Verizon Communications Inc. utilizes its organizational culture (work culture) to ensure high-quality services. High quality is a competitive advantage that forms the main basis of Verizon’s generic competitive strategy and intensive growth strategies. The telecommunications company benefits from the contribution of its corporate culture to overall business competitiveness and strategic success. A firm’s organizational culture or corporate culture establishes the set of beliefs, principles, and core values that affect employee behavior. In this case, Verizon sets its organizational culture to encourage employees to support aims for high quality, which is central to the company’s ability to attract customers despite competitors, like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Alphabet’s Google Fiber. The corresponding cultural characteristics influence all the divisions in Verizon’s organizational structure (corporate structure). Human resource development programs uphold cultural traits that are reinforced throughout the telecommunications business organization. As a result, the corporate culture enhances the company’s employee performance and integrates the entire organization seamlessly.
Employees can use the organizational culture as a factor in making decisions on the job. For example, institutionalized cultural traits guide prescribed behaviors for certain situations experienced in the business processes of Verizon. The corporate culture also promotes brand development. The cultural emphasis on high quality sustains a strong brand image that attracts customers to Verizon’s wireless telecommunications services in the market. This aspect of the business culture addresses competition, which is a major factor in the external business environment, as shown in the Five Forces analysis of Verizon Communications Inc.
Verizon’s Organizational Culture Type & Characteristics
Verizon has an organizational culture of quality in performance. This type of corporate culture focuses on achieving high quality through employees’ behavior and decision-making in their job performance. For example, Verizon’s employees are encouraged to always consider options to maximize the quality of their output in addressing customers’ queries and complaints. The cultural traits also motivate workers to develop solutions that satisfy the company’s quality standards for its information and communication technologies and services. The following characteristics define the corporate culture of Verizon:
- Quality and reliability (most significant)
- Customer-centricity
- Teamwork
- Excellence
- Values-driven foundation
Quality and Reliability. This cultural trait serves as the primary factor that defines the company’s organizational culture and contributes to the strength and competitiveness of the business, as determined in the SWOT analysis of Verizon Communications Inc. For example, the company emphasizes quality and reliability in its employees’ output, especially in maintaining the high quality of its information and communications technologies and infrastructure. This support of the corporate culture enables the company to promote its telecommunications services based on quality. For instance, Verizon’s marketing mix (4P) involves advertisements that highlight high-quality services.
Customer-Centricity. The needs and expectations of customers are the focus of this cultural trait. In this regard, customer satisfaction is supported and optimized through Verizon’s corporate culture. Customer-centricity motivates employees to identify what customers expect from the company, and to contribute to solutions that aim to satisfy these expectations. For example, the organizational culture helps in achieving success in implementing human resource programs that train Verizon employees to provide high-quality customer service, which is a differentiator of the business against other firms in the wireless telecommunications services market.
Teamwork. Employees are encouraged to contribute to the success of their work teams, based on this cultural characteristic. In this regard, an emphasis of the organizational culture is on achieving high effectiveness and efficiency through the synergy of Verizon’s human resources. Teamwork is significant in the company’s operations, such as in research and development, problem solving, and infrastructure maintenance. For example, Verizon uses work teams in improving and maintaining its telecommunications infrastructure. The corporate culture considers effective teamwork as a desirable factor and instills this perspective in the minds of the company’s employees.
Excellence. The cultural trait of excellence empowers employees to support goals for advanced information and communications technologies, which are a factor in Verizon’s corporate mission and corporate vision. The company’s corporate culture influences employees to view excellence as a desirable factor in their work performance. As a result, they are motivated to ensure excellent job performance. This characteristic of the organizational culture contributes to the company’s competitiveness. For example, Verizon is competitive because of its attractiveness as a provider of wireless telecommunications services.
Values-Driven Foundation. Core values are a cultural characteristic that serves as the foundation of employees’ decisions and behaviors. For example, through the core value of integrity, the organizational culture helps satisfy the interests of the stakeholders of the telecommunications business by influencing Verizon’s corporate social responsibility strategy. The company culture also promotes virtue ethics as a framework for decision-making and problem-solving processes. For instance, to address individual customers’ cases, employees at Verizon are likely to ensure integrity and respect in their communications with customers.
Verizon’s Corporate Culture: Advantages & Disadvantages, Recommendations
The organizational culture of Verizon Communications Inc. has the advantage of strengthening business competitive advantages based on quality of services. This cultural advantage is a major contributor to the success of the business. For example, high-quality technological service and customer service are frequently used as the selling point for Verizon’s telecommunications services. Another advantage of the corporate culture is its promotion of excellence in employee behavior. Excellence adds to the company’s competitive advantages and business strengths.
Despite such advantages, Verizon’s organizational culture has the disadvantage of limited motivation for output maximization. This is understandable because the company’s emphasis is more on quality than quantity of output. However, a recommendation is to improve the corporate culture by establishing high productivity as a major cultural trait, without sacrificing the cultural trait of quality and reliability. For example, the high quality of Verizon’s wireless services must remain after establishing high productivity as an additional cultural trait. This recommendation aims to enhance the company’s financial performance. Verizon’s operations management strategy should reflect changes in the organizational culture.
References
- Arena, M., Hines, S., & Golden III, J. (2023). The three Cs for cultivating organizational culture in a hybrid world. Organizational Dynamics, 52(1), 100958.
- Karneli, O. (2023). Analysis of motivation, work culture, and work environment on the level of employee integrity in the company. International Journal of Environmental, Sustainability, and Social Science, 4(2), 547-551.
- Verizon Communications Inc. – Code of Conduct and Credo.
- Verizon Communications Inc. – Form 10-K.
- Verizon Communications Inc. – Life at Verizon.