Cycle 5: Context analysis

1. SUSTAINABILITY SCAN

DESK RESEARCH

1. The company has a written mission statement or a policy that includes a commitment to social and environmental responsibility and shares and promotes its CSR policy on the website/ to clients. If so, include the mission statement/policy.

CSR and Sustainability Charter: Policy and vision. The charter has been developed based on our sustainability strategy #WeCare. The charter is endorsing CCV principles: social, environmental, governance, value chain and corporate citizenship. Having made this statement, CCV comes towards these priorities and we are monitoring these pillars. We publish our commitment on the website - CCV CSR landing page and also usually inform clients/ partners/ customers who require it.

Environmental charter: The environmental charter informs on CCV’s environmental priorities and principles, aimed at reducing the company’s environmental footprint. The charter addresses areas of business operations, products and business partnerships.

ESG report base year 2022: Our annual ESG report reflects what we have accomplished with CSR initiatives and objectives in 2022, as well as our strategy for the years to come. Our partners and customers can find information and KPIs about our 5 strategic pillars from a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and Sustainability perspective. Our 5 CSR objectives are:

2. The company has a written code of ethics. Mention the main elements of this code. If the company doesn’t have this code, is there an unwritten code? Give an example.

Code of conduct - the general governing policy: Under the code of conduct, there are few categories for integrity: individual, organizational and business integrity. Currently, the code of conduct has been under the review process to be more aligned to UN Global Compact principles.

Supplier Code of conduct (external): Targeting external stakeholders: suppliers, other business partners,... It is formulated around 5 pillars: social, governance, environment, value chain and corporate citizenship. We make sure our suppliers are in compliance with these pillars/ priorities.

Employee code of conduct (internal): All employees need to read, sign, and commit to behave ethically at work.

CCV Ethical Marketing and Communication Charter: The CCV ethical marketing and communication charter guides our work in the Marketing & communication department and includes guidelines on:

What we do (i.e. build CCV credibility, inform truthfully and transparently etc.)

What we don't do (i.e. create false needs, make false claims etc.)

CSR Ethical Value Chain & Business relations charter: The ethical value chain charter informs about the company’s view with regards to its downstream and upstream value chain management, its role as corporate citizen and the commitment to comply and align to international guidelines for responsible business.

Based on my desk research and field research, CCV is having training for suppliers and employees about the code of ethics/ conducts but it is not fully aware. I already signed the Employee code of conduct, but not really remember every article. Also for the Supplier, we cannot make sure that they read and understand all regulations. As a result, I suggest CCV should have training about these two codes of conduct!

3. The company has developed a DE&I policy to offer a diverse, welcoming, safe, healthy and discrimination free workplace. Summarize this policy.

CSR Human rights, Labor & Anti-discrimination charter: It leads the human rights and labor provision and other things included diversity, inclusion and anti discrimination. Diversity and inclusion are what HR most work with. They are working on some guidelines and diversity policy.

4. Preference is given to suppliers/partners with a commitment to social and environmental sustainability. If applicable, give further details on this policy.

5. The company provides pro bono service to non profits or to underserved groups or individuals or has a charitable giving policy. If so, give examples of the charities the company supports.

We are reviewing the sponsorship policy - CCV can give commercial sponsorship. We are developing a more integrated approach to community engagement. We also work a lot with financial inclusion strategy, mental fitness for entrepreneurs.

Charities: 65th anniversary: teach the elderly about the payment, etc.

6. The company has ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Reporting. This topic can cover how the company is disclosing the environmental and social performance, aligning with global sustainability goals, and integrating ESG factors into the business strategies.

ESG report base year 2022: Our annual ESG report reflects what we have accomplished with CSR initiatives and objectives in 2022, as well as our strategy for the years to come. 

7. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programs to explore how the company is giving back to society through CSR initiatives. This topic can cover philanthropic efforts, community engagement, and partnerships with nonprofits to address various social and environmental issues.

#WeCare program: As CCV employees, we are all part of the #WeCare programme, this is not done in one department, or ad hoc activity but is integrated in our full organization. And it is often regular business. Below our 5 strategic pillars:

#WeCare about our environmental footprint (Environment)

#WeCare about our CCV employees (Social)

#WeCare about ethical Business (Governance)

#WeCare about our global impact (Value chain)

#WeCare about our role in the community (Corporate citizenship)

Complementing our policy and charter framework with charters (CCV CSR charter, Environmental charter, Ethical marketing and communication charter, Ethical value chain and business partner charter, Human rights, Labor & Anti-discrimination charter)
Communicate externally about our CSR and sustainability results, to enforce our image of being a reliable and responsible company. For example, our landing page on the website and posts on social media.
Co2 emission audit and reduction plan
Engaging with students to contribute to UN’s 17 SDGS focusing on financial inclusion with the SDG challenge.
Facility team in Arnhem will install solar panels in April on our HQ.
Non-product procurement will start a supplier assessment from a CSR and sustainability perspective in May.
Product procurement will conduct LCA (Product Lifecycle Assessment from a sustainability perspective) on our terminals in 2023.

8. The company cares about the environmental impact, having the CO2 audit and setting the target to reduce CO2 footprint for 3 scopes.

CO2 emission audit base year 2022: We have been working with our selected partner, an external agency named Hedgehog, to complete this first GHG audit. The report follows the most standard measuring framework: GHG protocol.

Interim CO2 reduction plan: We are working to develop a reduction plan based on the hot spots we can identify from the audit report.

Waste audit: We are working on our waste audit, after that, we will have a detailed plan. Currently, we have approximately 50% good control of our waste stream on office waste and extremely good waste management on our products: repair, end of life (80-90%).

9. The company recycles/ composts waste (for ex food waste and paper towels from the restroom.). Explain how this is applied at my internship company.

In Arnhem, we control both office and IT waste really well. A third party comes to collect the waste and we know exactly the amount of it. But in other locations, we have less control of waste management. But with more than 600 out of 1000 employees working in Arnhem, we know that more than 60% of our waste is well controlled.

Locals in Arnhem collected coffee grounds from the CCV office and they used them to compost for mushrooms.

Electronic waste is handled by certified third party IT recycling in the Netherlands .

10. Employee Education and Training: Explore how companies are providing education and training to their employees to promote sustainability practices and values throughout the organization.

On the 65th anniversary, there were a lot of activities/ opportunities to raise awareness about our CSR topics such as going to teach the elderly about payment, collecting garbage, etc.

Training report 2022: Our internal training programme is linked to our CSR strategy and especially the strategic objective number one, our social responsibility pillar: Build a socially resilient and sustainable CCV by committing to human capital development, inclusion and equity.

Our training programme is built around following knowledge areas:

• Product and customer service topics

• Privacy and security

• ITS

• Rules and regulatory

• Our CCV standards when it comes to integrity and how to do responsible business.

• Skills training (using applications like PowerPoint, Linkedin etc)

• Soft Skills training (cultural awareness, positive psychology etc)

• CSR and sustainability related trainings (Health and Safety, CSR awareness etc)

• Procurement trainings (supply chain management, due diligence etc)

11. Green Certification and Standards: Explore the various sustainability certifications and standards that companies can achieve, such as ISO 14001, Fair Trade, or LEED, and how these certifications impact business practices.

We have commitment with UN Global Compact, the world's largest corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility

initiative, with 13000 corporate participants and other stakeholders over 170 countries

Ecovadis - the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings, creating a global network

of more than 100,000+ rated companies. They objectively rate all companies in various areas of supply chain sustainability

We got the Gold Status 2023, which places CCV in the top 5% in the market globally.

Supplier assessment: We are

assessing our suppliers’ commitment to sustainability, which can be done based on

the survey before we go for a contract, also the collection of documents to prove that they are doing their work with sustainability. This is now the topic that has to be adopted and integrated into procurement and due diligence.

Supplier Code of Conduct: As CCV, we expect our suppliers to show the same commitment to due diligence and sustainable value chain management. Together we share the responsibility to achieve our CSR goals and make a positive contribution to the communities in which we operate and the environment on which we depend.

The Supplier Code of Conduct consists of several basic principles:

• Social Responsibility

• Governance and Business Ethics

• Environment

• Value Chain and Due Diligence

• Corporate Citizenship.

These chapters reflect our commitment to sustainability, fair

business practices and responsibility for our social and environmental impact.

FIELD RESEARCH

INTERVIEW DESIGN

INTERVIEW RESPONDENTS

INTERVIEW RESULT

INTERVIEW SUMMARY

The idea is that I interviewed Daniela first after I had done my desk research. Then I had the interview with Anna to go through what Daniela and I already had so Anna could review and add if there was something we missed.

Click to view

2. JUSTIFICATION REPORT

Recoding with Daniela Recording with Anna

JUSTIFICATION OF DESK RESEARCH SOURCES (AAOCC CRITERIA)

Source reference

Authority

Accuracy

Objective

Currency

Coverage

Inside

All information about CSR and sustainability is posted/ updates/ checked by Anna - the CSR and Sustainability Lead.

The content is absolutely accurate, especially the policy/ rules which can affect the behavior of every employee.

There are comments/ opinions from other employees, whether they are feedback for improvement/ agreement/ disagreement. All are heading for a better working environment of CCV.

The source is always updated whenever we have a new policy/ charter/ report. For example, when the CO2 emission report was ready on 11 Oct, I wrote a post and attached it on Inside to announce to all CCV members.

The source can provide me almost all necessary CSR and sustainability policy both internally and externally.

Website

All information here is checked carefully by CSR lead and our external Sustainability consultant who mainly completed all CSR content.

All information is made sure to be accurate since it is exposed to everyone externally!

The source does not include the advertising/ personal opinions.

The website keeps being improved according to the latest update of the product, the suggestion/ feedback from website visitors/ customers. Therefore, all information is current and relevant.

The source provides all information about the partnership, products and services that CCV provides.

JUSTIFICATION OF DESK RESEARCH SOURCES (CARS CRITERIA)

Source reference

Credibility

Accuracy

Reasonableness

Support

Inside

The content of Sustainability and CSR is included in the CSR folder, which is created by CSR Lead and also other Sustainability related campaigns from the HR/ Corporate Communication team can be searched.

The content is absolutely accurate, especially the policy/ rules which can affect the behavior of every employee.

It is the first source I thought of when I did this assignment. This is the main digital communication channel for company-wide employees and we have groups/ folders to upload the (important) information/ policies.

The source has been used company-wide and all members leave their comments/ visit/ communicate via this platform.

Website

The external website is made by UX/ UI designers with all information combined from trustworthy sources (checked by CSR Lead) for the CSR landing page.

All information is made sure to be accurate since it is exposed to everyone externally!

The source does not include the advertising/ personal opinions.

The website, especially the CSR landing page is supported by the feedback from both internal and external visitors. We also did some research about the effective CSR landing page to improve!

3. REPORT THE COMPANY CULTURE

Introduction

This report aims at analyzing and demonstrating the company culture and intercultural differences at CCV based on Trompenaars’ 7 Dimensions (Nunez et al, 2017). With more than 1000 employees, 59% of whom speak >3 languages, I find it interesting to deeply understand the diversity of my company after 3 months emerging myself in this international working environment.

Analysis

CCV’s company culture will be specifically explained according to Trompenaars & Hampden’s dimensions and in comparison with my personal profile.

Background info

Regarding Trompenaars & Hampden dimension, in their book Riding the Waves of Culture (Trompenaars & Hampden, 2004) they distinguish three basic categories, namely Relationships with People, Attitudes to Time and Attitudes to the Surrounding Environment.

The first category, Relationships with People, can be subdivided into five dimensions: universalism vs. particularism, individualism vs. communitarianism, neutral vs. affective emotions, specific vs. diffuse involvement and achieved vs. ascribed status. The two other Categories: Attitudes to time and Attitudes to environment have only one dimension.

Step 1: For each dimension give a brief example for both you and your company to clarify your company’s and your personal position on the dimension.

C = CCV

I = me

Universalists judge people as admirable if they keep to standards and rules agreed on their cultures. This is a rule-based society (Trompenaars, 2017). Meanwhile, particularists or relationship-oriented countries, including Vietnam - my home country, “tend to resolve failure privately, through relationships. As an original Dutch company, CCV is rule-oriented according to his examples of universalist countries including the Netherlands; however, I believe that CCV is positioned in the middle of these two dimensions. Since I had the chance (my manager accompanied me) to join various (business) meetings with people from different departments, positions, offices to discuss lots of topics, I noticed that everyone highly focused on presenting, evaluating and directly/ respectfully giving feedback/ (dis)agreement and did not let their relationship get in the way they express their opinion with each other. However, during off-work sessions (lunch time for ex), people actually get loose, talk and share about their personal life, and feel free to build relationships with others.

To be specific, as a particularist, I tend to judge people based on our relationship, in this case, I 100% trust and respect Anna, as well as her feedback for me since she is my manager - the most important person to me in my internship. During the first 5 weeks, whenever I had comments from her, I always accepted. There was one time she told me that I did not need to be afraid to make her hurt by declining/ arguing with her since the work was for me, the right to edit/ improve it was equal for her and me, “under all circumstances”. Although we have built a really close relationship despite long distance, as a universalist, Anna is really straight and strict when giving feedback, she gave me compliments, along with some suggestions based on her disagreement on my way of writing for me to improve.

Trompenaars describes this cultural dimension as “the conflict between what each of us wants as an individual and the interests of the group we belong to”. Individualism is a prime orientation to the self, and communitarianism is a prime orientation to common goals and objectives. (Trompenaars & Hampden Turner, 2008).

As I can see in general, everyone in each team/ department is contributing to the common goal and main objectives of our company. We have campaigns, events, training, etc which are all heading for the purpose of growing our company as a reliable, connected, experienced and future proof financial service in comparison to others in our industry.

For example, when working on the submission of the Ecovadis that is an international sustainability rating tool, our Branding and CSR team with one manager, one external consultant and two interns always get on the same page by tracking the progres, providing the necessary documents in time and keeping updated. We always tried our best for the main objective of getting Gold medal in 20223 since we already had Silver one for 2 continuous years.

On my end, I consider myself as an individualist although I highly value the common goal of my company in general and my team in particular. To contribute to this, I really want to perform the best and feel that I have achieved something that paid off my effort when completing even a small task. My Communitarian spirit shows clearly when I have meetings with my team, where everyone is encouraged to raise our voice/ feedback, and in the end, we go for the decision that is the best for our team and company, such as my hard work to finalize some kinds of report about CSR and Sustainability aspects to submit for Ecovadis gave me a feeling of success and my company a Gold medal.

Stephen Robbins describes emotion as “intense feelings that are directed at someone or something”. In neutral cultures (or affectively neutral cultures), you do not communicate your emotions, but control them. Meanwhile, in affective cultures, it is normal to communicate your emotion and to receive an emotionally sensitive response in return (Trompenaars, 2017). In fact, I am quite neutral at work since I always control my emotions even when I’m happy when I complete one talk or sad when I feel like I have not worked so hard. I keep for myself and adjust for the better. As far as I’m concerned, people at the office are medium affective-neutral, which means they both show their emotions and control their feelings/ expression really well when they communicate with the customers/ in the meeting with teams. They can hide their negative feelings, but all happiness and excitement are shown with some phrases like “Well-done”, “Great!”, “Good job”, or even send some funny gifs/ emojis. For instance, I realized that all managers from each team in the Marcom department (they are from Netherlands, and Switzerland) always show their emotion with funny gifs and comments. My manager especially always shows her emotions to me with the compliment and sometimes with emojis showing that she is busy!

In specific-oriented culture areas, you deal with other people in specific areas of life and single levels of personality. In contrast, in diffuse cultures, you deal with other people diffusely in multiple areas of your life and at several levels at the same time (Trompenaars & Hamden Turner, 2008). For this dimension, CCV belongs to specific-oriented culture, in which people separate clearly between work and personal lives and I belong to the diffuse involvement country where the boss is always the boss even at work or at the party. For example, when I work with Amy - senior corporate communication specialist, we just discuss the job-related topics when we have meetings and I always consider her as a senior during the discussion. When we have lunch together or with other interns, Amy and others talk about different things from their vacation to their hobbies. I was so surprised at the comfortable way they interact/ talk together regardless of their position at work. At first I had difficulty sharing with Amy or other people with a higher position than me since I think they will not care about an intern. After 2 months, we got closer and felt more comfortable to share about our private life.

According to Trompenaars, achieved status is the high status you acquire on the basis of what you have accomplished, and the same situation is applied to ascribed status but based on whom and what you are associated with. From my perspective, CCV absolutely belongs to achieved status where employees acquire their current status with their achievement at work and most of them spend such a long time working at CCV. For example, Fabian Philips from the Sales team, he has been at CCV for more than 7 years from the position as a Sales representative to Senior Sales representative and now the Lead of Sales team SME Benelux. I strongly believed that he performed really well with impressive achievement to be promoted at work when I had the interview with him. As far as I research, most seniors and team leaders at CCV have been working for more than 3 years with a lot of contribution to the common goals of the company.

Coming from the obvious ascribed status oriented culture where status is judged depending on whom or what you are associated with, I am in the middle of these 2 dimensions. I highly appreciate what I have done and value the accomplishment of myself and others. At the same time, I would like my manager to write some recommendations for me since she is at a high position and her words will be meaningful to me a lot in my future job application.

Sequential time refers to cultures where it is the norm to do one thing at a time, in a linear way. In synchronic time, people engage in several activities at the same time. According to my observation, CCV is more of synchronic since I see them doing multiple tasks together. For example, when we are having a meeting, there is someone still replying to their emails/ texting each other. They can even have one screen of their document and one screen of the meeting.

For me, I position myself as sequential since I always catch up with the deadlines, which means I try to complete my tasks immediately after being given and I feel uncomfortable when I leave them undo until the deadline. I use my concentration skill to the maximum when studying and working, therefore I am not easily disturbed and do not disturb others as well. I complete step by step, in a linear way, and I cannot be so productive when multitasking, which confuses me and also is time-consuming in my opinion.

In a professional environment, internal control means professionals succeeding by taking control and imposing their will in the challenges they face in their career and organization. External control moves on to professionals who succeed by going along with the natural flow and direction in the organization (Trompenaars, 2017). Both my company and I strike a balance between internal and external control. More specifically, for internal control, we are capable of controlling the situation regarding the strategic-related events, such as planning campaigns, creating goals for next quarters and years, etc. However, we also go for external control, take our Ecovadis rating result as an example. My manager managed to submit all necessary documents and hope for the Gold medal. At the same time, we are also preparing for the Silver medal. I have written 2 posts for the announcement in both situations. If we have Gold, we have really good internal control, for the other, external control is being taken advantage of.

Step 2: Personal impact

To pick one of these seven dimensions to further explain, I will go for the biggest difference in the Relationship with people category: Specific-Diffuse involvement.

The situation happened very often during my first month at work. Originating from a high power distance as well as a diffuse involvement country, where the boss is always the boss in spite of any situation at work and life, I was overwhelmed by how specific my colleagues are in the relationship. The first time was when I had lunch with almost all members in our Marketing and Communication department. Unlike when they were having a meeting, in which everyone was so serious, focused, listened to the Head and respectfully gave ideas, they were talking so comfortably about their vacation, personal life, their sharing about some discount for shopping and they treated each other as equals. The senior employees, the managers of the Digital team and the Head of Marcom department, they do not care about their roles at work any more, just relax during lunch time and talk as friends. Meanwhile, I considered myself as an intern who could not be involved in their story; therefore, I decided to keep silent. However, they all asked me questions to get to know me and let me feel natural in their conversation.

From my perspective, I am aware of the difference in this dimension from my home country - Vietnam in comparison with European countries. I also want to be open minded and adapt to this specific relationship with people at work and other occasions since I don't really like the diffuse behavior in my country according to my sister’s sharing from an employee’s view in Vietnam now. Therefore, I shared with others in our first conversation that it would take me a quite long time to be immersed in their culture. To my surprise, my colleagues said that they somehow knew that Asian people in general were shy at first and had difficulty talking comfortably with the boss outside the working hours. Basically, there were two other former interns from Indonesia and they also shared almost the same situation with me due to our cultural background.

Regarding this context, I assume that my colleagues, most of whom are Dutch, are really specific in their relationship on different occasions. My assumption is based on what I observed and experienced at HAN, where I had really strict teachers during the lessons but we communicated normally when we discussed the deals from Abert Heijn outside the studying time. At that moment, I felt a bit strange and culturally shocked because I never did it in Vietnam before where the teacher is always the teacher, who never discusses anything except for the lessons to students. I realized that I would like to adapt to this new cultural aspect, that’s why I prepared when I worked at CCV, but still encountered difficulties at first. Until now, after 2 months, I'm getting used to the company culture. I take every chance to have lunch with different colleagues in my team on the days we go to the office together. When working from home, I try to adjust my tone of voice in different situations. For example, when I need to ask my colleagues in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium something related to work, I use formal language and they ; in contrast, when we have small talk about other topics, we will use gifs/ funny emojis despite our ages, and positions.

I’m happy that I can now freely talk with others at work, outside working time, about my vacation, my hobbies and my future without fearing that I will disrespect them. I prefer this way of behavior much more than in my home country, which I think people need to ‘act’ any time to satisfy the boss and don’t feel ‘natural’ even at the party where everyone is supposed to be equal and happy instead of showing power distance! However, I’m sensitive to any feedback I get from others regarding my performance/ behavior. I will observe more and ask around what they think and adjust to be better.

Conclusion

Having been studying in an international environment at HAN is a good foundation for me to blend in a multicultural professional workplace like CCV. I was prepared for dealing with differences (and even similarities), but still taking some time at first. For me, there is no major cultural shock, but it takes quite a lot of time and effort to understand and blend in with a new environment. So far, I have developed and learnt so much, especially from my manager even though we are far away. I will try to shorten the distance from my company and me in terms of relationships with people with the strategy of observing, acting and getting feedback. For other dimensions, I just appreciate the difference/ similarity we have, as long as my performance at work is still effective.