Analisys of subcultures existence in a european multinational company stablished in Brazil

摘要

Corporate culture is one of the main sources of organizational identity. In large corporations, the existence of a “backbone” seems to be evident; however, the manifestation of subcultures is a natural phenomenon due to the complexity of operations and diversity of people who are part of the organizational system. This article tries to identify the existence of subcultures in a European multinational organization installed in Brazil. The selected method, case study research, was based on the problematic of identifying and comparing the main cultural elements in Sales and Service departments of this organization. This paper aimed to compare main values, artifacts, leadership, decision making process and communication in both departments, using empirical investigation compounded by deep structured interviews and non-participant observations. The main contributions raise up that each department show its own way of acting, based on its own meanings and urgency sense. The theoretical basis for this study was Schein’s concept of organizational culture (SCHEIN, 1992; 2007) and the three cultural perspectives defined by Martin (1999).