In order for Tony Hsieh, the Zappos chief executive officer mentioned in the Challenge Case, to maintain a culture emphasizing customer service that exceeds expectations, he must understand the fundamental concepts of organization culture. He must also realize that in building this focus, he is actually attempting to build shared values within Zappos so that organization members view “delivering WOW” as a critical organizational activity. Ultimately, building and maintaining such a customer service culture at Zappos could help the company stay popular and profitable in the demanding retail industry. This culture can serve such useful and valuable functions at Zappos as enhancing company productivity, becoming part of the company’s strategy for success, and providing a rationale for adding new staff.

However, Hsieh’s organization culture challenges extend beyond the issue of customer service. It may be worthwhile for Hsieh to determine what type of overall organization culture he would like to see at Zappos. Options include establishing a clan culture, an adhocracy culture, a hierarchy culture, or a market culture. In making this determination, Hsieh should consider the challenges facing Zappos and anticipate which culture or combination of cultures would best help Zappos meet these challenges.

For a retailer such as Zappos, maintaining customer loyalty is one of the greatest challenges. As Hsieh continues his efforts to ensure that Zappos stands out because of its exceptional service, he should continue maintaining an organization culture that encourages high performance. To create a high-performance culture, Hsieh must lead as a champion. That is, he must explain repeatedly why organization culture values such as delivering happiness, creating fun, and embracing change are critical for Zappos’s success. He must also take steps to encourage organization members to act in ways that are consistent with the organization’s cultural values. To create this high-performance culture, Hsieh should additionally focus on linking work to Zappos’s mission and recognize and reward individuals whose actions are consistent with the company’s mission. In building a high-performance culture, Hsieh should take actions that include investing in outstanding talent, holding managers accountable for their actions, and increasing organization members’ commitment to Zappos.

Besides establishing a customer service dimension of Zappos’s organization culture, Hsieh must plan on keeping the culture alive and well. Keeping the culture alive and well actually starts with Hsieh envisioning exactly what the culture should be. Without such a vision, he will be unable to tweak the culture over time to keep it consistent with this vision. In addition to a customer dimension, Hsieh’s vision of the culture could include a combination of dimensions focusing on areas such as quality, ethics, innovation, spirituality, and diversity.

Once the vision of Zappos’s culture is complete in Hsieh’s mind, the process of keeping that culture alive and well should probably focus on Hsieh choosing the artifacts he would like to use to establish and maintain the organization culture. Such artifacts already include a values statement outlining Zappos’s key organization culture values. Other artifacts could be the development of organizational myths and sagas, which can be used to perpetuate cultural values; special language and ceremonies to bring key ingredients of Zappos’s cultural values to life; and organization rewards that reinforce and encourage the behavior that is consistent with organization culture.

Bringing new organization members into Zappos’s culture is an important matter. Socializing new individuals into the culture will help ensure that the culture stays alive and well over the long run. Steps that Hsieh can take to appropriately socialize new organization members into Zappos’s culture include carefully planning the company’s recruitment process, providing meaningful experiences at Zappos once individuals are hired, exposing newcomers to appropriate Zappos role models, and weeding out organization members when they do not seem to be fitting well into the company’s culture. Overall, Hsieh must focus on establishing a healthy organization culture at Zappos, a culture that facilitates the achievement of the company’s goals.