Corporate Culture, Societal Culture, and Institutions
American Economic Review
vol. 105,
no. 5, May 2015
(pp. 336-39)
Abstract
While both cultural and legal norms (institutions) help foster cooperation, culture is the more primitive of the two and itself sustains formal institutions. Cultural changes are rarer and slower than changes in legal institutions, which makes it difficult to identify the role played by culture. Cultural changes and their effects are easier to identify in simpler, more controlled, environments, such as corporations. Corporate culture, thus, is not only interesting per se, but also as a laboratory to study the role of societal culture and the way it can be changed.Citation
Guiso, Luigi, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales. 2015. "Corporate Culture, Societal Culture, and Institutions." American Economic Review, 105 (5): 336-39. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20151074Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D02 Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
- D21 Firm Behavior: Theory
- D23 Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
- M14 Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification