1. Introduction

a) Culture Definition

Culture has been defined in various ways.

A well-known anthropological consensus definition runs as follows “Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional […] ideas and especially their attached values”. (1)
According to Geert Hofstede, culture could be defined “as the interactive aggregate of common characteristics that influence a human group’s response to its environment.”
Kroeber and Parsons (1958) arrived at a cross- disciplinary definition of culture as “transmitted and created content and patterns of values, ideas and other symbolic-meaningful systems as factors in shaping of human behaviour and the artefacts produced through behaviour.” (2)

The influence of culture in an organisation is linked to a sociological authority, relations understanding of society. In practice, Culture in an organisation tends to be concerned with assumptions, norms, values (3), shared meanings and cognitive structures. Organisational culture is a key element that helps define, support and reinforces the standard for appropriate behaviour within the Organisation (Gray-Larson, 2005)

Organisational cultures have dynamic and powerful influences on the organisation development, managerial / employee behaviour, attitudes, strategies and goals.

b) Mitsubishi Background

Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is the largest Japanese general trading company with almost 200 companies around the world. MC is what is a named a ‘Keiretsu’ (4).

The origin of Mitsubishi goes back to 1870, founded by Yataro Iwasaki. At first, it was a small shipping firm and step-by-step, Iwasaki family expanded the business into various fields, such as Mining, Shipbuilding, Banking, Insurance, Pharmaceutics, Automobile, etc. What led