The Invention of Corporate Culture: A History of the Histories of Cadbury

Abstract

The concept of culture promised to make organization studies more historical. This promise has not been fulfilled. Possible reasons for the failure to integrate business history and organization studies are explored and a synthesis developed, using the historical concept of invented tradition in conjunction with the social cognition biases identified by organizational culture. The major part of the article then demonstrates how Cadbury, a British confectionery company well known for its Quaker traditions, invented its corporate culture by attributing significance to the Quaker beliefs of the Cadbury family retrospectively. A history is reconstructed, mainly from published sources, to demonstrate how the histories constructed by the firm, including a centenary celebration in 1931, were part of the process of giving meaning to the firm's labor-management institutions. © 1993, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.