A Survey of the Use and Function of Idioms in Company Culture Statements

Nowadays, the localization orientation which is based on national culture appears in the study of business culture. However, there is a lack of investigations and researches on what kind of resources can be used to help the contemporary Chinese enterprises to effectively inherit traditional Chinese culture. From the perspective of discourse analysis, this study investigates the idioms used by private companies in their company culture statements, analyzes the characteristics of business culture reflected by the company culture statements in the form of idioms, and studies how the Chinese enterprises use idioms to construct the company culture. The study investigates the use of Chinese idioms in the company culture statements of 257 private companies in China, and analyzes the practices of related business in constructing business culture by using idioms. It is found that the construction of business culture by using idioms can improve the situational relevance between business culture and Chinese social culture. They can better apply the spirits such as ziqiangbuxī (striving constantly to become stronger), hezhōnggongji (working harmoniously), baochengshǒuzhēn (keeping honest and true), houdezaiwu (keeping self-disciplined and great virtue) and other Chinese cultural morals to the construction of business culture in the contemporary China. The results interpret that private companies in the company culture statements can well exert an influence on idioms for load-bearing role of traditional culture and the study plays a significant role in Chinese companies in their construction of native business culture.