Organisational Culture and Employee Performance

Human Resources Management / Organisational Culture and Employee Performance

Organisational Culture and Employee Performance

Research Background
Many business managers that love reading would definitely know about some of the famous
and bestselling business books such as In Search of Excellence by Peters & Waterman (1988)
or Built to Last: Successful Habits Of Visionary Companies authored by Collins & Porras
(1994). Reading these best-selling business management books would likely convince the
reader about the importance of corporate culture or organisational culture in affecting firm
performance or business success. In other words, the key theme of these popular books is that
organisational culture is the determinant of corporate success and effectiveness.

From the academic point of view as well, there are many arguments and theories as well on
how organisational culture may affect firm performance or the possibility to attain
competitive advantage within a competitive industry (Akdere & Schmidt, 2007; Baird,
Harrison & Reeve, 2007; Freiling & Fichtner, 2010; Gardner, 1999; Levin, 2000). In a way, it
can be understood that organisational culture is a very important construct to be studied or
managed properly, as to contribute to better organisational performance.

Within such a context, one of the areas within the context of organisational culture is about
how organisational culture may affect employee performance. Some of the previous studies
available on examining about the relationships between organisational cultures to employee
performance include the following: Paarlberg (2007), Uddin, Luva & Hossian (2013) and
Tziner, Shultz & Fisher (2008).
While there are indeed some studies available that indicates the importance or impact of
organisational culture on employee performance, there is however none of such studies
available within the context of China. In other words, the impacts or possible influence of
organisation culture towards employee performance within organisations in China is
unknown. Such gap in the literature will be addressed in this essay.

Overview of this Essay

Organisational culture is often perceived as one of the sources of competitive advantage,
above average performance or the determinants of business success. It is often through strong
organisational culture that a company able to achieve its intended mission and vision (Peters
& Waterman, 1988; Schein, 1992; Collins & Porras, 1994; Akdere & Schmidt, 2007; Kissack
& Callahan, 2010; Prenestini & Lega, 2013; Pinho, 2014). This chapter will present the
foundational information on organisational culture, through a review of the materials within
the academic literature. For that, this chapter will be structured in the following sequence:

 A review on the concept and definitions pertaining to organisational culture

 The various dimensions of organisational culture
 The importance of organisational culture in the context of business management
 The different types of organisational culture
 The ‘Organisational Culture Profile’ framework
 Empirical evidences related to organisational culture

Defining Organisational Culture

From the review of the literature, it can be noticed that there are many scholarly journals on
the topic related to organisational culture. However, the review of these materials had also
found that there is a lack of consensus agreement on the definition of organisational culture.
In other words, the different scholars had defined the term ‘organisational culture’ differently.
In order to get a grasp on the concept of organisational culture, some of the definition
available within the scholarly literature will be presented. This is shown in Table below.

Table 1: Definitions of Organisational Culture

Scholars Definitions Provided

Organisational culture is the pattern of basic assumptions which a
particular group of people had created or developed in the process of
dealing with its problems of external adaptation and internal
Schein (1983: p. 15)
integration, which have worked well enough to be considered valid,
and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to
perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems
Organizational culture is the pattern of shared values and beliefs that
Deshpande & Webster
assist people to comprehend the organizational functioning and the
(1989: p. 5)
behavioural norms within an organisation
Meyerson & Martin
Culture is the subjective side of organisational life.
(1987: p. 2)
Organisational culture is the deeper level of basic assumptions and
beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation, that operate
Schein (1990)
unconsciously, and that define in a basic “take for granted” fashion
and organisation’s view of itself and its environment
Organisational culture is about the ways people execute tasks within
Smith (2003, p. 251)
an organisation, that include the basic values, rites and rituals within
the organisation, which eventually influence the company’s climate
within an organisation.
Culture is about the values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of
Taormina (2008: p. 86)
people.
Organisational culture is a dynamic phenomenon that surrounds
people at all times, being constantly enacted and created by people
Barclay (2010: p. 2) interactions with others and shaped by leadership behaviour, which
eventually gave rise to a set of structures, routines, rules, and norms
that guide and constrain behaviour
Organisational culture is the shared values, assumptions, artefacts,
Kissack & Callahan
language, and rituals that determine how business is being conducted
(2010: p. 367)
within an organisation
Du Plessis, Visagie & Organisational culture is the pattern of beliefs and values, rituals and
Wijnbeek (2011, p. 16) sentiments that is shared by the members of an organisation, which
affect the behaviours of all individuals and groups within an
organisation.
Organisational culture is the underlying values, beliefs, and
principles that serve as foundation for the organization’s
Lo (2012: p. 153)
management system as well as the set of management practices and
behaviours that both exemplify and reinforce those basic principles.
Carlström & Ekman Culture is about the corporate values that are ‘embodied’ in
(2012: p. 178) individuals of which are also shared by the collective

Overall, it can be seen that there are many different definitions or varieties of definitions on
organisational culture within the literature. However, it can be seen that these definitions
indeed shared similar connotation or theme. For that, organisational culture is often regarded
as something that is about:

 The underlying assumptions, values, beliefs or rituals adopted by people

 Cultures are often taken for granted
 The cultures affect the attitudes and behaviours of people
 Culture governs how business is conducted within an organisation

Dimensions of Organization Culture

Aside from that, it is also possible to better comprehend the concept of organisational culture
by understanding about the various dimensions of organisation culture. Through
understanding about the dimensionality of cultures, it is possible to better comprehend the
concept of culture – which will be important for the discussion within this dissertation. For
that, the discussions or frameworks presented by the different scholars on organisational
culture will be presented in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Dimensions of Organisation Culture

Scholars Dimensions
Aggressiveness

Attention to details

Innovation

O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell (1991) Outcome orientation

Respect for people

Stability

Team orientation
Communication

Innovation

Carmeli (2005) Job challenge

Social cohesion

Trust
Competitiveness

Emphasis on rewards

Innovation

Zachariadou, Zannetos & Pavlakis (2013) Performance orientation

Social responsibility

Stability

Supportiveness

Overall, the discussion above shows that organisation culture can be investigated and
analysed from many different dimensions. In other words, organisation culture is a multi-
dimensional construct. With that understanding, it is crucial to research organisational culture
from multiple dimensions, for better accuracy of research findings. For that, as will be later
discussed further, the framework of organisation culture as developed by O’Reilly, Chatman
& Caldwell (1991) will be employed. Such framework is also known widely as the
Organisational Culture Profile. As shown in Table 2 above, such a model postulates that
organisation culture can be divided into these dimensions: aggressiveness; attention to
details; innovation; outcome orientation; respect for people; stability; and team orientation.

Importance of Organisation Culture

There are many ideas or theories on why organisation culture can be very important. For that,
a review on the importance of organisation culture will be provided, as to better understand
on the contribution or effects of organisational culture on the various outcomes pertaining to
an organisation. In such a perspective, the importance of organisation culture includes the
following:

 To provide common and shared understandings between workforce (Levin &

Gottlieb, 2009; DiBella, 1996)
 To provide implicit guidance on employees on how to make decision during
execution or carrying out a business task (Akdere & Schmidt, 2007; Goddard, 1997)
 To unite and integrate the various functional divisions within an organisation (Levin,
2000)
 The right culture can contribute to employee satisfaction and employee commitment
(Silverthorne, 2004)
 The right culture can motivate employee for better performance (Pool, 2000;
Jashapara, 2003)
 Assist and support the execution of corporate strategy (Baird, Harrison & Reeve,
2007)
 To support the innovation initiatives among employees (Kenny & Reedy, 2006)
 To chart the learning process among the workforce (Freiling & Fichtner, 2010)
 To guide corporate change management for better performance (DiBella, 1996)
 Contribute to better profitability of financial performance (Akdere & Schmidt, 2007;
Zabid, Sambasivan & Johari, 2003; Goddard, 1997)
 Culture charts the progress and evolution of a firm (Olasupo, 2011)
 To contribute to stability, continuity and predictability of organizational life (Alston
& Tippett, 2009; Rijal, 2010)

Overall, as can be seen from the discussion presented above, it can be understood that
organisation culture is indeed an important component or determinant of organisational
outcomes. It is crucial as it will not only affect the financial performance of a firm, but also
the non-financial performance of a firm, such as on issues related to: growth, innovation,
learning, motivation, employee commitment, employee satisfaction, and sustainability of a
firm. However, it is also noted that not all sort of organisation culture may affect firm
performance or outcomes positively. In other words, some culture may contribute to firm
performance while some other culture may not. To better understand about such issue, a
review of the different types of organisational culture will be carried out in the subsequent
section.
Types of Organisation Culture
It is unavoidable that different organisations have different organisation culture, as there are
virtually too many different ways on how the different shared behaviours, assumptions,
routines, belief and norms affect the people within an organisation. For that, scholars had
tried to investigate and characterise the different types of organisation cultures available.
Through understanding how the different organisation culture may affect different firms
differently, it is possible to better understand how the different culture may exert different
impacts on an organisation. To better review on the types of organisation culture as discussed
by scholars, the models or theories developed by the different scholars in characterising the
types of organisational culture will be presented in Table 3 below.

Table 3: Types of Organisation Culture

Scholars Types of Organisation Culture

Work-hard-play-hard culture

Tough macho culture

Deal and Kennedy (1982)
Process culture

Bet-the-company culture
Power culture

Role culture
Harrison & Stokes (1992)
Achievement culture

Support culture
Bureaucratic culture
Chung-Ming, Tse & Zhou
Clan culture
(2002)
Entrepreneurial culture

Market culture
Power culture

Harrison (2004), Lysons Role culture

(2000), Easton (1996),
Muafi (2009) Task culture

People culture
Sharimllah, Siong & Ismail
Clan culture
(2011)
 Adhocracy culture

Hierarchical culture

Market culture

From the information presented above, it can be seen that there are indeed many different
types of organisation culture, albeit the different scholars may employed or developed
different models or frameworks in their respective research into organisation culture. For that,
one of the common or widely accepted ways to better analysed the types of organisation
culture available is the instrument of Organisational Culture Profile as developed by
O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell (1991). As will be discussed later in the subsequent section,
such instrument is useful in characterising the corporate culture of an organisation – of which
it will offer insights to researchers or even practitioners on the types of organisation culture
available within a firm. The instrument will be employed within this dissertation, in order to
research into the organisation culture of China Coal Energy Pte Ltd. The discussions
pertaining to such instrument will be presented below.

Organisational Culture Profile Model

Overview of the Instrument

The instrument of Organisational Culture Profile (OCP) was developed by O’Reilly,

Chatman & Caldwell (1991), and is useful to analyse the organisation culture of a firm or
company. It is also one of the most widely employed instruments within the context of
academic research into the issues related to organisation culture. For example, some of the
studies or scholars that had employed the instrument include the following: Baird, Harrison &
Reeve (2007); Baird, Kristal & Reeve (2011); Hillary & O’Reilly (2007); Sarros, Gray,
Densten & Cooper (2005); Teh, Boerhannoeddin & Ismail (2012); Vandenberghe (1999); as
well as Zachariadou, Zannetos & Pavlakis (2013).

The very initial reason for the development of Organisational Culture Profile (OCP) by
O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell (1991) in order to examine if a particular employee can fit
well within certain organisation culture; as it is believed that the person-organisation fit is
crucial in affecting the performance of an employee. This is because every individual has
their respective values and belief system, and that will affect their interaction with the others
in a group, team or organisation. For that, it is important that the personal value of an
employee fit the organisation value of an organisation, of which the organisation’s value is
one of the core elements that affect or constitute the organisation culture (O’Reilly, Chatman
& Caldwell, 1991). Concerning such, a review of the model of Organisational Cultural
Profile (OCP) will be further provided in the next paragraphs.

The Dimensionality of Organisational Culture

Under the model of Organisation Cultural Profile (OCP), it is postulated that organisational
culture can be characterised using a total of seven dimensions, of which such notion had been
discussed earlier; that organisation culture is a multi-dimensional construct. To explain, under
the model of Organisation Cultural Profile (OCP), the seven dimensions of organisational
culture include the following: (i) aggressiveness, (ii) attention to details, (iii) innovation, (iv)
outcome orientation, (v) respect for people, (vi) stability, and (vii) team orientation. Under
such a model, the organisation culture of a particular company can be accessed or gauged by
examining about the scores of the each and every dimensions of organisational culture as
outlined above. It is from such a score that the organisational culture of the company can be
measured, or even to be compared to the organisational culture of other companies.

Then, under each of these dimensions, various items were developed to access the score
achieved by a company on that particular dimension. In the model, these various items were
actually the respective organisational values that describe a particular dimension of
organisational culture (O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell, 1991). As shown in Table 5 below,
the seven cultural dimensions as postulated under Organisation Cultural Profile (OCP), as
well as the various organisation values that characterise or describe each of these dimension
are presented.

Table 4: Cultural Dimensions and the Respective Organisation Values

Cultural Dimensions The Respective Items or Values

Ø Aggressive

Aggressiveness Ø Competitive

Ø Socially responsible
Ø Precise

Attention to details Ø Analytical

Ø Attention to detail
Ø Innovation

Ø Opportunities

Ø Experimenting
Innovation
Ø Risk taking

Ø Careful

Ø Rule oriented
Ø Achievement oriented

Ø Action oriented
Outcome orientation
Ø High expectations
 Ø Result oriented
Ø Respect for individuals

Respect for people Ø Fairness

Ø Tolerance
Ø Stability

Ø Predictability
Stability
Ø Security

Ø Rules and regulations

Ø Team oriented

Team orientation Ø Collaboration

Ø People oriented

Previous Studies Employing Organisational Culture Profile (OCP)

There are some studies being conducted based on the use of Organisational Culture Profile
(OCP). To better understand how the other scholars or researchers had employed the tool of
Organisational Culture Profile (OCP), a review of those previous studies that had employed
such instrument will be reviewed and then discussed. These studies will be presented
accordingly in Table 4 below.

Table 5: Studies Using Organisational Culture Profile (OCP)

Scholars Discussions
A study was conducted via the use of both OCP instrument and the
model of Big 5 Personality. It is found that job seekers indeed do
Judge & Cable (1997)
consider about the organisation values of the organisation, when
considering about the jobs offer.
A study was conducted to examine about the impact of person-
organisation fit may affect the employee turnover situations. Based
Vandenberghe (1999)
on the instrument of OCP, it is found that congruency of person-
organisation fit can reduce employee turnover rate.
The organisational culture of accounting firms in French were
Christian & François examined (through the use of OCP), It is found that these firms
(2005) score highly on these cultural dimensions: (i) innovation, (ii)
respect for humans, (iii) results orientation, and (iv) stability.
The researcher had employed OCP within the study of how person-
Castiglia (2006)
organisation fit may affect the conditions of employees. It is found
 that better person-organisation fit can affect job satisfaction and
commitment.
Through the use of OCP in surveying about the importance of
person-organisation fit. Through such study, it is found that when
Hillary & O’Reilly
an employee fit the organisational culture, the particular employee
(2007)
would tend to have better outcomes (such as: satisfaction,
commitment, and engagement).
OCP was employed to characterise the organisational culture of
Australian companies. From the OCP model, it is found that many
Baird, Harrison & Reeve
of the Australian companies can be characterised by two
(2007)
dimensions, namely: (i) outcome orientation as well as (ii) respect
for people.
Borg, Groenen, Jehn, The validity and reliability of OCP was examined. The usefulness
Bilsky & Schwartz of OCP was ascertained. The model is found to be feasible to
(2009) support the research into issue such as person-organisation fit.
The impact of organisational culture towards the effectiveness of
Total Quality Management (TQM) implementation was examined.
Through the use of OCP, it is found that firms that score highly on
Baird, Kristal & Reeve
certain cultural dimensions, such as: (i) innovative, (ii) outcome
(2011)
orientation, (iii) respect for people, and (iv) teamwork; tend to be
more successful in the adoption and implementation of Total
Quality Management (TQM).
The impact of organisational culture (through the use of OCP
instrument) towards affecting the performance appraisal process
within higher educational institution was examined. It is found that
Teh, Boerhannoeddin & organisational culture indeed does have significant effects on the
Ismail (2012) performance appraisal process. Aside from that, the validity of the
OCP instrument is examined. It is found that it is indeed a valid
instrument to be used reliably in investigating or describing the
culture of even an educational entity.

Overall, the previous studies by other researchers or academic scholars found the following:

 OCP is a valid and reliable tool or instrument to be used in research concerning study
into organisational culture. Specifically, OCP can be used to examine about the
organisational culture of a firm.
 There are evidences supporting the importance of person-organisation fit.
 There are evidences that organisational culture can affect outcomes of a company,
such may include the performance of employees, or even the execution of certain
management practices such as Total Quality Management (TQM).

From such findings, it is therefore reasonable to argue that the instrument of Organisational
Cultural Profile (OCP) is a valid tool to be used within the conduct of research in this
dissertation – given that many of the academic studies available had offer support towards the
validity and reliability of such a tool in characterising or explaining the organisational culture
of a particular organisation. With that, such a tool is indeed relevant and suitable for the
conduct of this particular research; and the selection of such instrument in the examination of
organisational culture of China Coal Energy Pte Ltd. is appropriate and sensible.

Employee Performance
In the first part of the literature review, intensive review on materials related to organisational
culture, specifically focusing on the instrument or research related to Organisational Cultural
Profile (OCP) was performed. In the second part of this chapter, the focus is however on the
construct of employee performance, given that the construct of employee performance is yet
another important issue examined or researched within this study.

Defining Employee Performance

Broadly speaking, employee performance can be interpreted as the degree of productivity of

employee, which will eventually affect the performance or effectiveness of an organisation
(Hameed & Waheed, 2011). Then, there is also view that employee performance is about
how the work produced by an employee can add value to the achievement of organisation
mission or goals (Tekeli & Pasaoglu, 2011; Njanja, Maina, Kibet & Njagi, 2013).

It would be self-explanatory that employee performance is important, as the performance of

an employee will eventually exert effects on the various organisational outcomes and
organisational performance (Behn, 2003; Yurchisin & Park, 2010). Indeed, as argued by
Nafei (2013), research into employee performance is becoming more important in recent
years given that the business environment is becoming more competitive, and that demand
the management to enhance the competitiveness of a business entity by leveraging on the
performance of employees. This is even more relevant when considering that under the era of
knowledge economy that businesses are experiencing nowadays, employees are the main
resources of an organisation, which represent one of the single biggest investment within
corporations (Schraeder & Jordan, 2011; Kowalewski & Phillips, 2012). In other words, the
employee is the critical resources to be properly managed and leveraged for competitive
advantage, and hence the importance of employee performance related issues in the field of
business management.

Overall, the importance of employee performance is demanding management to pay attention

to such issue, and it is also one of the reasons that such issue is researched and examined
within this dissertation. In the next section however, discussion will focus on how the
construct of employee performance can be a multi-dimensional construct.

Dimensions of Employee Performance

It is not hard to comprehend that employee performance is a multi-dimensional construct. For

that, many different scholars had tried to model about employee performance and suggested a
variety of frameworks to model about employee performance. For instance, Hunt (1996)
argued that the performance of an employee can be assessed from two broad dimensions,
which include: (i) minimum performance behaviours, and (ii) organisational citizenship
behaviours. To explain, the concept of ‘minimum performance behaviours’ is about the
performance required from a particular employee, so that the employee is actually meeting
the minimal requirements to stay within the employment relationship with the employer.
Some of such issues include the self-discipline of employee as well as the attendance of
employees. Then, ‘organisational citizenship behaviours’ is about the performance of an
employee that would be the valued added provided by the employee to the organisation.
Some of such elements include: work ethics or schedule flexibility of an employee in
attending to the needs of the organisation. Aside from that, scholars such as Biswas & Varma
(2012) however argued that employee performance can be examined from two broad
dimensions, which are: in-role and extra-role. Specifically, it is explained that in-role
performance refers to an employee’s action to fulfil the requirements of his job description;
while extra-role performance refers to actions outside the formal role requirements and are at
the employee’s discretion. Yet, from another point of view, Carr (1993) however suggested
that the performance of a manager can be measured from three main dimensions, which are:
productivity, teamwork, and entrepreneurship (creativity). Other than that, scholars such as
Tran & Davis (2013) had also discussed that it is also possible to examine the construct of
performance from these dimensions: financial performance, business performance and
strategic performance.

The concept of employee performance as multi-dimensional construct is also well

acknowledged in actual workplace. Indeed, it is also a wide practice that employee
performance in the actual workplace is measured from multiple dimensions. For example, as
discussed in Jensen, Luthans, Lebsack & Lebsack (2007), some of the dimensions measured
by Human Resources Department (within a particular company of which the scholars were
examining) include the following: the service quality offered to customers, The productivity
of a particular employee, the flexibility of an employee, the quality of work produced,
willingness to go the extra mile, reliability of a particular employee, and the working
relationships of a particular employee with the others in workplace.

Overall, the discussion presented above indicates the nature of employee as multi-
dimensional construct. For that, the issue concerning employee performance within this
dissertation will also be examined from multiple dimensions. Nevertheless, a review on how
some factors may affect employee performance will be reviewed as well, in the next section.
This is critical as aside from organisational culture, there are many other factors that may
affect employee performance. Such discussion will be presented accordingly below.

Factors Affecting Employee Performance

In this dissertation, it is postulated that organisational culture can affect employee

performance. However, it is also crucial to ware of how many other factors aside from
organisational culture can be significant in affecting employee performance. Given that
awareness, a review on the literature on how some other factors may affect employee
performance will also be carried out and discussed. To tidy up the research findings on
materials within such context, how the different factors may affect employee performance are
presented accordingly in Table 6 below.

Table 6: Factors Affecting Employee Performance

Category Factors Empirical Evidences Available/ Scholars

Individual Diet of employee · Edwards (1993)
factors · Avey, Nimnicht & Nancy (2010)
Employee psychological
well-being
· Albrecht (2012)

· Baptiste (2008)

· Robertson, Alex & Cooper (2012)

· Shi, Chen & Zhou (2011)
Personality of employee
· Sawyerr, Srinivas & Wang (2009)

· Tracey, Sturman & Tews (2007)

Employee ability · Cheng & Kalleberg (1996)
· Zhen, Tsui & Farh (2002)

· Becker, Billings, Eveleth & Gilbert (1996)

Employee commitment
· Sharma, Borna & Stearns (2009)

· Dhammika, Ahmad & Sam (2012)

· Biswas (2011)
Employee motivation · Cheng & Kalleberg (1996)
· Endres & Mancheno-Smoak (2008)

· Markos & Sridevi (2010)

· Mone, Eisinger, Guggenheim, Price &

Employee engagement
Stine (2011)

· Anitha (2014)

· Robertson, Alex & Cooper (2012)

Self-confidence · Jong, Ko & Wetzels (2006)
· Jensen, Luthans, Lebsack & Lebsack
Optimism
(2007)
Employee emotional
· Kahtani (2013)
intelligence
Employee cultural
· Nafei (2013)
intelligence
Political skills · Chaudhry, Ashraf & Jaffri (2012)
Feedback-seeking
· Asumeng (2013)
behaviours
· Cheng & Kalleberg (1996)
Job design
Job related
issue · Sekiguchi, Burton & Sablynski (2008)
 · Albrecht (2012)

· Ali & Zia-ur-Rehman (2014)

· Sargent & Terry (1998)

Job-person fit · Scroggins (2008)
· Namasivayam (2003)

· Biswas & Varma (2012)

· Mofoluwake & Oluremi (2013)

Job satisfaction · Ing-San & Der-Jang (2005)

· Jaksic & Jaksic (2013)

· Maharani, Troena & Noermijati (2013)

· Dhammika, Ahmad & Sam (2012)

· Mofoluwake & Oluremi (2013)
Job stress
· Ko, Wetzels & Feinberg (2001)
Goal setting · Wong, Nerstad & Dysvik (2014)
Career management · Noe (1996)
· Sharkie (2009)

· Biswas & Varma (2012)

Leadership · Wong, Nerstad & Dysvik (2014)

· Jam, Rehman, Kamran & Yameen (2012)

· Liaw, Chi & Chuang (2010)

· Maharani, Troena & Noermijati (2013)

Supervisor
Mentoring · Orpen (1997)
related issues
· Chieh-Peng & Chun (2004)

· Michael, Leschinsky & Gagnon (2006)

· Topper (2007)
Interaction with supervisor
· Orpen (1995)

· Zhen, Tsui & Farh (2002)

· Houger (2006)
Workplace Workplace spirituality · Osman-Gani, Hashim & Yusof (2013)
factors
Workplace bullying
Workplace environment
Compensation and reward
Salary equity
Performance appraisal
Employee empowerment
Employee participation and
involvement
Corporate ethics
Corporate or organisational
climate
Organisational support
Training and development
· Fachrunnisa, Adhiatma & Mutaminah
(2014)
· Devonish (2013)
· Pearce & Randel (2004)
· Sizoo, Plank, Iskat & Serrie (2005)
· Francesco & Zhen (2004)
· Ashraf, Bashir, Bilal, Ijaz & Usman (2013)
· Evbuoma (2008)
· Kowalewski & Phillips (2012)
· Mochama (2013)
· Njanja, Maina, Kibet & Njagi (2013)
· Hameed, Ramzan, Hafiz & Al (2014)
· Werner & Mero (1999)
· Mochama (2013)
· Swiercz, Bryan, Eagle, Bizzotto & Renn
(2012)
· Gardiner (1996)
· Biswas (2011)
· Pereira & Osburn (2007)
· Biong, Nygaard & Silkoset (2010)
· Nygaard & Biong (2010)
· Biswas & Varma (2012)
· Suliman & Harethi (2013)
· Sharma, Borna & Stearns (2009)
· McKay, Avery & Morris (2008)
· Jayawardana & O’Donnell (2010)
· Nguyen & Hanzel (2007)
· Shiryan, Shee & Stewart (2012)
· Bapna, Langer, Mehra, Gopal & Gupta
 (2013)

· Hameed & Waheed (2011)

· Bae & Patterson (2013)

Integrated information
· Raj, Walia & Gill (2011)
system
· Assis & Assis (2012)
Total Quality Management
(TQM) Practices
· Justine & Uchechi (2012)
· Zhang, Di Fan & Zhu (2014)
High Performance Work
· Macky & Boxall (2008)
Practices (HPWP)
· Wu, Wei, Zhang & Han (2011)
· Gyu-Chang & Jong-Sung (2006)

· Ghebregiorgis & Karsten (2007)

· Daniel (2010)
Human Resources
· Uysal (2014)
Management Practices
· Mishra & Sarkar (2013)

· McCarthy & Garavan (2001)

· Kagaari, Munene & Joseph (2010)

Overall, the intensive review on how other factors may affect employee performance had
found that it is indeed complicated on how different factors may affect employee
performance. These different factors can be however be categorised into these dimensions,
such as: individual characteristics or related factors, job related factors, supervisor related
factors or even workplace factors. Having such understandings is indeed crucial to put the
research carried out within this dissertation into better perspective, as organisational culture is
one of the many critical factors that can affect employee performance. Nevertheless, to
survey deeper into how organisational culture may affect employee performance, a review on
the empirical evidences available on how organisational culture can affect employee
performance will be presented accordingly in the subsequent section. This is crucial as both
‘organisational culture’ and ‘employee performance’ are crucial constructs being examined
within this dissertation.

Relationships between Organizational Culture and

Employee Performance
There are indeed some empirical evidences found by scholars on how organisational culture
can affect employee performance. In order to supplement the discussions within this research,
a review of such evidences will be briefly provided.

First of all, in the study carried out by Paarlberg (2007), the impacts of customer orientation
culture towards employee performance, within governmental bodies were investigated.
Through the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods, with research participants as
the civilian employees at a Department of Defence; it is found that a workplace culture of
customer service orientation has a strong positive impact on employee performance and
motivation.

Then, in the research performed by Uddin, Luva & Hossian (2013), the effects of
organisational culture on employee performance and productivity; based on a case study of
telecommunication sector in Bangladesh was investigated. The company selected within the
case study is Grameenphone (GP), which is actually a subsidiary of Teleron in Norway. From
the research, it is found that organisational culture indeed exerts significantly influences
towards employee performance and productivity in the country.

Yet, in the research performed by Tziner, Shultz & Fisher (2008), the effects of
organisational culture towards issues such as leader-member exchange and organisational
justice, and then how both leader-member exchange and organisational justice may affect
employee performance was examined. From that research, it is found that two dimensions of
organisational culture, namely: employee supportiveness and attention to detail, would affect
both leader-member exchange and organizational justice; and those two issues in turn
indirectly affect employee performance.

From such review of the relevant studies on effects from organisational culture on employee
performance, it can be seen that evidences available support the impact of organisational
culture on employee performance. Nevertheless, such notion will be further examined within
this dissertation.

Summary
Overall, this essay had reviewed about the relevant literature on both ‘organisational culture’
and ‘employee performance’. From the intensive review on the two constructs, it is found that
both organisational culture and employee performance are crucial issues in the context of
modern business management. Then, both the construct are multi-dimensionality in nature. In
other words, both organisational culture and employee performance can be and indeed shall
be studied from multiple dimensions. Other than that, it is also discussed that different
organisations have different cultures; i.e., there are many types of organisational cultures.
Theoretically, different types of organisational culture would affect employee or
organisational outcomes differently. One of the common instrument or tool used by scholars
in the study on organisational culture is “Organisational Culture Profile (OCP)”. Under such
a tool, the various dimensions of organisational culture within an organisation were
examined. The scores on each of these dimensions of organisational culture, as achieved by a
particular organisation; will be used to explain and describe the culture available within an
organisation.
Yet from another perspective, it is also discussed that organisational culture is not the only
factor that may affect employee performance. In other words, many other different factors
may affect employee performance. These different factors can be categorised into these
dimensions, such as: individual characteristics or related factors, job related factors,
supervisor related factors or even workplace factors. Last but not least, a review of the
relevant studies in the past on relationships or effects from organisational culture on
employee performance was carried out and examined. It is found that evidences available
support the notion that there are impacts of organisational culture on employee performance;
or that both organisation culture and employee performance are related.

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