Bringing corporate culture to the bottom line

Up to now managers could find little evidence to support the idea that the organization's culture has an impact on its bottom-line performance. To remedy this, Denison draws on survey and performance data from 34 large corporations to show that those that have participative cultures experience better performance than those that do not. This difference in performance appears to have widened over the five years that these firms were studied. The results also hold up when the performance measures for each firm (return on investment and return on sales) are compared with those of their competitors. Denison suggests that this comparative approach to the study of organizational culture provides a way to capture the impact that culture has on organizational performance. This strategy, he argues, also provides a way of diagnosing organizations and measuring the ways in which human resources management, organizational culture, and management practices do, in fact, contribute to the success of business organizations.     

The effects of Six Sigma on corporate performance: An empirical investigation

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of adopting Six Sigma on corporate performance. Although there is a fairly large and growing body of anecdotal evidence associated with the benefits of implementing Six Sigma, there is very little systematic and rigorous research investigating these benefits. This research extends previous research in several important ways including utilizing a sample of 84 Six Sigma firms that represent a wide variety of industries and firm characteristics, utilizing rigorously constructed control groups to ensure the validity of our comparisons and conclusions, and investigating the impact of adopting Six Sigma on corporate performance over a ten year period. To carry out this investigation, the event study methodology is employed. The ten year period consists of three years prior to Six Sigma implementation, the event year corresponding to the year Six Sigma is adopted, and six years post Six Sigma implementation. To assess the impact of adopting Six Sigma on corporate performance we utilize commonly used measures including Operating Income/Total Assets (OI/A), Operating Income/Sales (OI/S), Operating Income/Number of Employees (OI/E), Sales/Assets (S/A), and Sales/Number of Employees (S/E). The sample Six Sigma firms are compared to different benchmarks including the overall industry performance and to the performance of carefully selected portfolios of control firms. The results of the study indicate that adopting Six Sigma positively impacts organizational performance primarily through the efficiency with which employees are deployed. More specifically, enhanced employee productivity results were observed in both static analyses that assessed the performance of the sample Six Sigma firms relative to their control groups at discrete points in time and dynamic analyses of the Six Sigma firms’ rate of improvement relative to the rate of improvement of their control groups. Benefits in terms of improved asset efficiency were not observed. Finally, there was no evidence that Six Sigma negatively impacts corporate performance.     

Durkheim and the Limits of Corporate Culture: Whose Culture? Which Durkheim

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in Durkheimian perspectives on management. P. Dahler-Larsen uses such a perspective to critique theories of corporate culture. He is particularly critical of corporate culture’s claim that the locus of morality can exist in organizations. This, he argues, is inimical to Durkheim’s view of morality as a societal phenomenon. This paper argues that this criticism of corporate culture is limited on two counts. First, it is limited in its failure to deal with those proponents of corporate culture who are themselves critical of culture as a form of ideological control. Secondly, it is based on only one of several possible readings of Durkheim. In his later work, Durkheim analyses the construction and destruction of social solidarities. A Durkheimian reading of organizational culture and the related phenomenon of the learning organization allows us to develop a view of management and organization in which culture is conceived as a heterogeneous rather than homogeneous.     

COMING TO TERMS WITH THE FIELD: UNDERSTANDING AND DOING ORGANIZATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY*

This article argues that ethnography is inadequately understood and recognized within administration science as a method for studying organizational culture. Ethnographic analyses of organizational cultures are largely absent from the administration science literature, primarily because such work derives from a social constructionist understanding of science. The knowledge of organizations thus provided is interpretive, denying the subject—object dichotomy inherent in mainstream empiricist applications of social analysis. In addition, whereas ethnographic analysis and writing is an appropriate method for studying culture, organizational ethnography is substantially different from ethnographic studies of whole (and largely foreign) societies. Formal organizations are both partial and specialized in comparison to general societal organization. The conceptual and practical toolkit the organizational ethnographer brings to the field and the writing table is thus tailored to this particular research arena, and is outlined here.     

What role does culture play? A look at motivation and job satisfaction among hotel workers in Brazil

Job satisfaction has been associated with positive organizational outcomes such as increased employee productivity, higher innovation and reduced turnover, all of which are linked to improved firm performance. Motivation is considered to be a primary determinant of job satisfaction. Yet little research has focused on the links between motivation, job satisfaction and the impact of culture in the workplace. This qualitative research uses Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory of Motivation to assess job satisfaction in the Brazilian hotel industry. The results partially support the theory and suggest that culture influences the degree of job satisfaction.     

基于我国组织文化背景的关联绩效提高

组织文化与关联绩效是企业经营管理的两个重要方面,本文以中国的文化为背景,着重从人际和谐与集体主义两方面探讨了组织文化与关联绩效的结合,希望能为以后关联绩效在中国的研究与发展提供一些帮助。     

Leadership style,organizational culture and performance: empirical evidence from UK companies

The topics of leadership and organizational culture have attracted considerable interest from both academics and practitioners. Much of the interest in the two areas is based on explicit and implicit claims that both leadership and culture are linked to organizational performance. However, while the links between leadership and performance and between culture and performance have been examined independently, few studies have investigated the association between the three concepts. This paper examines the nature of this relationship and presents empirical evidence which suggests that the relationship between leadership style and performance is mediated by the form of organizational culture that is present. The paper concludes with a number of implications for theory and practice.     

Managing organisational culture: insights from the hospitality industry

Despite the widespread criticism of the culture management approach by respected academics, recent surveys indicate that managers are continuing to engage in planned cultural interventions. Indeed, reports demonstrate that managing organisational culture is one of the most popular forms of managerial intervention, with one survey concluding that over 90 per cent of organisations engage in planned cultural change. This study describes and analyses organisational culture interventions in four companies within a single industry. It argues that the conceptualisation of organisational culture and culture change should be differentiated in ways that recognise the significance of contextual factors. It presents an analysis of interventions in the hospitality industry and delineates four insights from this sector that are pertinent to the theory and practice of managing cultural change.     

Sources of Fidelity in Purposive Organizational Change: Lessons from a Re-engineering Case

ABSTRACT The debate between adaptation and inertia hinges on whether theorists believe that organizations can effect purposive organizational change in which the realized structures match the planned structures. To date, research on organizational change has yielded few insights into the conditions under which such change occurs. This longitudinal case study of a re‐engineering programme at a medium‐sized bank examined the conditions under which elements of the planned structure were faithfully implemented. Elaborating a model of change fidelity, this paper argues that the features of the design elements themselves, attributes of the change process, and general contextual factors affect the likelihood that planned changes will occur.     

Ambidextrous culture,contextual ambidexterity and new product innovations: The role of organizational slack and environmental factors

Contextual ambidexterity, defined as the simultaneous pursuit of alignment and adaptability at business unit, is linked to several organizational outcomes including improved performance and innovation outcomes. Extant research posits ambidextrous organizational culture as an important enabler to contextual ambidexterity but suffers from a lack of a well‐meaning scale for the same. In addition, there is very little understanding as to how tasking and facilitating environment can be on firms' endeavour for contextual ambidexterity and the outcomes thereof. Therefore, the current piece of research has twin objectives using two separate studies. First, to develop a scale for ambidextrous organizational culture construct and second, to analyse the role played by the external forces (munificence and dynamism) and internal slack resources on the relationships between ambidextrous organizational culture and contextual ambidexterity and between contextual ambidexterity and new product innovation outcomes through an empirical investigation in India. Using structural equation modelling on data from 414 respondents, we found environmental munificence to strengthen the relationships between ambidextrous organizational culture and contextual ambidexterity and between contextual ambidexterity and new product innovation outcomes. On the other hand, environmental dynamism had a dampening impact on these relationships. Our findings also suggest that for low slack organizations, dynamic and unmunificent environments magnified the negative impact on an organisation's ambidexterity efforts and new product innovation outcomes.     

The influence of environmental and organizational factors on innovation adoptions: Consequences for performance in public sector organizations

Although technical and administrative innovations have received much academic interest in recent years, our understanding of why some organizations adopt these innovations and others do not is still underdeveloped. This paper examines organizational and environmental factors that may explain the adoption of innovations in public sector organizations. Furthermore, how technical and administrative innovations affect firm performance is also examined. Regarding organizational factors, we analyze strategy and firm size. Regarding environmental factors, we analyze the effect of uncertainty and market concentration. Hypotheses are developed and tested using a combination of archival and survey data from the public healthcare sector. Our results suggest that environmental and organizational factors have inconsistent effects on the adoption of administrative and technical innovations in public sector organizations. Our findings also show that high adopters of both types of innovations are more sensitive to environmental factors than organizational factors. Furthermore, our paper shows that organizations that combine technical and administrative innovations increase their performance.     

The gender diversity–performance relationship in services and manufacturing organizations

Empirical findings on the link between gender diversity and performance have been inconsistent. This paper presents three competing predictions of the organizational gender diversity–performance relationship: a positive linear prediction derived from the resource-based view of the firm, a negative linear prediction derived from self-categorization and social identity theories, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear prediction derived from the integration of the resource-based view of the firm with self-categorization and social identity theories. This paper also proposes a moderating effect of industry type (services vs. manufacturing) on the gender diversity–performance relationship. The predictions were tested in publicly listed Australian organizations using archival quantitative data with a longitudinal research design. The results show partial support for the positive linear and inverted U-shaped curvilinear predictions as well as for the proposed moderating effect of industry type. The curvilinear relationship indicates that different proportions of organizational gender diversity have different effects on organizational performance, which may be attributed to different dynamics as suggested by the resource-based view and self-categorization and social identity theories. The results help reconcile the inconsistent findings of past research that focused on the linear gender diversity–performance relationship. The findings also show that industry context can strengthen or weaken the effects of organizational gender diversity on performance.     

Combinative Effects of Innovation Types and Organizational Performance: A Longitudinal Study of Service Organizations

Innovation research suggests that innovation types have different attributes, determinants, and effects. This study focuses on consequences of adoption of three types of innovation (service, technological process, and administrative process) in service organizations. Its main thesis is that the impact of innovation on organizational performance depends on compositions of innovation types over time. We examine this proposition by analysing innovative activity in a panel of 428 public service organizations in the UK over four years. Our findings suggest that focus on adopting a specific type of innovation every year is detrimental, consistency in adopting the same composition of innovation types over the years has no effect, and divergence from the industry norm in adopting innovation types could possibly be beneficial to organizational performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and research on innovation types.     

The role of organizational cultures in information‐systems security management: A goal‐setting perspective

The aim of this research is to investigate the role of strong organizational cultures in setting information‐systems security goals. In doing so, we explore and discuss the concept of culture within three financial organizations with different social and organizational structures, and seek to demonstrate the importance of having a cohesive culture in efficiently setting information‐security goals. The relationship between goal setting, culture strength, and performance is also discussed, as there have been studies that indirectly indicate that such a relationship may exist. The contribution of this work to interpretive information‐systems research consists of its study of culture and goal setting in a security‐management context, and its grounding within an interpretive epistemology. In addition, this research promotes an interdisciplinary and interorganizational theory to foster dialogue that transcends industry‐specific contexts and explores different organizational practices that can improve leadership's role in human life.     

Technological capabilities,resilience capabilities and organizational effectiveness

Abstract

Previous research has defined resilience as a desirable characteristic for an organization and its members to possess when circumstances adversely change. Resilience is analysed through different perspectives as organizational responses to external threats, organizational reliability or employee strengths. However, the role of resilience in enhancing organizational effectiveness is not fully understood. Grounded in organizational ambidexterity, the current research tests the value of resilience capabilities developed through specific Human Resource Practices (HRPs) in the context of ever-changing market conditions. This paper argues that as well as technological capabilities, HRPs that build resilience within an organization are needed to successfully implement technological change. Resilience capabilities are a mediating factor between technological capabilities and organizational effectiveness, whilst environment dynamism and competitive intensity are moderators of this relationship. Using a primary sample of 205 manufacturing firms, a model is presented and tested using Structural Equation Modelling. The results reinforce the importance of HRPs in building resilience which helps firms to continuously adjust to change and subsequently enhance their organizational effectiveness.     

Organizational structure and the internal economy of the firm: The UK insurance industry

There now exists a substantial volume of empirical evidence which has examined the superiority of the ‘M’-form organizational structure for the management of large, diversified enterprises. Regrettably, attention has mainly been focused on manufacturing companies, despite the rising importance of the service sector in most major economies. This paper examines organizational structures within one segment of the UK service sector: the insurance industry. In the UK this industry has undergone significant, regulatory-driven structural change and, as a consequence, the majority of companies have undertaken organizational change. The results produced, however, suggest that many of these companies adopted sub-optimal divisionalized structures.     

The Influence of Institutional and Task Environment Relationships on Organizational Performance: The Canadian Construction Industry

This study compared the influence of organizations' relationships to the institutional versus task environment on organizational performance in the Canadian construction industry. This industry is characterized by both intense institutional regulation and strong market competition. Regulatory stringency and resource stringency were proposed as key determinants of the relative importance of institutional versus task environment relations in predicting organizational profitability and productivity. Results favoured the contribution of task environment relations to organizational success in support of an economic or strategic perspective on organizations. However, under highly stringent conditions, institutional relations were shown to be associated significantly with performance, suggesting that future research needs to consider both institutional and task environment effects on organizational performance and success.     

The interplay between organizational and national cultures: a comparison of organizational practices in Canada and South Korea using the Competing Values Framework

This paper examines the concept of organizational culture using the Competing Values Framework (CVF) in organizations from six different industries in Canada and South Korea. The Competing Values Framework (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983; Quinn, 1988) is used to compare organizational cultures of similar firms and their HRM in the two countries. The data reported are from thirty-nine Canadian and forty Korean organizations. The findings show that, even though some aspects of organizational culture are related and can be attributed to the differences between the national cultures (Korean versus Canada), industry and contextual variables do contribute to a significant extent to the perception of organizational culture. In addition, the analysis reported here shows that other organizational aspects that are closely related to organizational culture (organizational climate and leadership) have significant associations with national cultures as well as industry and contextual factors. The aspects of organizational context under study included size, age and ownership of the firms, uncertainty and unpredictability of the environment, organizational support for training and unionization. Implications of the study for cross-national research, and for the use of competing Values Framework are discussed.     

Women directors contribution to organizational innovation: A behavioral approach

This paper aims to analyze the relationships between women directors (a demographic characteristic) and organizational innovation (a predictor of firm performance) by considering the mediating role of the board’s decision-making culture. To scrutinize board processes and behaviors, we use survey data to test our hypotheses on a sample of 341 Norwegian firms. The results suggest that women directors contribute positively and significantly to organizational innovation. Furthermore, the positive relationship between women directors and the level of organizational innovation is mediated by some decision-making culture dimensions: the degree of cognitive conflict and the degree of preparation and involvement during board meetings. Implications for theory and practice and future research directions are discussed.     

The adjustment process of Spanish repatriates: a case study

Little empirical research has focused on the repatriation process of international employees despite the increasing number of expatriations that take place and the consequences of its failure. Based on a ten cases study, this research provides an in-depth analysis of the adjustment difficulties repatriates face when they come back from international assignments. Findings suggest that these adjustment problems could lead to turnover intentions. The study also shows that work adjustment difficulties can be caused by differences between the host and the domestic organizational culture and it can be moderated by some organizational practices. Implications and recommendations for human resources practitioners and researchers are discussed.