Organizational Culture: The Hidden Competitive Advantage and the Key to Innovation for Greek Logistics
摘要
Increasing globalization, unpredictable crises, increasing competitiveness and increasingly specific customer demands have brought to the fore the dominant role of logistics services in reducing operational and non-operating costs, in customer-supplier relationships, as well as in the shift to a more sustainable and resilient environment. Amidst all this, the logistics industry is forced to constantly adapt and precisely implement technologies from Industry 4.0 such as IoT, Cloud and Big Data analytics, Blockchain, etc. As far as Greece is concerned, the logistics industry is slow to innovate and adopt technologies in an effective way. From what has been observed, most Greek logistics companies do not have the appropriate resources and a clear orientation towards change and innovation. Of course, this whole situation is due to ignorance of the role and contribution of organizational culture. The organizational culture shapes the values of the companies, the abilities and the dedication of the employees, the relations with the customers-suppliers, but also with the local society. The present study aims to identify the influence of organizational culture and employee participation in the transformation process towards innovation and the successful adoption of new technologies in Greek logistics. The methodology followed to conduct this research is a literature review by searching sources in the Google Scholar academic content database. The results of this research prove that the concept of organizational culture has very limited contact with Greek logistics. The type of organizational culture desired by Greek employes is one that promotes teamwork and is reflected in the “Clan” type of culture. The contribution of the study is both practical and theoretical. In practical application, the need to cultivate an organizational culture for Greek logistics companies that will have a positive relationship and balance between Adhocracy and Clan culture is highlighted, in order to effectively achieve the shift towards modernization. At a theoretical level, the need to conduct future studies on the relationship between organizational culture and modern logistics in Greece is emphasized.