basis on building and developing corporate culture

- Analyze the current status of building and developing corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies

- Research on factors affecting the construction and development of corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies

- Proposing solutions to improve the work of building and developing corporate culture of Vietnamese tourism companies.