It has been unanimously agreed after long-term academic discussion and practice that any preeminent enterprise must be supported by a powerful and excellent corporate culture. The securities industry in China has been exploring China’s capital market for 20 years. Now it is very important for the industry to dig into the connotation of corporate culture and look for effective ways to build it. Similarly it is even more
important for China Merchants Securities that gradually grows to maturity and regularity, transforming from an extensive development mode to an intensive one.
Generally speaking, corporate culture is the summation of corporate ideologies formed during the development of an enterprise, including its values, business philosophy, collective consciousness and staff’s common codes of behaviors. It has three general features summarized as “it is as soft as water”, “constant water drops perforate the stone”, and “fish can’t live without water”. The first feature means that “the management of employees by corporate culture is soft and flexible without compelling power”. The second feature means that “the influence of corporate culture on the awareness, conducts and performance of employees is not done overnight, but accumulated through a long period of time”. The last feature tells that “the relationship between corporate culture and the enterprise is like that between fish and water that fish may not feel the existence of water but they can’t live without it.”
Meanwhile, as a type of organizational culture, corporate culture has certain particularities. First, corporate culture appears before management system, while the two alternate to dominate in corporate management. Tangible systems reflect intangible cultural connotations, while intangible culture presents itself in the form of tangible systems. On one hand, parts of management system are taken from corporate culture as much as to say that the primal management system is almost a derivative of corporate culture. A management system built in accordance with corporate culture will help the development and implementation of corporate culture. On the other hand, a management system is never perfect. It always lags behind the enterprise’s management practice, or fails to cover every area of management, or lacks proper implementation, when corporate culture should work as a complement. The more developed an enterprise, the greater need it has to establish a powerful and excellent corporate culture to reduce enterprise’s internal contracting cost. Culture is the last leading power of corporate management, but it doesn’t mean any weakening of management system, which is also getting more powerful, and yet still after culture.
Second, corporate culture means an transition of corporate management from material-oriented to an advanced stage of people-oriented. From micro perspective, an individual in an enterprise is a “social person” as well as an “economic person”. With the development of society, enterprise and individual, characteristics of “social person” gradually become the leading influential factors in corporate management. From macro perspective, an enterprise, as an economic organization as well as a social organization, not only has to earn more financial profits through scientific improvement and regulation of its management system, but also needs to fulfill the corresponding social responsibilities with the help of value-based corporate culture.
Lastly, corporate culture is closely linked to an enterprise’s business performance. For an enterprises, the influence exerted by non-production elements like communication, trust, sharing of resources, enthusiasm, etc. on profitability is more profound and long-lasting than that by tangible assets. A saying has been well-known that “the development for a five-year old enterprises depends on technology; for a ten-year old, management; for a century old, culture”. In the 21st century, corporate culture will inevitably become the “way” for the survival and development of an enterprise. For one thing, it corresponds to the dialectic ideas of China’s ancient philosophy that from intangible things come the tangible, and that “one is the child of the divine law; after one come two, after two come three, after three come all things”. For another, it represents the highest level of corporate management in market economy.
As a financial enterprise born under the centuried China Merchants Group and in the wake of China’s reform and opening-up, China Merchants Securities showed the world with boldness and innovation from the very beginning. In the past 20 years of development, China Merchants Securities has crystallized the ideas of integrity, solidity, service and innovation, and formed a whole set of corporate culture values. In 2004, we further refined our core values, which made clear our ambitions and aspiration. Our corporate culture has thus been strengthened and consolidated.
The mission that through excellent financial services the company should increase clients’ values and thus promote social economic development as well as people’s living standards has unified everyone in China Merchants Securities. The vision that the company will build itself into an international financial institution characterized with various products, first-class service, and outstanding brand, and that it will become an excellent enterprise that earns client’s trust, social respect, satisfaction of its shareholders and pride of its employees encourages China Merchants Securities staff to endure great hardship, help each other in adversity, and move forward hand in hand towards our common goal!
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