What do you know about Brazilian culture?
What does 'corporate culture' mean?
What is the corporate culture at your company or school?
Semco is a company founded in the 1950's in Brazil that makes marine pumps. This is a very unique and interesting company for many reasons. Employees decide their own salary, what hours they want to work. Furthermore, workers have no job titles, and no organization charts. You might wonder how this company can possibly be successful.
Well, first of all, employees must reapply for their jobs every six months, all information is transparent, that is it is open to the public, so everybody can see what everyone else is being paid. So if you pay yourself unfairly, then someone else could quickly take your job and how much you get paid is directly linked to the profits of the company. Therefore, everyone has a lot of peer pressure to keep their budgets in line and to perform.
Workers choose their managers and evaluate them twice a year. Meetings are voluntary, and if no one shows up, then the meetings must have been unimportant. There are no receptionists and employees meet and greet customers directly as well as doing their own photocopying, and even make their own coffees.
This might sound like a recipe for chaos, but actually, its profit over the past ten years grew by 500% and sales by 600%. And furthermore, Semco has more than 2000 job applications and less than 1% staff turnover in the past 6 years.
Guessing meaning from context
Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. The answers are below the table.
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can see through, clear, nothing hidden |
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expectations from others that are similar to you, for example those in your group or whom you work with |
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will cause everything to lose control, |
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connected, joined, need each other |
A=3, B=1, C=8, D= 5, E=6, F=2, G=7, H=4
Some example sentences using the new words to help you to better understand their meaning.
1. The Hyundai Motor Company was founded by Chung Ju Yung
2. One reason that so many countries in Africa can't succeed is because of lack of transparency in government.
3. It has been proven that cigarette smoking is linked to lung cancer.
4. At university in Korea there is a lot of peer pressure to join M.T. (university social clubs) social meetings and sometimes to drink.
5. Teachers in Korean high schools can no longer hit students, so they need new ways to keep them in line.
6. Teachers really don't like students that always show up late.
7. Some managers feel that allowing employees to decide what time they will show up for work is a recipe for chaos.
8. In companies where employees are not happy there is a high staff turnover.
Some discussion questions using the new words to help you better understand the word meaning and how to use them correctly. Try to use the words in your answer.
1. If you had a lot of money, what kind of company would you like to found? Why?
2. How would you feel about working for a company as transparent as Semco where everybody knows how much you earn?
3. Why are Semco's employees salaries directly linked to their job?
4. Why is peer pressure at Semco able to keep employees in line?
5. Do you think that allowing staff to show up at a time they want would work in your company? Why or why not?
6. Do you think this kind of company culture, at Semco, could be successful at other companies? Would it be a recipe for chaos at some companies? Why?
7. Even though there is a lot of peer pressure at Semco, why do you think there is low staff turnover?
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