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This paper provides a behavioral analysis of BP, whose capital budgeting decisions in the last decade have resulted in a series of high-profile accidents, including the worst environmental disaster in US history. This analysis uses BP as a vehicle to discuss the application of business processes and psychological pitfalls to analyze corporate culture. The paper identifies weaknesses and vulnerabilities in BP's culture, makes comparisons with the corporate financial practices at other firms, and offers suggestions about how BP can engage in debiasing. Notably, the paper also suggests that insufficient knowledge of behavioral decision making resulted in analysts, investors, and regulators attaching insufficient emphasis to the risks in BP's operations. The paper calls for more attention to the psychological aspects of corporate behavior by analysts, regulators, corporate managers, and academics.

Exploiting a novel measure of corporate culture based on cutting-edge machine learning algorithms, we examine how female board representation influences a culture of innovation, and also whether female directors spur innovation culture in the presence of an active takeover market. Our results show that higher board gender diversity improves a corporate innovation culture considerably. Specifically, a rise in female board representation by one standard deviation improves an innovative culture by 4.37%. The findings corroborate the argument that female directors infuse the firm with new ideas and different perspectives, thereby enhancing an innovative culture. Furthermore, we also show that female board representation’s interaction with the takeover market, which is a crucial external governance mechanism, spurs a corporate innovation culture as well. This implies that board gender diversity substantially softens the negative effect of hostile takeover threats on corporate innovation. Our study is the first to link board gender diversity to a culture of innovation and show the interaction effect with takeover threats.

This paper explores the relationship between banks’ “reward culture” and banks’ performance and risk during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Reward culture is defined as a result-oriented culture influenced through the incentives structure. Reward culture reflects three dimensions: (i) Chief Executive Officer incentives; (ii) Vice Presidents’ incentives; and (iii) employee incentives. A reward culture score represents the common factor in incentives across all employee levels. I find strong evidence of a nonlinear relationship between reward culture and bank returns and risk. Classifying banks into high, average, and low reward culture groups in the pre-crisis year 2006, I find that during the crisis period, banks within both the high and low reward culture groups performed worse, and were more risky than banks within the average reward culture group. The findings are consistent with the problems of adverse selection and moral hazard associated with incentive misalignment when incentives are too low or too high.

In the context of deepening the integration of production and education, higher vocational colleges need to further strengthen the coupling of corporate culture and professional curriculum education. By analyzing the characteristics of corporate culture and the existing problems in its integration of corporate culture into professional course teaching, this paper explores the ways in which corporate culture can be effectively integrated into course teaching, so that the graduates can meet the needs of the enterprise development to a great extent.

In October 2016, a photo went viral in which Chinese executives of the Korean corporation Samsung were kowtowing at a sales meeting in Heibei Province. The picture created a scandal; online bloggers claimed South Korean executives “forced” their Chinese counterparts to kowtow to apologize for product failure with one of their products, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Kowtowing has different meanings in China and in Korea and debate on the meaning of bowing arose. The case discusses the scandal and encourages students to reflect on cultural differences and their effects on business practices.

As Geely enters a new stage of development, the company has made great efforts to develop its corporate culture by clearly defining its vision and core values. The firm has united its different subsidiaries under the banner of Geely Group toward one common goal: transforming itself into a prominent automaker and technology leader in the global automobile industry. Guided by the notions of making refined cars for everyone and making the safest, most environment-friendly and most energy-efficient vehicles, Geely has also paid close attention to its brand development, and after some experiments, the company has formulated a single-brand “One Geely” strategy that has contributed to the rise of Geely as a leading national auto brand in China in recent years. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of Geely as a global enterprise, this chapter will first survey the company’s mission, vision, core values, and other key concepts of its corporate cultures, then review the stages of its brand development and its current brand and vehicle portfolios, and finally examine its brand management strategies.

What defines a family business? Many studies argue that it is the influence the owning family has on decision-making and operations of a firm. The extent and manner of such an influence depends critically on family business culture, the extent to which family and business values overlap, as well as the family's commitment to the business. Survey data on 117 unlisted small and medium sized Chinese family businesses form the basis of this study. Analysis showed that there is no relationship between family business culture and performance. However, the family's commitment to the business affects the board composition, working style, and roles of control, service, and family affair management. Comparatively, the influence of overlap between family and business values on the board is less significant, compared to the ratio of the family members in the board and the extent of board involvement in family affairs. Finally, the results indicate that the number of the family members involved in business management affects the family business culture.