The role played by organizational culture on employees’ job satisfaction

abstract

Organizational culture has been characterized as the “glue that holds organizations together”. Culture can support linkages between technology adoption and organizational growth; it can be a critical success factor in organization growth strategy and play a crucial role in determining the success or failure of organization. The term ‘job satisfaction’ is quite frequently used for individual attitudes towards the specific aspects of total work situation.

The purpose of the present research was to explore the impact of organizational culture on employees’ job satisfaction at UBA Bank Cameroon. The specific objectives of the study were to identify the type of culture practised at UBA Bank, to determine the effect of the practice culture on employee’s job satisfaction at UBA Bank Cameroon and to determine the challenges, encounter by management in the preservation of existing culture at UBA Bank Cameroon.

The study employed a descriptive research design to sample 30 employees and staffs from UBA Bank Limbe head office using a structured-questionnaire through simple random and convenience sampling. Data was analysed using SPSS (21.0) where by descriptive statistics, correlation and regression test were carried out to calculate the relationship that exist between variables.

The study findings revealed that four major type of culture were practiced to a greater extent were hierarchical, clan, market and adhocracy culture. Inferential statistics revealed that there is a positive and significant correlation between organizational culture practiced and employees’ job satisfaction.

The study further revealed that major challenges faced by management in trying to maintain the culture of the organisation include; poor communication flow between top-level management and junior staffs, employees are excluded from the decision-making process, high rate of conflicts between staffs, problems take too long to be solved, and high rate of employees’ turnover. Based on the study findings, it was suggested that UBA Bank Cameroon should have a flexible culture and top management should use the decentralized technique of management so that employees at a low level have authority and power to decide any problem they face according to their authority.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The attention to organizational culture has increased in the late 1980s and early 1990s when US companies failed to compete with their Japan counterpart in terms of organisational effectiveness (Ojo, 2010). An organizational success or failure is largely dependent upon the given organizational culture (Sawner, 2000). It is frequently held accountable for organisational ills and, on occasions, praised for creating positive qualities (Baker, 2004). The available literature indicates that organisational culture has an impact on employee attitudes (Cameron and Quinn, 2011). In addition to this, various studies have shown the influence of organisational culture on job satisfaction and organisational commitment (Lok and Crawford, 2004; San and Kim, 2009).

Organisational culture has been characterized as the “glue that holds organizations together Culture can support linkages between technology adoption and organisational growth; it can be a critical success factor in organisation growth strategy and play a crucial role in determining the success or failure of the organisation (Sayeeduzzafaret al., 2017).

Organisational culture is the most important instrument for the success of an organization. A culture can generate a positive or negative way or affects the working environment. According to Goldstone, (2007), a strong organisational culture can generate motivation, responsibility and loyalty of employees to the organization. An organization must establish an organizational culture to maintain its position in the market.

For an organization to be successful both external and internal environment should be considered. Organisational culture is an important internal environmental aspect and a key concept that can lead an organisation either to success or to failure. Evidence has shown that organizational culture expresses the internal environment of an organization and reflects the extent of agreement between managers and employees’ beliefs, values and assumptions (Aycanet al.,1999). Analysis of the organisational culture helps identify the structure of the organisation and the values of the employees, essential elements in the implementation of leadership and management practices.

Organisational culture is quite complex. There are several problems and disagreements associated with the conceptualization of organisational culture. However, according to Luthons, (2005) most definitions recognize the importance of shared norms and values that guide the behaviour of the participants of the organisation. Culture has been depicting to be “software of the mind” that is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the member of one group or category of people from another (Drummond, 2000). On the contrary, Garcia et. al. (2004) affirms that organisational culture refers to how employees perceived their characteristics.

According to Schein, (1985), Organisational culture is the pattern of shared basic assumption invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel about those problems. Furthermore, organisational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by members, in the end distinguishing one organisation from the other (Robbins and Judge, 2007).

Cameron and Freeman (1991) identified four different types of cultures: clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, and market. Every organisation can and does have different aspects that identify their type of culture (Lund, 2003).

Also, organisational culture is a set of a value system that can enhance an organisation to run a successful business in a dynamic environment (Schhneider, 1983). Organizational culture has the power to glue the employees and helps to understand the functioning of the organisations by sharing its vision, mission, norms, values, rules, and regulation (Deshpande and Webster, 1989). Those employees who understand the organisational culture well will have greater job satisfaction (Li, 2013).

An organization must establish an organisational culture to maintain its position in the market. The organizational culture must be developed which may provide support to an organisation and bring continuous improvement. The culture of an organisation is very important for the progress of an organization because it impacts on employee commitment and its retention as well. If the culture of an organization is flexible it will provide such a working environment to employees in which they may work easily and independently without feeling any burden.

Job satisfaction is among the most studied concepts in organisational studies. Job satisfaction is a multidimensional construct with a variety of definitions and related concepts which have been studied since the beginning of the 20th century. Smith (1969) suggested that job satisfaction can be categorized based on an individual’s needs. Individuals are more satisfied when they feel that their abilities, values and experiences are adequately used in the organisation (Buitendach and De-Witte, 2005).

According to Lok and Crawford, (2004) organizational culture has a remarkable effect on employee’s commitment and performance. If the employees of the organisation have more understanding with the organisational culture, they will have more job satisfaction (Chang and Lee, 2007).

According to Hertzberg (1959) in his study, job satisfaction is a part of employee job; if it affects positively it motivates the employee to job satisfaction otherwise it leads to job dissatisfaction. Job satisfaction is the emotional ability of employee related to a positive and negative aspect of his job experiences, Locke (1969). The environment of an organisation and employee’s traits can influence its job satisfaction (Seasohore and Taber, 1975).

Continuance commitment makes sure that the employee will not quit the organisation and will not give a response to dissatisfaction and make sure that they remain with the organisation (Appelbaumet al., 2004). Job satisfaction has a very strong effect and it is almost inversely associated with employee’s intention to leave or stay in an organisation (Egan et al.,2004).

Culture has attracted some attention, mostly with regards to the effect that different types of it or its dimensions have on job satisfaction (McKinnon et al., 2003; and Silverthorne, 2004). This study following the suggestions of George and Jones (1996) looks into the effect that distinct organizational values have on job satisfaction, in an attempt to provide a clearer and more detailed picture of their relationship.

The expectation is that findings will enrich our knowledge regarding the organisational values that are critical for employees, foreseeing their job satisfaction and in turn influencing their career decisions (Vigoda-Gadot and Grimland, 2008). Thus this research will employ both qualitative and quantitative methods but emphasize will be mostly on the quantitative type. For addressing the objective of the study explanatory type of research will become the most appropriate.

The study will mostly be explanatory type. Therefore, this study will focus on analyzing the role play by organizational culture on employees’ overall job satisfaction, particularly the role of hierarchy, clan, market and adhocracy cultures.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Several reasons could be given for the failure of an organisation but none of them parallels organizational culture. The most frequently sighted reason given for the failure was a neglect of the organization’s culture. The major distinguishing features of top-performing organisations, their most competitive advantage, their powerful factor and their key ingredient in their success is considered to be their organisational culture.

Using Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), the banking industry (UBA) will be able to identify its current culture and its preferred culture. The management team of UBA Cameroon can exploit what employees identify, their perceptions on both existing culture and their desired future culture.

UBA is assumed to have well experienced and well-educated experts to achieve its goal. Nevertheless, UBA has been losing well-experienced employees from time to time. Such practices create the gap i.e. what is intended and what is on actual practices. As far as the researcher readings are concerned, there is no similar study conducted on the relationship between organisational culture type and employees job satisfaction at UBA, Cameroon.

A large number of studies have been conducted on the relationship between job satisfaction and other organizational variables; like organisational climate, organizational commitment, organizational performance and structure. Organisational culture has been studied about major organizational ideas and activities like creativity and innovation (Martins and Terblanche, 2003); productivity and quality (Mathew, 2007) and knowledge transfer (Lucas, 2006).

Notwithstanding the above investigation, few studies have been conducted on how employees’ job satisfaction is affected by organizational cultural dimensions and this attracted considerable attention for the study. Thus, the study will be to analyze the role organisational culture play on employees’ overall job satisfaction and examines the role each of the four organisational cultures has on employee’s job satisfaction taking UBA, Cameroon of Limbe as a case for this study.