3.1.3. The corporate culture of the Commission

Corporate culture:

• Which social objectives prevail in the organization?
• How does the corporate climate look like?
• Which are the most important motivating factors?

It is interesting to note that the Commission`s corporate culture is rather implicit than explicit.

From the little research carried out on this topic one can conclude that there is no one cohesive corporate culture in the Commission but there exists a plethora of competing cultures at times built around departmental identities. This is partly due to the relative autonomy of the different DGs which shape the respective cultures at their level.

Partly this can also be explained by the large cultural diversity of staff in the Commission, especially since the last waves of enlargement, with staff from 27 different European Member States speaking 23 official languages. The European Commission is the largest institution of the EU, in terms of human resources with about 33.0000 staff in January 2012.²¹ In a nutshell, the Commission is characterized by staff coming from very varied cultural and national backgrounds dealing with complex legal and policy issues.

Comparatively little efforts have been devoted over the past eight years to define and discuss more widely a corporate culture within the institution. Indeed, the last comprehensive reform effort was carried out by Commissioner Neil Kinnock in 2004 before the enlargement of the European Union from 15 to 27 Member States. It reformed the entire spectrum of staff policy from recruitment to retirement with the ambition to create an efficient, permanent, transparent and independent European civil service. Some reform elements were a direct reaction to the financial scandals of the previous Commission, putting emphasis on concepts of accountability and sound financial management. This has created a strong rules-based culture.

The implicit culture of the Commission as an institution shows a clear policy and legal orientation which is coherent with its corporate mission. Because of its policy orientation and the large number of different stakeholders with whom it has to interact, Commission culture is described as a consensus and compromise culture at every next level up. Due to its sheer size, it has a strong administrative culture with formalized hierarchical structures.

At the same time and in parallel to the formal administrative structure, the Commission also has an important informal working culture in place.

While considerable information is available on the composition of staff and its structure, little is known at the level of the individual, the values, attitudes and emotions of staff, the social objectives of the Commission vis-à-vis its staff, how to fully exploit the potential of the usually highly qualified staff dealing with highly complex issues and what factors of motivation are in place.

²¹ European Commission: Human Resources – Key Figures, Brussels 2012