How to maintain core values at Atea Logistics?

Abstract: Executive Summary A company needs guidelines for the organization and its employees to act in the same direction. Core values constitute a fundamental part of a company but they have to be “lived” by the members of the organization in order to be valid. When a company undergoes many changes, there is a risk of losing the core values as focus is put on the survival of the company. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to reach a solution for the maintenance of the core values at Atea Logistics, a company which has faced turbulent periods. However, in order to do so, a first requirement was to get in touch with Atea Logistics’ culture in order to later correctly apprehend the organization’s core values. Hence, this research was guided by the following research question: “How to maintain core values at Atea Logistics?” The conducted study consists of a case study made at Atea Logistics in Växjö, which is a part of the Atea Holding AB. The currently successful group, Atea, was created in 1985 under the name of Owell. Atea is a company which helps organizations and companies increase the benefits of Information Technologies (IT) by providing products and services that simplify the management, operation and development of IT infrastructure. As an IT product supplier, Atea covers the entire cycle from the supply of new IT products to the recycling of old ones. Since we aimed at providing the company with a research that it could benefit from, this thesis has its base in discussions with managers of Atea Logistics. Empirical data were mostly gathered through interviews with several employees and finally interplay between empirical data and theoretical findings occurred. The findings of this complex study comprise that core values have been neglected within the company for several years because of repetitive changes. However, employees have been aware of this situation but still have not focused on this aspect. Several core values have been discovered which have remained since the Owell-time: respect, participation, openness, trust, responsibility and family-friendly. In order for Atea Logistics to maintain these values, several aspects need to be developed such as their clear statement, their communication via different tools (i.e. printed documents, corporate events, an integration process for newcomers, etc.) as well as the alignment of employees with them.