Organizačná kultúra, jej prenos a pôsobenie na manažment ľudského kapitálu v ČR (prípadová štúdia z oblasti retailingu)

The present thesis looks into the organizational culture of the Czech subsidiary of an international retail company and, based on the findings, it suggests a managerial style that would make organizational culture a competitive advantage. It is supposed that not only nations or countries but also companies have distinctive culture, understood as, following Schein, not just visible artefacts but also values and underlying assumptions. Also, following Martin, culture is not expected to be homogenous within the entire company, but different subcultures are envisaged across the hierarchy and various types of operations. As a result, organizational culture is not easily managed and thus (as a complex phenomenon) potentially not easily imitated which may provide a competitive advantage especially in a sector as heavily dependent on the performance of front line employees, as is retail. Since niceties of various subcultures would be hardly traceable by a mass quantitative approach, the research was conducted qualitatively in the form of interviews with individuals from the head office down to groups of front line employees across various formats -- department store, hypermarket and two small formats. The collected data were compared with freely accessible information in printed and electronic documents related to the Czech retail sector and such through which the case company communicates its cultural principles. Subsequently, the data were interpreted by the tools of the grounded theory method which consists in identifying the most important topics touched upon in interviews, gradually delving deeper into common causes of superficially disparate phenomena, boiling down to a couple of main categories. Four topics were discussed in the interviews: employees' perception of company values and company itself, communication and transfer and management of organizational culture. The following categories were found in the analysis: management style, personal development, recognition and motivation, communication and an overlapping category company values. The organizational culture was characterized by authoritative management style with a possibility of consultancy, pragmatic, stressing effectiveness and accuracy in planning, experience and polychronicity, with high power distance and equal wage on lower positions. Since the company values expertise, an elaborate career system is established, yet those employees who don't want or who can't build their career feel neglected as if hard work was not worthy of recognition. In communication, lack of trust and reactions to the employees' feedback was perceived from lower levels which caused certain tension between the centre and the periphery. Two remedies to the above problems are suggested: a puzzle piece approach management based on uniqueness and dignity of each human being valuing and trusting each employee on his/her own position, not only those with career aspirations. The other is recognition of leaders on all levels of the organizational hierarchy inspiring their colleagues with their example aligned with company values. Thus leaders would not have to be only on the top of the hierarchy with their influence waning down the way and culture would be present everywhere in the company at greater strength, making the employees content, motivated, feeling appreciated and their performance would improve.