A study of the interaction between corporate and regional culture

Abstract

This paper was written on the basis of a cross-border research, CURE. The Corporate Culture and Regional Embeddedness research project was conducted between 2007 and 2009. The major objective of the project was to produce an empirical analysis to study the interaction between corporate and regional culture, and the change processes resulting from this interaction. How the vital cultural diversity in European regions can enhance corporate competitiveness was the core question of the international, three-year research project.

The research was carried out in six European countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK) and their seven regions, by conducting 30-30 interviews with the owner/top managers among 30-30 companies and focus group research among their main stakeholders in each region.

Through a multidisciplinary study, the CURE project investigated and explored on the one hand how regional development is influenced by company cultures and, on the other hand, how companies are influenced by regional cultures. Strong regional cultures can help to create conditions under which innovation and prosperity can flourish. The CURE project emphasised that regional development can also be positively influenced by global corporate cultures. Also, companies can benefit from tapping into different regional cultures, especially in an era of “open innovation”. The following fields of investigation were defined to enable the analysis of embeddedness: innovation, human resources, sustainability in ecological terms and quality of life.