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How humble is your company culture? And, why does it matter?

Tiffany Maldonado, Dusya Vera and Nichelle Ramos

Business Horizons, 2018, vol. 61, issue 5, 745-753

Abstract: Humility as a virtue of leadership has attracted increased attention in recent years. We introduce the concept of a humble organizational culture and define it as a culture that promotes humility as a key success factor and a source of competitive advantage, and one that institutionalizes six values and norms: (1) employee development, (2) mistake tolerance, (3) transparency, (4) accurate awareness, (5) recognition, and (6) openness. We position a company culture of humility as key to extraordinary success in the marketplace. Humility in individuals includes a willingness to see the self accurately and a propensity to put oneself and others in perspective. In this article, we offer a set of recommendations to help executives build a company culture of humility that supports the six behavioral norms and values that create the foundation for a firm’s competitive advantage. We collected information on organizational cultures of humility for a sample of Fortune 500 firms using data from company mission statements, company websites, and news articles.

Keywords: Humble organization; Corporate culture; Performance recognition; Employee development; Corporate values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bushor:v:61:y:2018:i:5:p:745-753

DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2018.05.005

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