Global Perspectives of Culture in Media Organizations

INTRODUCTION

This chapter gleans relevant publications on theories and concepts relating to corporate culture and turnover, as well as employee attraction, retention, and engagement, with focus on eliminating knowledge bias to understand how real-life application of theoretical models in organizational management influences outcomes. Further, this chapter examines the link between corporate culture on turnover. To identify reasons for the high turnover at BBC Nigeria, the paper investigates activities at other BBC locations, mainly BBC UK and its competitors (e.g., CNN, Sky News, and Aljazeera). The author draws inferences from research findings to recommend effective solutions for BBC leadership in Nigeria.

• CORPORATE CULTURE, TURNOVER, EMPLOYEE ATTRACTION, ENGAGEMENT, AND RETENTION

Global Perspectives of Culture in Media Organizations

Our technology-driven global media industry is facilitating the pace of globalization. Multinational media organizations like the BBC, CNN, Sky News, and other competitors are therefore benefitting low marginal costs, creating higher profit margins, and connecting with a wider market by exploring the deep penetration of internet and information communication technologies (ICTs). Also, the popularity of social media increases business survivability in the industry because information is an intangible asset sold without shipping costs. There are limitless opportunities in the global media industry although its reputation as one of the key industries driving globalization has been a source of arguments. Global media facilitate globalization through information management, with a direct impact on the political, economic, and socio-cultural development of nations, so the media industry should not be seen as one of the many globalized industries. The resilience and dynamism seen in BBC’s transformation within the last century corroborates claims that media organizations are a product of culture, and, according to David (2022), technology is part of the ecosystem facilitating globalization of culture, a reason BBC is exploring technology strategy to achieve its global expansion objectives.

Technological advancements have transformed the speed of communication, increased the efficiency of mass marketing channels, and coordinated transportation across the world—all of which are foundational to the globalization of media, culture, and business (Usherwood & Usherwood, 2021). Although much of globalized media content comes from the United Kingdom and United States, social media advertising plays a crucial role as intent marketing connects the missing dots between culture and media. For example, the U.S. media culture is driven by a strong consumerist ideology that encourages trade of goods and services as an economic virtue, therefore foreign cultures are increasingly embracing consumerist ideals and, by this cultural transformation, opening international borders for media organizations like the BBC and CNN to create demand ns supply of foreign contents (products and services). However, there are arguments that globalization of media and culture contributes to a one-sided conveyance of information, values, and ideas that encourage constant displacement of indigenous cultures. Globalization, industrialization, and technology transfer are widely viewed from the economic perspective, but these factors have strong implications for global economies and national cultures, which directly influence organizational values, norms, and beliefs (Gabriel et al, 2022). This explains why BBC UK has more impressive record of a strong culture than the regional offices in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Canada, and other countries where transferrable cultures are personalized to a certain level. Homogenization occurs when a local culture is personalized to achieve potentials of the original culture (such as BBC Nigeria mirroring cultural values from BBC UK). Accordingly, heterogenization exists when two or more national cultures thrive together in a particular geographical location thereby creating a more diverse cultural environment as evident in the scramble among Aljazeera, CNN, and BBC offices within Nigeria’s media industry. Thus, a media company like BBC has different culturally specific contents and brands and is still maintaining a vibrant, resilient, and economically globalized corporate structure (Yeganeh, 2020; Boussebaa, 2021).