An organisational culture model for comparative ...

An organisational culture model for comparative studies and assessment of IT projects Imran Ullah Khan [email protected], Phone Number: (+44) 141 848 3284 Fax: (+44)141 848 3542 Skype: dr-khan82 School of Computing University of the West of Scotland Paisley Campus, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BE, UK Imran Ullah Khan is a Doctoral researcher in the School of Computing, University of the West of Scotland, UK. He obtained MSc Computing and Information Systems from Liverpool JMU, PGCert in Research Methods and Teaching and Learning Higher Education from UWS. His research interests include knowledge management, cloud computing, autonomous systems, social computing and organisational culture. He has contributed to international conferences and published in international journal. Dr. Abel Usoro [email protected], Phone Number: (+44) 141 848 3959 Fax: (+44)141 848 3542 School of Computing University of the West of Scotland Paisley Campus, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BE, UK Dr Abel Usoro lectures in the School of Computing, University of the West of Scotland, UK. His current research interest is in information systems which includes knowledge management, e-learning and e-tourism. He has published book chapters, in refereed international conferences and journals (such as International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Global Information Management and International Journal of Knowledge Management). His academic work has taken him to many countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America. He is a member of scientific committees of many international conferences and chairs one of them (Conference on Information Technology and Economic Development). He is also a member of the British Computing Society. Grzegorz Majewski [email protected], School of Computing University of the West of Scotland Paisley Campus, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BE, UK Grzegorz Majewski holds an MSc degree awarded by the Warsaw School of Economics and another by the University of the West of Scotland. He has worked for the telecommunication and finance industry. He is active in the research field presenting his papers at international conferences and publishing in refereed journals. His current research focuses on Knowledge Management, Innovation, Social Networks, e-Learning and Immersive Virtual Worlds.

1

An organisational culture model for comparative studies and assessment of IT projects Imran U Khan, University of the West of Scotland, United Kingdom Dr Abel Usoro, University of the West of Scotland, United Kingdom and Grzegorz Majewski, University of the West of Scotland, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT The research supports the notion that values affect work practices. It develops a comparatively simple organisational cultural model based on four work practices: support orientation, innovation orientation, co-ordination orientation and rules orientation. For validation, it was operationalised into a 21 item survey questionnaire that mainly used a Likert scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” This paper presents the validity and reliability of the items with Cronbach alpha values of between 0.8 and 0.9. Both positive and negative values like trust, honesty and selfishness affect work practices which are therefore presented as good reflections and measures of organisational culture. The four work practices are therefore reliable and valid reflections of organisational culture. Though not yet extensively tested, the model can be used by IT professionals for assessing IT projects from organisational culture perspective. It also constitutes a useful platform for other research eg effect of organisational culture on knowledge sharing. Keywords: Organisational culture; IT professionals; Innovation; Rules; Coordination.

INTRODUCTION Organisational culture is an important but a complex concept of organisational science. Its significance is apparent in organisational functions and activities like creativity and innovation (Martins & Terblanche, 2003); productivity and quality (Mathew, 2007); and knowledge transfer (Lucas, 2006). Organisational culture is complex to describe because it scopes from deeper layers like beliefs and assumptions to visible layers like structures and practices (Fey & Denision, 2003). Extensive amount of research has been performed on

2

organisational culture but still different aspects of it need to be explored. One of such aspects is measuring organisational culture quantitatively which would facilitate comparative organisational studies (Reigle & Westbrook, 2000). The research reported in this paper tested a model that is developed to measure organisational culture. The model consists of four orientation components: support, innovation, co-ordination and rules. The rest of this paper will present the background, organisational culture, IT professionals and organisational culture, research model, methodology, data analysis, discussion and conclusions, and summary of the research.

BACKGROUND Some of the key studies that attempted to measure organisational culture are Cooke and Lafferty (1987), Hofstede et al. (1990); Denison and Mishra (1995); Van Muijen et al. (1999); Cunha and Cooper (2002); Wilderom et al. (2004), Glisson (2007), MacIntosh and Doherty (2009) and Shim (2010). A common problem with most of these studies and others not mentioned here is that they were context specific; thus it is difficult to generalise their work (Keshavarzi, 2007). Keshavarzi (2007) also criticises some of the studies1 with regards to other aspects of their methodologies. While context specific and qualitative study can unearth very rich aspects of organisational culture, a quantitative approach is needed to enable comparative studies with context freedom (Park et al, 2004; Eldridge & Crombie, 1974, p 89). This is the aim of this study. Organisational culture Organisational culture has been researched widely but there is still no agreement on a standard definition of the term. Most of the definitions of organisational culture contain elements like work practices, values, assumptions and artefacts. Usoro and Kuofie (2006) indicated that organisational culture dimensions can broadly be classified into valued-based and work-practice based. Hibbard (1998) and White (1998) focused on values to dimension organisational culture. Martin and Terblanche (2003) define organisational culture in terms of values as the deeply seated values and beliefs shared by personnel in an organisation. The value-based approach has been criticised. For example, Wilderom et al (2004) pointed out that organisations differ more in work practices than on 1

Some of the studies he criticized are Denison and Mishra (1995) and Gordon and Di Tomaso’s (1991).

3

values. Moreover, it is argued that values can be measured from work practices as significant aspects of values are often acted out in organisational practices. Kostova (1999) defines organisational culture as “particular ways of conducting organisational functions that evolved over time.... [These] practices reflect the shared knowledge and competence of the organisation” (p.309). Following Kostova’s (1999) approach, Wilderom et al (2004) define organisational culture as a shared perception of organisational work practices within organisational units that may differ from others. The current research adopts work practice based approach in defining organisational culture. The organisational culture definition in the following is based on Kostova (1999) and Wilderom et al. (2004) definitions: The set of particular organisational functions that are carried out by organisational members in a specific way that makes it different from other organisations or from other units within an organisation

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND IT PROJECTS Humans have naturally the ability to learn from their environment. In an organisational context, this environment is provided by culture of that organisation. Staff of an organisation, including IT professionals, learn from their surroundings of the organisation they worked in by different ways e.g. asking questions from their colleagues, attending training and workshops. Generally, IT professionals using their knowledge and complying with organisational culture perform things to achieve their organisational objectives. Salaheldin, Sharif and Qatari (2010) describe that organisations invest a lot of money and other resources to accomplish their projects. Despite the ongoing challenges in the global economy the spending in IT projects have increased. Organisational culture can be very useful enabler to fulfil their IT projects. A lot of research has been performed to understand organisational culture and IT (Hofstede 1989, 1991 & 1993; Guptha & Govindarajan, 2000; Ford., Connelly & Meister, 2003; Gregory., Prifling., & Beck, 2009) as many IT projects fail due to organisational culture. Even small IT projects like launching a web site can fail due to cultural reasons e.g. McDermott and O’Dell (2001) describe that a large global company developed a web site which had areas for chat, document storage, and message from the company’s leadership. This web site had many interesting features but hardly anybody use it. The web site designers realise that the project fail due to cultural reasons because they did not take it into consideration. Therefore,

4

this research aims to provide an organisational culture model which can be used to assess quantitatively IT projects from an organisational culture perspective.

RESEARCH MODEL Researchers in organisational culture dimension the concept differently but their approaches can be considered to be based on either (a) values or (b) work practices (Usoro et al., 2006). The strong argument for using values is that most definitions of culture have values at their core. Organisational science researchers who emphasise on organisational values in describing organisational culture include Hibbard (1998) and White (1998). Taking a values approach allows an in-depth study of organisations; methods used for such investigations are mostly ethnographic and case studies. The drawback with the values approach is that practitioners and researchers cannot perform comparative studies of organisations. Thus, recent interest has developed in the practice-based approach to dimensioning organisational culture. A renowned figure in organisational cultural studies, Hofstede (2001), demonstrated that organisations show more differences in practices than in values. Wilderom et al. (2004) agreed with this view, thus justifying practice-based approach especially when interest is not to dig into the innermost depths of culture which social psychologists even say may lie beneath the threshold of our conscious awareness (Hall, 1976). To dimension culture from practice or behaviour does not ignore values (and its unique configuration with norms and beliefs) because many researchers agree that values affect work practices (Park et al, 2004; Eldridge & Crombie, 1974, p 89). From an opposite direction, Wilderom et al. (2004) argued that values can be derived from existing practices within an organisation. Cultural work practices include sharing of knowledge and information freely (Calantone et al. 2002; Matthew, 2007; and Park et al., 2004), risk taking (Van Muijen et al., 1999), and inclination to promote and follow rules (Van Muijen et al., 1999). For a systematic discussion of these practices, they have been grouped into support, rules, innovation and coordination orientation as shown in Figure 1.

5

Support orientation Innovation orientation

Rules orientatio Coordin n ation orientati on

Figure 1: Components of organisational culture

Support Orientation Support dimension in the model is refers to the different help or support strategies of organisations for the benefit of their employees. These strategies differ from organisation to organisation but may including training and counselling services. Different studies in literature provide evidence for this dimension; for example, it is reflected in Wilderom et al’s (2004) human resource orientation dimension of organisation, Mathew’s (2007) concern for employees and trust, Martin et al’s (2003) employee needs and objectives, Gupta and Govindarajan’s (2000) people and Van Muijenet al’s (1999) support. This dimension also has roots in humanistic and encouraging behavioural norm of constructive culture in OCI model. Support dimension also has a direct link with a study recently conducted by Shim (2010). He defines support as a dimension of organisational culture while investigating the factors that influence child welfare employee’s turnover from organisational culture and climate aspects. Employee problem that may need management support can be personal or work related. How to cope with upcoming retirement is an example of personal problems while official relationship issues may be work-related. To their employees, organisations provide different support like counsel service, financial help, and training. Training as well as help in personal and work related problems are used in this research as operational components of support. Organisations vary in the extent to which they provide such supports to their members and the extent of such provisions reflects some aspect of their culture.

6

Innovation Innovation is the introduction and implementation of new ideas that should positively benefit the organisation and its members (West & Farr, 1990; McKeown, 2008). Thus, manager regard innovation as a major source of competitive advantage. Different studies support innovation as an organisational culture component expressed in various ways, for example, improvement orientation (Wilderom et al., 2004), adaptability (Denison and Fey, 2003), high performance work orientation (Mathew, 2007), achievement of constructive culture type in OCI, and this component has a direct base to Van Muijen et al’s (1999) and Shim’s (2010) study of organisational culture. Innovation also has a link with the performance orientation and market orientation dimensions of organisational culture model developed by Cunha and Cooper (2002). This is because to be innovative one has to perform very well and needs to introduce new ideas to improve product and develop new markets. Innovation can also be connected to the proficiency dimension specified by Glisson (2007) in Organisational Social Context (OSC). There could be many reasons for innovation but some of the major motivations specified by researchers are: openness to criticism (Van Muijen et al., 1999), sharing of knowledge (Calantone et al., 2002; Scarbrough, 2003; Mathew, 2007), sharing information freely (Park et al., 2004), encouragement of new ideas, and taking risks (Van Muijen et al., 1999). Therefore the operational components specified for innovation are: openness to criticism, sharing of knowledge, sharing of information freely, encouragement of new ideas and taking risks. Coordination Coordination refers to blending efforts to ensure successful attainment of objectives. Coordination can be achieved by means of planning, organizing, actuating and controlling. Coordination is an explicit element of organisational culture (Wilderom et al., 2004) but little attention is given to this element in past studies of organisational culture. In an organization, different units depend on each other for information. The information of one unit can be an input for another unit. Denison & Fey (2003) defined coordination as a scale for achieving consistency in an organisation. Different units need to coordinate and communicate to avoid conflicts, share information and to work on projects across functional units in the organisation. Among other techniques available, teamwork is one for achieving coordination (Bakar, 2001; Nurmi, 1996). Organisation structure is another element that can affect coordination. If an 7

organisational structure is flexible, for example communication with peers is not a problem, coordination can be achieved easily. Inter-departmental coordination, organisation structure and teamwork are defined as operational components for coordination. Rules Every organisation has some rules and regulations to ensure that tasks are performed with little or no problems. This element, rules, of organisational culture has foundations in the work of Van Muijen et al. (1999). Managers make rules to achieve consistency. Therefore, rules dimension also matches with the consistency dimension of organisational culture in the work of Denision & Fey (2003). Rules also link with the rigidity and resistance organisational culture dimensions specified Glisson (2007) in Organisational Social Context (OSC). In rigidity culture, members of the organisations strictly follow rules and there is little or no deviation from rules. As a result of strictly following the rules there is little interest in new ways of performing tasks and there is a resistance to change in the organisation. Opposite to rules dimension of organisational culture is autonomy. Wilderm et al. (2004) define autonomy as “task related and [as] related to the degree to which employees have decision latitude at the job level” (p. 571). Usually, the rules of an organisation govern their procedures and standards, and employees are obliged to comply with them. When managers follow rules other members most likely are encouraged to emulate. Some organisations are more inclined to follow rules than others and the level of inclination should reflect an aspect of organisational culture. Operational components specified for rules in Table 1 are: following procedures (Van Muijen et al., 1999), complying with standards (Van Muijen et al., 1999) and managers’ compliance to rules Van Muijen et al. (1999).

8

Dimensions Support Orientation

Innovation Orientation

Coordination Orientation

Operational components Personal problems

Cunha & Cooper (2002), Van Muijen et al. (1999), OCI. Training (personal Cunha & Cooper (2002), development) Shim (2010). Van Muijen et al. (1999), Work related problems OCI, Shim (2010). Openness to criticism Van Muijen et al. (1999), Cunha & Cooper (2002), Shim (2010). Sharing of knowledge Calantone et al. (2002) , Scarbrough (2003), Mathew (2007). Sharing information freely Park et al. (2004), Cunha & Cooper (2002). Encouragement of new ideas Cunha & Cooper (2002), Shim (2010). Risk taking Inter-departmental coordination Teamwork

Rules Orientation

Indication of existence in literature

Organisation structure Following procedures

Following with standards

Following rules by managers

Van Muijen et al. (1999). Cunha & Cooper (2002), Wilderom et al. (2004), Denision & Fey (2003). Cunha & Cooper (2002), Denison & Fey (2003), Shim (2010). Denison & Fey (2003). Van Muijen et al. (1999), Denision & Fey (2003), Glisson (2007), Wilderom et al. (2004). Van Muijen et al. (1999), Denision & Fey (2003), Glisson (2007), Wilderom et al. (2004). Van Muijen et al. (1999), Denision & Fey (2003), Glisson (2007).

Table 1: Summary of dimensions supported by literature

9

10

In appendix 7 we have summarised research work on practice-based organisational culture while Figure 2 shows the dimensions that could be used to measure organisational culture. Support Orientation Personal problems Training Work related problems

Innovation Orientation Openness to criticism Sharing of knowledge Sharing information freely Encouragement of new ideas Risk taking

Rules Orientation Following procedures Complying with standards Following rules by managers

Co-ordination Orientation Inter-departmental coordination Teamwork Organisation structure

Figure 2: Model to measure organisational culture

METHODOLOGY Procedure A quantitative approach using a questionnaire was chosen for this research because of its goal to find a global rather than a local perspective of organisational culture (Park et al. 2004). In other words, the aim is to develop a measuring scale that can be applied across a number of organisations rather than performing an in-depth study of a single organisation.

The

questionnaire was first pilot tested and changes were made accordingly.

11

Dimension

Support

Innovation

Coordination

Rules

Operational component Personal problems

Item

Employees’ personal problems are considered to be the concern of the organisation Training This organisation provides work related training This organisation sponsors us for different courses Work related Work related problems like equipment problems faults, health hazards or complaints, are taken seriously by this company Failures are accepted in this organisation Openness to Colleagues accept criticisms criticism Sharing of Experts in this organisation help others knowledge Members of this company share their skills with others in the company Sharing Information is easily shared in this information organisation freely Encouragement Management encourages new ideas of new ideas Risk taking This organisation is a risk taker InterCommunication between members departmental from different units is easy co-ordination Members from different functional units can be easily involved in projects Team work Working in this organisation feels like being a part of a team Tasks performed in this organisation are team based Organisation Communication with peers is not a structure problem in this organisation Decisions are made at the level where the best information is available Following Instructions are written down for procedures performing tasks in this organisation Subordinates in this organisation strictly follow instructions Following with Managers follow instructions standards themselves Following rules Customers are happy with the by managers standards of this organisation

Question number 1

2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Table 2: Operationalisation of the dimensions into questionnaire items

12

Design of a questionnaire After operationalising the components of the research model as summarised in Table 2, it was naturally straightforward to formulate items in the questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of 3 sections. The first section is optional and sought to collect demographic information that would help to describe the respondents when analysing data.

The second section asks

respondents to indicate how applicable a list of statements is when thinking about the organisation that they work for and the third section is about the way that respondents like to work and the organisations that they work in. Questionnaire responses were measured on a Likert scale from strongly agree (7) to strongly disagree (1). It is argued and derived from literature that organisational work practices contain organisational values. However, this questionnaire provided an opportunity to reconfirm this argument. Pilot study The questionnaire was pilot tested using six staff members of the University of the West of Scotland in United Kingdom. Four of them belonged to the School of Computing and their research backgrounds are information systems and e-learning. The other two staff members were from Business and Social Sciences schools. Both of these staff members had taught organisational culture for a number of years. One of the staff members appreciated the questionnaire items and asked for a 15-minute presentation on the organisational culture type to his students. Many changes were made in the questionnaire. For example, in section 3, question 4 was added. This question consists of a list of organisational culture types and the respondent is asked to tick all the words that can be applicable to her organisation. Also, from the pilot study, grammar mistakes were corrected and statements of some questions in Section 2 were changed to make it simple and easy to understand. Research credibility Validity Validity of a measurement instrument means the degree by which the instrument should measure accurately what it is supposed to measure (Leedy & Ormrod, 2001). In this study the 13

validity of the measurement instrument is achieved as ensuring content, face and construct validities. Content validity: Content validity is the degree to which the items correctly represent the theoretical content of the construct. It is achieved by an in-depth literature review which was the case in this research; all of the operational components of organisational culture factors were extracted from previous researches such as Cunha and Cooper (2002); Van Muijen et al. (1999); Mathew (2007); Park et al. (2004); Shim (2010) and Wilderom et al. (2004). Face validity: This validity can be defined as the degree to which respondents judge the items as appropriate to the targeted constructs. It is achieved by the method specified by Zaichkowsky (1985). The operational components of organisational culture factors were shown to three experts in School of Computing and School of Social science. They were asked to qualify each item as “clearly representative”, “somewhat representative”, and “not representative”. Those items were retained where experts ranked them as “clearly representative” and “somewhat representative” (Lichtenstein et al. 1990). Construct validity: Construct validity seeks agreement between a theoretical concept and a specific measuring device or procedure. It can be assessed by considering two types of criteria: convergent and discriminatory validity. These criteria are explained below but their application can be found under internal consistency and factor analysis in the results section.  Convergent validity is achieved when the items that compose a determined scale converge on only one construct. The most common technique for calculating this validity is confirmatory factor analysis (Sanzo et al. 2003; Straub et al. 2004). This factor analysis has the following characteristics:  A sample size as low as 150 should be sufficient (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007; Stevens, 1996).  The strength of the inter-correlations among the items should be assessed by checking the co-efficient value and it should be greater than .3 for most of the items.  Bartlett’s test of sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin tests help in assessing the factorability of the data. The values of Bartlett test should be significant, that is p