Based on my experience, I disagree with those that say corporate culture can change in the blink of an eye. This is usually the hardest to change, and what some mistake for culture change is simply a change in moral. Moral can easily increase or decrease with some changes such as, hiring or firing of management or employees, stock price increasing or decreasing, regulatory investigation, bonus, etc, which can all impact productivity.
One of the company I have worked for went through great lengths to influence and improve our organization. The rational at the time was that employees who trusted each other and were happier would work harder and be more productive, which I agree that this can be influenced. So with this, the company would send the groups on team building retreats, in addition to the in-house team building activities. There were lots of development initiatives for employees, from professional to personal. There was a required 50hr diversity training per year. All conflicts had to be resolve with open dialog, and I could go on about the many other sub initiatives. Overall this was very successful, and productivity was at it’s highest. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sustainable as the company began going through a market contraction, and the cost for all these initiatives were very expensive. So slowing these initiatives were canceled and you could see how the corporate culture was slowly changing.