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Rt ( respond no more 200 words)
Looking at an organization’s culture begins with its mission and vision. Best Buy’s mission is to “Enrich lives through technology.” Its vision is “We humanize and personalize technology solutions for every stage of life.” The two documents I used to really get a handle on what Best Buy strives for in culture were the FY26 Code of Ethics and the FY25 Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Report. Best Buy’s Code of Ethics applies to all employees, vendors, and suppliers. The code is, “At our best. Every decision. Every day.” This Code is meant to help live by Best Buy’s mission and vision. The following statements drive the culture at Best Buy, as outlined in the Code of Ethics.
Our customers: Customers are at the heart of all we do. Our purpose is to enrich their lives through technology, and we do that by providing amazing customer experiences across all our channels. Whether on our app, online, or in-store, we help customers discover how technology can elevate their lives and do more of what they love.
Our employees: Our greatest asset is our employees. It’s essential that all employees are empowered to develop in an inclusive environment where they feel like they belong and are free to bring their full selves to work.
Our vendors: We partner with the world’s foremost tech companies, helping commercialize their innovations and bring them to life for our customers.
Our shareholders: We ask our shareholders to put their trust in us. To earn that trust, we must act with integrity and honesty. Every decision. Every day.
Our communities: If our Company is to thrive, then the communities in which we operate must also thrive. We have a responsibility and commitment to make a positive impact in them. We do this by preparing youth from areas of concentrated poverty for tech-reliant jobs and serving as a steward of the environment.
Finally, this note from Keri Grafing, Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer, truly sums up the expected culture at Best Buy.
“As you think about and apply this Code, I encourage you to reflect on the possibilities and power inherent in a single decision.
Think about the hundreds of decisions you make every day on the job. The right decisions – the ones that reflect our Purpose, Vision and Values – help us better serve the millions of customers who come into our stores, shop with us online or welcome us into their homes and businesses. They also help us build confidence in our products and services as well as trust in our Company.
Never underestimate the ability you have to make a difference – because every decision you make affects who we are and where we go from here. Today’s behavior is tomorrow’s reputation. So, use our Code to help you in your work at Best Buy. And remember, my team and your leaders are here to help answer any questions you have along the way.
We are better together. As we continue to work on growing our business and unleashing the possibilities for our future, I am grateful for the commitment we all make to be At our best. Every decision. Every day.”
My take on all of this is that Best Buy wants to build positive relationships with everyone involved. Employees should be knowledgeable and helpful to bring the world of tech to life for each customer. Customers and employees are the focus of the culture. The following are some examples of how this culture has driven strategic initiatives.
The Renew Blue plan put an unprecedented emphasis on its front-line staff. Rather than cutting store employees, they insisted on “growing the top line” and involving people in solutions. Resources were shifted into staff development and retention. Best Buy doubled down on training so that its “blue shirt” salespeople could act as expert advisors.
Best Buy’s values make customer experience a top priority, so many resource allocations reinforce this. The company expanded Geek Squad and related services as a key strategic initiative. By offering 24/7 in-home tech support and installation, Best Buy distinguished itself from online-only retailers.
Best Buy’s ethical culture has also influenced its strategic use of resources. For example, during crises, the company placed employee and community health above short-term profit – closing stores early in the pandemic and investing in safe shopping methods. This people-first approach meant resources were spent on safety training, store cleaning, and contactless service infrastructure. Though not a profit-driven initiative, this approach reflects how the corporate culture guided decision-making under pressure.
Culture can also be a hurdle. Best Buy’s focus on protecting employees sometimes clashes with the need for financial quick fixes. During Joly’s tenure, this culture meant avoiding layoffs at first, which boosted morale but limited cost-cutting options. Later leadership’s shift to reduce staff and reassign workers (such as merging roles and closing stores) conflicted with the expectations set by the old culture. In 2021, for instance, employees warned that new cuts were harming Best Buy’s signature service: “You can’t have good customer service when you barely have any customer service reps,” one said. Other workers lamented the loss of “knowledgeable, invested coworkers” after staffing cuts. These reactions show how the old culture of expertise and service can make downsizing or restructuring very difficult in practice.
Best Buy’s culture has a profound impact on decisions and resource allocation. Its customer and employee-focused values often enable strategic initiatives by investing in people and service, but they also impose constraints when new strategies diverge from entrenched norms. Recognizing both sides of this cultural coin has been key to Best Buy’s successes and missteps.
I will end with my own experiences. I worked there from about 2008 to 2010. I don’t remember very good training, autonomy, or empowerment. I do remember having awkward role-playing sessions and being hyper-focused on selling add-ons from Geek Squad. I didn’t get to see the quality of the delivery or the installs firsthand, but I don’t remember hearing any positive stories about them. The same went for Geek Squad. They had no extra experience or training. They could do very minor things in-store, and anything more complicated had to be shipped off to some center. I witnessed many negative experiences with that while working in customer service because Geek Squad was on the same counter. I have had my own bad experiences with them since, so I would not have anything delivered, installed, or repaired from Best Buy. I also wouldn’t get any of their extended warranties until they dedicate more resources to providing top-notch service.
There are hundreds of these reviews.
References
Best Buy Corporate. (2024, July).
Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Report.
Best Buy Corporate. (2025, June 12).
Code of ethics at our best. Every decision. Every day.
JA (RESPOND NO MORE 200 words)
In the 787th Civil Engineer Squadron, the unit’s culture guides every choice and who gets what—therefore it can push the mission ahead, yet also end up slowing it down. CES culture? Deep technical know‑how, strict military compliance, an un‑relenting mission drive—yet everything runs in a shaky, resource‑tight world where funding flips (Reed, 2020). By Schein and Schein (2019) culture’s basically what people actually do inside an organization – the technical side like handling outside challenges, mission and strategy, and the social side, how members get along, recognise authority and blend together. CES culture? It’s built on deep basic assumptions at its core. The mission? Paramount—so compliance becomes survival, and they go about their daily habits hardly noticing they’re following it. Culture stable, gives members purpose and predictability, so change? Hard, a quick “reset OKRs” won’t solve it (Schein & Schein, 2019).
Therefore, CES works caught between a multi‑directional culture (departments stuck in their own silos) and a live‑and‑let‑live vibe (people get comfortable as the infrastructure ages) (Carmazzi, 2019). Squadron’s habit? Play it safe, stick tight to the rules, Thinking survival is just about never breaking procedure (DoD, n.). Reference: Schein & Schein, 2019). The daily routine we use therefore loads us with paperwork, it even steals the manager’s precious time. Proactively modernizing? No, resource allocation mirrors the culture, leaning on deep technical skill and urgent fixes, which ends up keeping operations rock‑steady. That reaction‑first mindset therefore leaves Joint Base McGuire‑Dix‑Lakehurst buried under an enormous pile of unfinished repairs (2024).
Think about it: sticking to daily compliance habits simply keeps the sluggish decision process and the reactive way resources are handed out. That tension—old‑school values versus the pull toward fresh, purposeful values—speaks volumes (Schein & Schein, 2019). What does a shaky budget teach us? It forces us to count every cent; that habit now lets us try self‑funding ideas such as the Energy Savings Performance Contract, a fast clear win (Carmazzi, 2019). The culture’s built‑in strengths helps drive the main initiatives, so they get moving faster. Doesn’t that make sense? A culture of deep tech skill plus thrift, it adapts to mission needs; therefore the ESPC expansion gets pushed while the team wrestles with big contracts and tries to meet the vow of stronger energy resilience at Joint Base McGuire‑Dix‑Lakehurst 2023. Because mission‑first culture cares about fast, solid support for customers, it fuels the market‑entry plan—agile service contract works and our own crew replies fast, a clear edge over outside contractors. The 2017 research—it actually showed something important, and yet we still wonder why?. Focus on competence, mission victory—therefore supported by internal rewards / punishments targeting success and professional development.
Finally, the pride they have in running the joint base makes the diversification effort work—aiming to turn the squadron into a top DoD hub for joint‑base AM—because they cherish the culture and tap into their own special know‑how. Therefore, that culture throws huge obstacles at trying to blend things, especially since the main problem is that important data is scattered across NexGen, BUILDER and PAVER siloes. Therefore, a direct cultural artifact of technical siloing—it fits right into the Multi‑directional culture. Because each group acts like a little fortress, they’ve come to think—often without asking—that a specialist team must run its own data; that belief feeds their sense of identity and how well they feel they can do the job, therefore they keep the data locked away. We stick to that wrong idea – DFIP gets held back, ESMS rolls slow and the real‑property support problem just keeps happening. Lack of deep change tells us culture is massive and spread wide, it holds insiders tougher than any leader ever can control (Schein & Schein, 2019). Kick‑starting a real culture shift means the squadron must go bottom‑up (Carmazzi, 2019); therefore it pushes the insiders to ask themselves what on earth they actually doing with data (Geertz, as cited in Schein & Schein, 2019). Should we launch a short‑lived cross‑functional “Unified Identity” team for the DFIP project? It would call the “we work in silos” mindset into question and push a bigger goal of crystal‑clear, accurate data; the real shift happens in those little sub‑groups, where culture usually wins or falls (Schein & Schein, 2019, Example 4.4).
References
Carmazzi, A. (2019, June 21). Creating sustainable organizational culture change in 80 days [Video]. TEDxMaitighar.
Department of Defense. (n.d.). Department of Defense instruction No. 5000.02: Operation of the defense acquisition system.
DuHadway, D., Harris, H., Merker, M. N., & Smith, S. (2017). Reimagining defense business acquisition. Defense AT&L, 46(5), 2–7.
Gamble, J., & Thompson, A. A. (2016). Essentials of strategic management: The quest for competitive advantage (5th ed.). McGraw Hill.
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. (2023). 787th Civil Engineer Squadron completes $140 million energy savings project, boosting resilience.
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. (2024). 87th Civil Engineer Group fact sheet.
Reed, K. B. (2020). Strategic management (K. B. Reed, Ed.). Virginia Tech Publishing.
Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2019). The corporate culture survival guide (3rd ed.). Wiley.
