organisational culture and commitment

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Organisational Culture and Organisational Commitment Author(s): Sangeeta Tripathi, Alka Kapoor and Nachiketa Tripathi Source: Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jul., 2000), pp. 24-40Published by: Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations and Human ResourcesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27767695Accessed: 21-03-2016 15:03 UTC

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IJIR, Vol. 36, No. 1, July 2000

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT

Sangeeta Tripathi, Alka Kapoor and Nachiketa Tripathi

The present paper makes an attempt to examine the components of Organisational Culture (OC), and its relationship with Organisational Commitment (OCMT). This study is based on a sample of 200 middle level executives of 10 public and private sector organisations. The findings indicate that participative OC is related to identification with involvement type of OCMT,

whereas manipulative OC is related to loyalty type of'OCMT.

INTRODUCTION

In the rapidly changing business scenario survival of many organisations is at stake. Consequent efforts to revive the organisations include mainly a change in the culture of the organisation (so that organisation can adapt to external environment), a change in the management and employee relationship, and a holistic change in the attitudes of employees regarding routines, rewards, expectations and values of the organisation.

The concept of organisational culture (OC), developed very recently, is a concept that underlies these values, labels, and norms of the organisation. Culture makes the difference across organisations

Ms Sangeeta Tripathi is Research Scholar, CSJM Kanpur University, Dr. Alka Kapoor is Lecture, Department of Psychology AND Post Graduate College, Kanpur and Dr. Nachiketa Tripathi is Senior Lecturer, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.



Organisational Culture and Organisational Commitment 25

and their productivity. There is a need to measure OC quantitatively in an objective manner for the comparative studies.

According to Schein (1990), culture is what a group learns over a period of time as it tries to solve its problems of survival in an external environment and its problems of internal integration. Moreover, such learning is simultaneously a behavioural, cognitive and emotional process. Therefore, culture can be understood as (a) a pattern of basic assumptions, (b) invented, discovered or developed by a given group, (c) as it learns to cope with its problem of external adaptation and internal integration, (d) that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, (e) is to be taught to new

members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to these problems.

Uttal (1983) defines OC as shared values (what is important) and beliefs (how things work) that interact with an organisation's structure and control systems to produce behavioural norms (the way we do things around here).

Niehoff, Enz and Grover (1990) strongly suggest that the overall management culture and management style, driven by top management actions, are strongly related to the degree of employee commitment and these effects vary for different organisational settings. At the organisational level, several aspects of the organisation, including perceived structures and management processes, were found to be predictive of commitment (De Cotis and Summers, 1987).

Organisational commitment (OCMT) as defined by Porter, Steers, Mowday and Boulian (1974) has three major components, namely, a) a strong belief in and acceptance of the organisation's goals, b) a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation, and c) a definite desire to maintain organisational membership. Research conducted within this framework has indicated that commitment is not only a predictor of employee retention (Porter et al., 1974; Koch and Steers, 1978), but may also be a predictor of employee effort and performance (Mowday, Porter, and Dubin, 1974; Mowday, Steers and Porter, 1979).



26 Indian Journal of Industrial Relations

THE PRESENT STUDY

A survey of the relevant literature revealed many unexamined questions. Some of them emerged as rationale for the present study, and the study of these unexamined questions would contribute empirically and theoretically to the existing research. OC has been conceptualised in a multi-dimensional way but there have been very few attempts to empirically validate the conceptualisations.

Previous researches in the area of organisational behaviour have shown that organisations differ in terms of their culture (e.g., Soft and Synergetic, Sinha, 1990). It may be hypothesized that in the present research also organisations are likely to differ on certain dimensions of culture. In line with the previous researches organisations will be classified into two categories, i.e. favourable versus less favourable culture (more specific categories will be described later on). It may also be hypothesized that in a favourable culture employees will be more committed toward organisational goals whereas in a less favourable culture members will more likely to be committed toward individual goals.

In addition to this, effectiveness variable is also included in this study, as it may help in the understanding of relationship between OC and OCMT. Moreover, it can also help in identifying the type of OC that may promote a desirable level of effectiveness. Effectiveness has been defined as the ability of an organisation to mobilise its centre of power for action, production, and adaptation (Mott, 1972). As it is evident in the previous researches (Denison, 1984; Rousseau, 1990), it may be assumed that favourable culture will have positive relationship with effectiveness.

SAMPLE

The study was conducted in 10 different organisations (five each in public and private sectors) of an industrial city in northern India. For this purpose, 200 lower and middle level managers were contacted personally and requested to fill the questionnaire comprising of measures of OC, OCMT and Effectiveness. Average age of the public sector respondents was 44 years, whereas in the private sector average age was 35 years. The educational




qualification of all the respondents was graduation or above. In the private sector organisations, average work experience was 6 years, whereas in the public sector it was 19 years.

MEASURES

OC is measured through OC inventory developed by Cooke and Lafferty (1983). It is a self report paper- and-pencil diagnostic instrument designed to measure normative beliefs and shared behavioural expectations in organisations. Normative beliefs are cognitions held by an individual regarding others' expectations for his behaviour as a member of a particular group or organisation (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Shared behavioural expectations are those normative beliefs that are held in common by the members of a group or organisation (Homans, 1950; Mills, 1967). The inventory focuses on 12 sets of thinking and behavioural styles that might be required for people to "fit in" and "meet expectations" in their organisation or sub-unit. These 12 sets of normative beliefs and behavioural expectations can be categorized into three general types of OC, namely, Constructive, Passive-Defensive, and Aggressive Defensive.

1. Constructive Cultures in which members are encouraged to interact with others and approach tasks in ways that will help them

meet their higher order satisfaction needs, are characterized by Achievement, Self-acutalizing, Humanistic- encouraging and Affiliative norms;

2. Passive-Defensive Cultures in which members believe they must interact with people in ways that will not threaten their own security, are characterized by Approval, Conventional, Dependent and Avoidance norms; and

3. Aggressive-Defensive Cultures in which members are expected to approach tasks in forceful ways to protect their status and security, are characterized by Perfectionistic, Competitive, Oppositional and Power norms.

There were 120 statements in the inventory, 10 statements each for the earlier mentioned 12 sets of normative beliefs. Total score on




one set of normative belief was considered as a single score for further analysis. Respondents were asked to rate each item on a 7-point scale (ranging from 1 = to almost no extent to 7 = to a very great extent). The set of items with their appropriate scores were subjected to varimax rotated factor analysis. Factor analysis extracted 2 factors accounting for 74.6 percent of variance. Factor analysis results and psychometric properties of the OC scale are presented in Tables 1 and 2 respectively.

Factor one consists of nine cultural styles which seem to make 3 clusters of styles in particular ? first cluster is of Approval, Conventional and Dependent culture, which shows the tendency to be in concordance with others. Second cluster consists of Achievement, Self-actualizing, Competitive and Perfectionistic culture. It emphasizes the task orientation aspect of work culture. Third cluster is a mixture of Affiliative and Humanistic encouraging culture, which shows the relation orientation aspect of culture. This first factor is named as Participative Culture. This type of culture presents a picture which is near to an ideal type of culture. Here a combination of both work values and social values

both can be noticed. This type of culture should be more conducive to work. It believes in a constructive approach to work. It is similar to Synergetic work culture as described by Sinha (1990), where employees make collective efforts to realize the shared goals of high productivity.

Second factor consists of three cultural styles ? Oppositional, Avoidance and Power culture. This factor is named Manipulative Culture. Nature of items in this factor presents the picture of a culture where people play very defensive role. Their main aim is to gain power, and in order to maintain their authority they play politics. Their policy is to oppose every thing and point out mistakes but without exposing themselves. They remain aloof and detached from the situation and never take initiative so that they may not be blamed for any problem or disturbance of any sort that may arise. This fact is worth noticing that Manipulative culture has negative loadings on Achievement culture and Self-actualizing culture, while Participative culture has negative loading on Avoidance culture. This makes the basic difference between the two types of cultures.




As Table 2 shows, both the factors exhibited well over .50 reliability level, i.e. .95 and .72. Factor 1 and Factor 2 of OC are

moderately correlated with each other indicating a considerable non overlapping variance in the dimensions.

A nine item scale by Cook and Wall (1980) was used to measure OCMT. It consists of three dimensions ? Organisational Identity, Organizational Involvement and Loyalty. Respondents were asked to rate on a 7 point scale (ranging from 1 = No, I strongly disagree to 7 = Yes, I strongly agree), the extent to which they agree with these items. Items 2, 3, and 8 were negatively phrased, thus their scores

were reversed.

All items with their appropriate scores were subjected to varimax rotated factor analysis. Three factors were extracted accounting for 58 percent of total variance. Factor loadings obtained on these factors are reported in Table 3.

Factor 1 included items which show employees' willingness to work as a part of the organisation, and their pride for the organisation. Thus it was named as Identification with Involvement.

Factor 2 consists of items like willingness to leave the organisation and not to help the organisation. These items were reverse scored and this factor was labelled Calculative Commitment.

Factor 3 shows employees' willingness to serve the organisation even in its hard time. So it was named Loyalty.

As it is evident from Table 4 the first factor of commitment has

fairly adequate reliability coefficient. But factors 2 and 3 show Alphas below .50. It may be reasond that these factors were made up of only 2 items each. However, these scales have very low intercorrelations, with an average of .14.

An eight-item scale by Mott (1972) was used for measuring Effectiveness. The scale consists of such dimensions as Quality, Quantity, Efficiency, Adaptability and Flexibility. Respondents were asked to indicate their choice on 5- point scale (where higher score indicated high effectiveness, except three items which were reverse




scored). Table 5 reports the means and standard deviations of eight items of effectiveness measures.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 6 shows the zero-order congelations between OC and OCMT. Participative culture has strong correlation with Identification with Involvement, whereas, Manipulative Culture has positive correlation with Calculative Commitment and Loyalty. However, the magnitude of relationship between Calculative Commitment and Manipulative Culture is not very strong.

Table 7 presents the multiple regression analysis results of OC (predictor) and OCMT (criterion variable). It is evident from the table that Identification with Involvement is more likely to be found in Participative Culture and Loyalty would be more in a Manipulative Culture. The finding makes the difference between these two types of cultures more distinct. In a Participative Culture people will feel pride in association with the organisation (i.e, identification), willingness to perform for the organisation and congruence of personal values with those of the organisation. It indicates a form of organisational involvement which Etzioni (1975) termed "moral" and which is analogous to Stebbins' (1970 b) notion of value commitment. In other words, this is the feeling which emerges as a result of positive regard for the values, norms and goals of the organisation. In a Manipulative Culture people will show more loyalty no matter whether they feel involved or not with the organisation. This may be passive commitment in terms of Harris and Eoyang's (1977) typology where people have a strong intention to remain but low motivation to contribute their best efforts toward

the mission. As Angle and Perry (1981) argued that a strong desire to remain a member of one's organisation does not automatically imply that there is also an intention to be a dependable and hardworking employee.

Identification with Involvement is more rational in nature than

Loyalty. Loyalty may be a part of the manipulation being played in the Manipulative Culture, in order to get approval and nurturance of the superiors so that they can stay in the organisation in the form of blessings (Kripa) of their boss. As Sinha (1990) argued that even competence can




not substitute for personalised relationship, and according to Singh and Singh (1994), a vertical power relationship in India is not strictly formalised. Therefore, it is an emotional bond between superior and subordinate which generates a feeling of affection-deference in them. A person wants to win the favour of his seniors in terms of blessings (Kripa) and shows loyalty (Bhakti) in the form of obedience and submissiveness. At the same time there is absence of total involvement that enables one

to carry a task from start to finish through all trials and difficulties. At the individual level, promises are freely made, which are either not kept or incompletely kept. At the collective level, faith in objectives is proclaimed, but the requisite amount of sustained effort is not forthcoming (Narain, 1967). This can be supported by the results of Table 8, which show no relationship between Manipulative Culture and Effectiveness. It makes clear that despite the presence of apparent Loyalty in the Manipulative Culture, chances are less that it would be effective too. At the same time, Participative Culture predicted Quantity and Quality dimensions of Effectiveness positively, but Adaptability, another dimension of Effectiveness was predicted negatively It appears that participative culture is likely to make an organisation more successful through an increase in the quantity and quality of products but less increase in adaptability. This low adaptability may be just because of the fact that in a participative culture people are more achievement oriented along with the liking for approval and conventionality too. Achievement leads to moderate risk taking. These reasons together build a base for their low susceptibility toward changes and proneness for the avoidance of failure.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

In the present study two dimensions of OC were found: Participative and Manipulative. In a Manipulative Culture the goal is power attainment by hook or by crook. On the other hand, in a Participative Culture the goal is self actualization in harmony with others. It may be assumed that if an organisation develops Participative Culture then its members will feel pride for the organisation and will feel involved too. On the other hand, if an organisation has the quality of Manipulative Culture people will be loyal toward the organisation (at least apparently), but this loyalty in the lack of total involvement, cannot lead the organisation to the




path of success. Loyalty without identificaiton and involvement puts a question mark on the guarantee of success for the organisation.

REFERENCES

Angle, H.L. and Perry, J.L. (1981), "An Empirical Assessment of Organizational Commitment and Organizational Effectiveness", Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, 1-14.

Cook, J. And Wall, T. (1980), "New Attitude Measures of Trust, Organizational Commitment and Personal Need Fulfilment", journal of Occupational Psychology, 53, 39-52.

Cooke, R.A. and Lafferty, J.C. (1983), Level V: Organizational Culture Inventory - Form 1, Plymouth, MI : Human Synergistcs.

DeCotis, T.A. and Summers, T.P. (1987), "A Path Analysis of A Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Organizational Commitment", Human Relations, 40, (7), 445-470.

Denison, D.R. (1984), "Bringing Corporate Culture to the Bottom Line", Organizational Dynamics, Autumn, 5-22.

Etzioni, A. (1975), A Comparative Evaluation of Complex Organizations : On Power, Involvement and their Correlates, rev. ed., Free Press, New York.

Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, Attitude, and Intention in Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.

Harris, R.T. and Eoyang, C.K. (1977), "A Typology of Organizational Commitment", Working Paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Paper No. 957-77.

Homans, G. (1950), The Human Group, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York:

Koch, J.L. and Streers, R.M. (1978), "Job Attachment, Satisfaction, and Turnover Among Public Sector Employees", Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 12, 119-128.

Mills, T.M. (1967), The Sociology of Small Groups, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Engelwood Cliffs,.

Mott, P.E. (1972), The Characteristics of Effective Organization, Harper & Row, New York.

Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W. and Dublin, R. (1974), "Unit Performance, Situational Factors and Employee Attitudes in Spatially Separated Work Units", Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 12, 231-248.

Mowday, R.T., Steers R.M. and Porter, L.W. (1979), "The Measurement of Organizational Commitment", Journal of Vocational BeJiaviour, 14, 224-247.




Narain, D. (1967), "Indian National Character in the Twentieth Century", The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 370, 124 132.

Niehoff, B.P., Enz, CA. and Grover, R.A. (1990) " The Impact of Top Management Actions of Employee Attitudes and Perceptions", Group and Organization Studies, 15 (3), 337-352.

Porte?-, L.W., Steers, R.M., Mowday, R.T. and Boulian, P.V. (1974), "Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction and Turnover Among Psychiatric Technicians", Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 603-609.

Rousseau, D.M. (1990). "Normative Beliefs in Fund Raising Organizations: Linking Culture to Organizational Performance and Individual Responses", Group and Organizational Studies, 15, 448-460.

Schein, E.H. (1990), "Organizational Culture", American Psychologist, Vol. 45, No. 2, 109-119.

Singh, C.B.P. and Singh, R.R. (1994), "Managing People at Work Through Influence Tactics", Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 29 (3), 339-352.

Sinha, J.B.P. (1990), Work Culture in the Indian Context, Sage Publication, New Delhi.

Stebbins, R.A. (1970b), "On Misunderstanding the Concept of Commitment: A Theoretical Clarification", Social Forces, 48, 526-529.

Uttal, B. (1983), The Corporate Culture Vultures, Fortune.




Table 1 : Factor Loadings Obtained : Organisational Culture Measures

S.N. Items Factors*

(Cultural Styles) 1 2

02. Affiliative Culture .91 .05

03. Humanistic Helpful Culture .88 .03

05. Approval Culture .68 .51

06. Perfectionistic Cultgure .85 .27

07. Competitive Culture .76 .32

08. Conventional Culture .74 .39

09. Achievement Culture .95 -.09

11. Dependent Culture .77 .25

12. Self-Actualizing Culture .89 -.01

01. Oppositional Culture .14 .80

04. Power Culture .47 .68

10. Avoidance Culture -.18 .85

Eigen Value 6.99 1.96

Percentage of Variance 58.3 16.3

Cumulative Percentage 58.3 74.6

*Factor l=Participative Culture; Factor 2=Manipulative Culture.




Table 2: Descriptive Statistics, Alphas, and Intercorrelations of Organisational Culture Measures (N=200)

DIMENSIONS 1 2

1. Participative Culture (.95)

2. Manipulative Culture .33** (.72)

MEAN 41.12 11.69

SD 7.04 1.86

NUMBER OF ITEMS 9 3

RANGE 9-63 3-21

** = p < .01

Note: Figures in parentheses include coefficients alpha.




Table 3 : Factor Loadings Obtained : Organisational Commitment Measures

SR. No.

Items Factors* 2

01. I am quite proud to be able to tell .68 .11 -.25 people who it is I work for

05. I feel myself to be part of the .78 -.02 .18 organization

06. In my work I like to feel I am .78 .11 .17 making some effort, not just for

myself but for the organization as well

07. The offer of a bit more money .51 -.19 .40 with another employer would not seriously make me think of

changing my job

09. To know that my own work had .81 .00 -.07 made a contribution to the good of organization would please me

02. I sometimes feel like leaving -.01 .64 .28 the employment for good (Reversed)

03. I am not willing to put myself .07 .88 -.12 out just to help the organization (Reversed)

04. Even if the firm were not doing .02 .03 .91 too well financially, I would be reluctant to change to another

employee

Eigen Value 2.65 1.37 1.21 Percentage of Variance 29.5 15.3 13.4 Cumulative Percentage of 29.5 44.7 58.2 Variance

Factor 1 = Identification with Involvement; Factor 2 = Calculative

Commitment; Factor 3 = Loyalty.




Table 4 : Descriptive Statistics, Alphas, and Intercorrelations of Commitment Measures

DIMENSION 1 2 3

1. Identification with (-75) Involvement

2. Calculative Commitment -.06 (.41)

3. Loyalty .49** -.01 (.34)

MEAN 26.77 8.38 8.09

SD 5.94 2.88 2.77

NUMBER OF ITEMS 5 2 2

RANGE 5-35 2-14 2-14

** = p < .01

Note: Figure in parentheses include coefficients alpha.




Table 5 : Means and SDs of Effectiveness Scale

Items Mean SD

1. Quantity 3.16 1.12

2. Quality 2.44 1.03

3. Efficiency 2.94 0.89

4. Efficiency 3.24 0.94

5. Flexibility 3.10 1.06

6. Flexibility 2.93 1.16

7. Adaptability 2.93 1.07

8. Adaptability 3.27 1.02

Table 6: Zero-Order Correlations Between Organisational Culture Factors and Organisational Commitment Factors

Organisational Organisational Culture Cmmitment

CC LT

Participative .27** .05 .11 Culture

Manipulative .10 .13* .29** Culture

* = p < .05** = p < .01 II = Identification with Involvement; CC = Calculative Commitment; LT =

Loyalty




Table 7 : Stepwise Regression Analysis Results of Organisational Culture (Predictor) and Organisational Commitment (Criterion Variable)

Commitment Culture

Participative Manipulative

1. Identification with Involvement

R .49

R2 .02

Beta .17**

Order 1

2. Calculative Commitment

3. Loyalty

R .29

R2 Change .08

Beta .29**

Order 1

= p < .01




Table 8 : Stepwise Regression Analysis Results of Organisational Culture (Predictor) and Effectiveness (Criterion Variable)

Effectiveness Culture

Participative Manipulative

Quantity

R .57

R2 Change .08

Beta .28**

Order 1

Qualify R .41

R2 Change .04 Beta .19**

Order 1

Adaptability

R .60

R2 Change .03

Beta -.18*

Order 1

= p < .01



organisational culture and commitment

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