Discussions at this national conference began with recognition that, in a globalized economy where the standardization of consumption risks reducing competition between companies to a simple price war, a firm’s culture becomes a key selling point. In this regard, culture was interpreted in its broadest sense, as an amalgam of values, knowhow, and traditions handed down from generation to generation and which helps to shape the uniqueness of a given local area and the identity of a particular company. The marriage of entrepreneurial flair and local culture generates products that stand out and succeed in international markets, thereby creating a competitive advantage that resonates throughout the relevant local-area economy.
It was stressed, however, that culture is anything but a static concept. Rather, it evolves and adapts to a changing world, creating impetus within and outside a firm to forge new knowledge and skills. To facilitate this process of continuous cultural transformation and renewal, it is therefore necessary to create an open and dynamic education system that promotes a wider propensity for innovation and encourages an interdisciplinary approach as an underpinning for critical and lateral thinking. Today’s rapid technological changes call for flexible learning methods rather than the acquisition of rigid sets of knowledge, so as to enable workers to upgrade their skills over the course of increasingly less linear careers.
The participants accordingly felt that the education system should strive, without detracting from its independence, to better meet the production needs of industry. In order to limit the ever-growing mismatch between demand and supply of labor as well as the phenomenon of over-education, there was a perceived necessity to rationalize the range of courses currently available, focusing resources instead on study areas with greater potential, without neglecting the development of leadership and management skills. This virtuous process of new skills creation was seen as also demanding an active role from firms themselves by investing in continuing education, promoting study/work rotation schemes, and partnering with educational and academic institutions in their local area.
Although it was conceded that quality human resources are essential to a firm’s success, the adoption of organizational models that promote talent within a company, facilitate the flow of information by leveling out hierarchies, and encourage individual resourcefulness was seen as equally important. Indeed, building a corporate culture first and foremost entails imparting values and motivation to one’s employees such that individual interests are overcome and the common good of those within the organization is pursued. At the same time, it was stressed that a strong culture of accountability requires efforts to preserve a local area’s distinctive production characteristics when threatened by new technologies and globalization.
More generally, it was observed that another marker of virtuous corporate culture is the handing on of production knowledge. Linked to the issue of generational turnover, this was seen as not confined to the relationship between business owners and their children, but also as extending to the mechanisms through which different generations of workers within a company interact. In this regard, a meritocratic approach, a greater assumption of responsibility by younger employees, and new medium-term focused performance metrics were all deemed essential if the challenges of today and tomorrow are to be better understood.