Large corporations are arguably the most powerful players in the global economy. By committing to values such as diversity, integrity, and respect, influential companies can raise the bar of what is possible and desirable for competitors, suppliers, partners, and startups.

Large Corporations as Cultural Standard-Setters

Most large companies describe their official corporate culture in terms of values they want employees to practice day to day. More than three-quarters of Culture 500 companies published an official corporate culture statement listing specific values, such as integrity, customer-centricity, or respect, that defined the culture the company aspired to achieve.

Google

Espoused values are the principles, beliefs, and rules that an organization's management or members officially endorse. This layer of culture serves to guide employees' actions and decisions in various situations by clarifying what is considered important and appropriate within the organization.

Espoused Values in Organizational Culture

MIT Sloan Management Review project page on measuring culture in leading companies, including the Culture 500 dataset. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/measuring-culture-in-leading-companies/

MIT Sloan Management Review

Netflix presents its values as standards people are expected to practice, not merely statements to discuss. The memo says colleagues hold one another accountable for those standards, especially leaders.

Netflix Culture Memo as an Espoused Values Example

Netflix says it supports creator artistic expression, programs for varied audiences, cultures, and tastes, and provides ratings, content advisories, and parental controls. The memo says employees support these principles even if some stories run counter to their personal values, and that Netflix is probably not the best place for people who would find the breadth of its slate hard to support.

Netflix Content Principles and Employee Role Fit

Prevalence of Official Corporate Culture Statements Among Large Companies

Employees do not always live up to their company's espoused values. Even so, official culture statements can show which elements of corporate culture executives consider most important.

Gap Between Espoused Values and Practiced Employee Behavior

On its careers page, Apple frames its workplace as a place where individual imaginations gather and commit to values that lead to great work. It describes a collaborative culture of inclusion, growth, and originality, supported by resources that make a difference in one's life.

Apple's Stated Culture

Google states that work should be challenging and fun, that great creative work is more likely with the right company culture, that team achievements and individual accomplishments both matter, that it values energetic and passionate employees from diverse backgrounds, and that its casual atmosphere supports rapid exchange, testing, and implementation of new ideas.

Google's Stated Culture

Google states that since the beginning it has focused on providing the best user experience possible. It says design choices, such as work on an internet browser or homepage changes, are intended to serve users rather than Google's internal goals or bottom line.

Google's Stated User-First Principle

Google describes focused expertise in search as a basis for improvement: it has a large research group focused on search problems, uses continued iteration to improve search, and applies what it has learned from search to products such as Gmail and Google Maps.

Google's Search-Focused Improvement Philosophy

Google states that users want answers right away when searching the web, so it aims to provide them quickly. It reports improving search speed by reducing page size and increasing serving-environment efficiency, keeps speed in mind for new products such as mobile applications and Google Chrome, and continues working to make its services faster.

Google's Speed-Focused Product Design Principle

Google describes open-source software development as an area where innovation occurs through the collective effort of many programmers.

Open-Source Collective Innovation in Google's Stated Philosophy

Google states that although the company was founded in California, its mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, and in every language.

Google's Stated Mission to Make Information Accessible Worldwide

Google describes being great at something as a starting point rather than an endpoint. It also states that constant dissatisfaction with the way things are is the driving force behind what it does.

Google's Stated Philosophy of Continuous Improvement

The Toyota Way presents named principles including acting for others, working with integrity, driving curiosity, observing thoroughly, getting better and better, continuing the quest for improvement, creating room to grow, welcoming competition, showing respect to people, and thanking people.

The Toyota Way

Southwest describes itself as the airline with Heart, connects its purpose to friendly, reliable, low-cost air travel, and says it is known for Hospitality and a legendary culture where People come first.

Southwest's Stated Culture

Starbucks presents its culture through a mission centered on coffee, human connection, performance through humanity, growth, excellence, integrity, innovation, care, and responsibility toward people, communities, and the planet.

Starbucks' Stated Mission and Values

Walmart describes its culture as built on living its core values every day, guided by its purpose to help people save money and live better. The company names four core values: acting with integrity, respecting the individual, serving customers and members, and striving for excellence. Walmart says its purpose and values shape who it is, how it works, and how it makes a positive difference in the world.

Walmart's Stated Culture

Procter & Gamble describes its Purpose, Values, and Principles as the foundation for P&G's unique culture. P&G states that its Purpose unifies employees in a common cause, its Values reflect the behaviors that shape how people work with each other and with partners, and its Principles articulate the company's approach to conducting work each day. P&G states that these elements have endured through more than 180 years of business growth and change and will continue to be passed down to future generations of P&G people.

Procter & Gamble's Stated Purpose, Values, and Principles

The Johnson & Johnson Credo states responsibilities to multiple groups: first to patients, doctors, nurses, mothers, fathers, and other users of its products and services; to employees who work with the company throughout the world; to communities where the company lives and works and to the world community; and finally to stockholders.

Johnson & Johnson Credo

NVIDIA presents its work culture as addressing demanding technology problems through a single-team approach, employee impact at scale, risk-taking, respectful candor, and high performance expectations.

NVIDIA's Stated Culture

IBM's Careers culture page says becoming an IBMer means building what is next, turning innovation into growth, helping each other succeed at work and in life, and moving forward through a culture made by IBMers.

IBM's Stated Culture

Atlassian presents its core values as guides for its business, product development, and brand. The company says these five values remain constant as Atlassian evolves and grows, and that they guide what Atlassian does, why it creates, and who it hires.

Atlassian's Stated Core Values

Adobe says great ideas come from everywhere in the company, describes itself as a global company empowering people from all walks of life, and says unique strengths can contribute to world-changing innovations across Adobe.

Adobe's Stated Culture

LinkedIn describes its culture and values as setting the company apart, defining who it is, and shaping what it aspires to be. LinkedIn also identifies itself as the world's largest professional network, with more than 1 billion members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

LinkedIn's Stated Culture and Values

Meta describes its mission as building the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible, and says its principles embody what it stands for and guide how it builds.

Meta's Stated Mission and Principles

Intel says it innovates, inspires, and leads by bringing people together globally to push technology boundaries, treating those boundaries as opportunities to develop breakthroughs, keep learning, and further careers.

Intel's Stated Innovation and Growth Culture

GitLab states that its six core values are Collaboration, Results for Customers, Efficiency, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Iteration, and Transparency. GitLab groups these values into the CREDIT acronym and links them to the expectation that people assume good intent with one another.

GitLab's Stated CREDIT Values

Airbnb describes its culture through creativity, connection and belonging, and responsibility to stakeholders. It says its community is based on connection and belonging and that it is united with its community to create connection that enables belonging.

Airbnb's Stated Culture

Salesforce describes its culture as a commitment to upholding trust, ethics, and integrity in everything it does, including treating everyone with respect, driving strong performance, and making decisions that align with its core values. The company states that its Code of Conduct is built on five core values: Trust, Customer Success, Innovation, Equality, and Sustainability.

Salesforce's Stated Culture

Workday describes its core values as driving its culture to elevate customers, empower employees, and supercharge work. The company frames living these core values every day as how it gets better in everything it does and moves business forever forward.

Workday's Stated Culture

Deloitte describes its purpose as central to its ambition. It states that this purpose is reflected in its values, investment in its people, and commitment to diversity, and that it shows in its work with clients and audited entities as well as its support for social enterprises and charity partners.

Deloitte's Stated Purpose, Values, and Culture

Pfizer frames its corporate values around the goal of realizing breakthroughs that change patients' lives, defining both what it needs to deliver for patients and how it will make that goal a reality. Pfizer states that this effort is reflected in four corporate values.

Pfizer's Stated Values

Amazon presents its Leadership Principles as a daily accountability system describing how Amazon does business, how leaders lead, and how the company keeps customers at the center of decisions while pursuing its mission of being Earth's most customer-centric company, best employer, and safest place to work.

Amazon Leadership Principles as an Espoused Values Example

Cisco's careers page presents culture as part of how the company works and succeeds together, emphasizing that how people work matters alongside what they accomplish and describing a culture of learning, creating, and winning together through combined skills, talents, and perspectives.

Cisco Careers Page as an Espoused Values Example

JPMorganChase frames its company culture around four business-principle tenets: exceptional client service, operational excellence, integrity, and a winning culture.

JPMorganChase Business Principles as a Finance Culture Example

Mayo Clinic states a healthcare culture built around inspiring hope and promoting health through integrated clinical practice, education, and research, with a values-driven culture anchored by respect, integrity, compassion, healing, teamwork, innovation, excellence, and stewardship.

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