Master Thesis
Amsterdam Business School
-Executive Programme in Management Studies-
‘What effect has a perceived organizational culture on employee outcomes?’
(Identifying the perceived organizational culture, using the Competing Values Framework approach)
Supervisor: Dhr. dr. M. Venus Name: M.I. Hooiveld
Student number: 11078189
2 Statement of Originality
This document is written by Monique Hooiveld who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
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Abstract
Purpose – The Competing Values Framework is one of the most influential and extensively used model in the area of organizational culture research. The efforts are seen not only as ways of improving employee morale or quality of work life, but also as vital for improving a firm’s financial performance. Due to a change in my workplace, I am interested in the effect of the perceived organizational culture on employee performance.
Design / methodology – In this research, a quantitative method is used and the data is collected with a survey. This survey is developed by combining several existing surveys, which are to be found online. The self-administered structured survey elected responses from employees on all levels on several issues, including perceived organizational culture, job satisfaction, innovation, role-clarity and goal motivation. Participation was voluntary for all employees and confidentiality of responses was assured.
Findings – This study did find significant positive relationships for three perceived organizational culture types. First, a perceived clan-oriented organizational culture is positive related to the level of job satisfaction. Second, a more adhocracy-oriented organizational culture leads to a higher level of innovative work behavior. And the degree of role clarity will be higher in a more hierarchy-oriented perceived organizational culture. Besides those hypotheses, two additional results are found: the level of job satisfaction is higher when the perceived organizational culture is adhocracy-oriented and when the perceived organizational culture is more hierarchy-oriented, the level of innovative work behavior will be lower.
Keywords Perceived Organizational Culture, Job Satisfaction, Role-Clarity, Innovative Work Behavior, Goal Motivation, Competing Values Framework
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Table of Contents
Abstract ... 3
1. Introduction ... 6
2. Literature review and hypotheses development ... 8
2.1 Competing Values Framework ... 8
2.2.1 Clan culture ... 12
2.2.2 Job satisfaction ... 12
2.2.3 Hypothesis 1 ... 13
2.3.1 Adhocracy culture ... 14
2.3.2 Innovative work behavior ... 14
2.3.3 Hypothesis 2 ... 15 2.4.1 Hierarchy culture ... 16 2.4.2 Role clarity ... 16 2.4.3 Hypothesis 3 ... 17 2.5.1 Market culture ... 18 2.5.2 Goal motivation ... 18 2.5.3 Hypothesis 4 ... 19 2.6. Conceptual model ... 21 3. Research design ... 22
3.1 Sample and data collection ... 22
3.2 Measurement Independent Variables ... 23
3.2.1 Measurement perceived clan culture ... 24
3.2.2 Measurement perceived adhocracy culture ... 24
3.2.3 Measurement perceived hierarchy culture ... 24
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3.3 Measurement Dependent Variables... 25
3.3.1 Measurement job satisfaction ... 25
3.3.2 Measurement innovative work behavior ... 25
3.3.3 Measurement role clarity ... 26
3.3.4 Measurement goal motivation ... 26
4. Results ... 28 4.1 Descriptive statistics ... 28 4.2 Normality analyses ... 29 4.3 Correlation analyses ... 30 4.4 Hypotheses testing ... 33 5. Discussion ... 37 5.1 Interpretation results ... 37
5.2 Theoretical and practical implications ... 39
5.3 Limitations and suggestions ... 41
6. Conclusion ... 44
References ... 45
Appendices ... 49
A. Survey ... 49
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1. Introduction
Understanding organizational culture is important because it is the single largest factor that inhibits organizational improvement and change (Cameron, 2005). Firms with strong cultures are pointed out as examples of excellent management (Peter & Waterman, 1982). The efforts are seen not only as ways of improving employee morale or quality of work life, but also as vital for improving a firm’s financial performance. The organization I work for, a recycling company for non-Ferro metals, is a fast-growing company that was founded seven years ago in 2010. At the time, the founder had no idea that it would perform so well and that they were growing from three employees to twenty-nine in the next four years. Moreover, the financial results are better than expected. Now, due to the small team and the fastness of the growth, the perceived organizational culture needs to change as well. When you have about five employees, a clan culture type can work but with an increase of more than twenty employees, this will be different. There are now strict rules and regulations to hold on to and the work performance of an employee is more important than the mutual relationships. Because of the changes I am interested in the level resistance employees may have, how they perceive the organizational culture and what the consequences could be on their work outcomes. However, there are not enough respondents to only investigate this within my organization, the outcomes would not be valid and reliable. Therefore, I will gather data from two other recycling companies in the Netherlands and by uploading the survey online, via Social Media, increase the sample size to a minimum of 100 respondents.
Some research has already been done with regards to the effect of the Competing Values Framework in organizations. Most of them are in a specific field like organizational climate models in hospitals (Ancarani, Mauro & Giammanco, 2009), to help leaders execute a transformational strategy (Hooijberg & Petrock, 1993), and studies of the interplay between organizational and national cultures in, for example, Canada and South Korea (Dastmalchian,
7 Lee & Ng, 2000). But there are similar investigations as well. Lund (2003) investigated the relation between organizational culture and job satisfaction. The results indicate job satisfaction levels varied across corporate cultural typology. Job satisfaction was positively related to clan, - and adhocracy cultures, and negatively related to market and hierarchy cultures. However, this research was done in Nevada (USA) and the respondents were marketing professionals, so the results could probably not be copied.
During the track Leadership & Management, the different organizational cultures got my attention and that is why I want to investigate the following research question: ‘What effect has a perceived organizational culture on employee outcomes?’ The effect of perceived organizational culture on job satisfaction, employee innovation, role clarity and goal motivation determined by using the Competing Values Framework. This thesis is structured as follows: In the next chapter a literature review is given. Thereafter, the theoretical framework and hypotheses are explained followed by the research question. Then the research design and results are presented. Finally, the discussion and conclusion of this study are given.
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2. Literature review and hypotheses development
This chapter describes the current state of the literature of the different variables used in this research. First, the literature of the framework Competing Values Framework is explained and reviewed followed by the variables job satisfaction, employee innovation, role clarity and the definition of goal motivation. These four variables were chosen after reading existing research and literature. As already mentioned, there is a lot existing research available on organizational culture and what the effect can be on employees. However, all researchers take one particular variable and test this variable with all types of cultures. For example, there is an Australian engineering consultancy company with a dominant market-oriented culture and the finding, which is considered in the light of recent research, identifies a positive relation with achieving construction quality outcomes (Igo & Skitmore, 2006). I am interested in all types of perceived organizational cultures and the predicted outcome, also because there is no organization that has just one typical organizational culture. It is always a mix of different cultures but one type of culture is predominant. That because it starts with that there is no one definition of organizational culture and different people think of different slices of reality when they talk about culture. The confusing part is that, unlike other concepts, culture does not have some true and scared meaning that is to be discovered (Sathe, 1983). Each opinion has its place, it is the perceived culture of an employee.
2.1 Competing Values Framework
Before explaining the Competing Values Framework, it is important to know what organizational culture is? Chenhall (2003) concludes in his study on culture by suggesting organizational culture may have greater impact on organizational structure compared to national culture. Organizational culture covers the shared values and norms inherent within a company and can be seen as a leadership tool where leaders identify their personal philosophies
9 and translate them in organizational values and norms. Early on, in 1984, Kimberly and Quinn already emphasized the importance of organizational culture. They stated that the character of organizational development is powerfully shaped by choices made about ideology, organizing, planning, learning, external relations with constituents, stakeholder influence and membership definitions. Culture can be institutionalized in three ways: first, through rewarding practices and activities that are consistent with desired values. Second, by staffing key positions with individuals who have a clear cultural bias. Thirdly, by developing new cultural norms in formal training events (Kimberly and Quinn, 1984). However, according to Rousseau (1990), scientists do not disagree on the definition nor the implementation of culture, but rather on how it is operationalized. Chenhall (2003), for example, states culture is only conceptualized as a set of isolated characteristics to suit the methodological and scientific needs of the research community. On the contrary, Uttal and Fierman (1983) state organizational culture is operationalized as the shared values that interact with an organization’s structures and control systems to produce behavioral norms.
In the present research, the Competing Values Framework (CVF) of Cameron and Quinn (2011) is used in order to categorize different perceived organizational culture types. CVF was originally developed through research on organizational effectiveness (Cameron & Quinn, 2011). The main purpose of the CVF is helping managers to understand, diagnose and facilitate the change of an organization’s culture in order to enhance its effectiveness. Many more frameworks are developed to analyze organizational culture and all frameworks have different dimensions to focus on. For example, Sathe (1983), Schein (1984) and Kotter & Heskett (1992) argued for cultural strength and congruence as the main cultural dimensions of interest. Deal and Kennedy (1983) proposed a dimension based on speed of feedback and a degree of risk dimension. Arnold and Capella (1985) developed a strong-weak dimension and an internal-external focus dimension. In the same year, Alpert and Whetten (1985) identified
10 a holographic versus ideographic dimension and Ernst (1985) argued for people orientation (participative versus non-participative) and response to the environment (reactive versus proactive). One reason so many dimensions have been proposed is that organizational culture is extremely broad and inclusive in scope (Cameron and Quinn, 2005). Culture comprises a complex, interrelated, comprehensive and ambiguous set of factors. Therefore, no framework can be argued to be right or wrong. Probably one of the most well-known studies in the Netherlands is the dimensions of Hofstede (1980). He focused on the social effects of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity. Organization theorists are slowly realizing their theories are much less universal than they once assumed: theories also reflect the culture of the society in which they were developed (Hofstede 1984). Hofstede has the following definition of culture ‘Culture consists of the patterns of thinking that parents transfer to their children, teachers to their students, friends to their friends, leaders to their followers, and followers to their leaders. Culture is reflecting in the meanings people attach to various aspects of life: their way of looking at the world and their role in it; in their values; in the way, they consider as good and as evil’ (Hofstede, 1984, page 82).
The CVF rests on two dimensions. The first dimension is flexibility versus stability, which differentiates flexibility, discretion and dynamism from stability, order and control. Meaning some organizations are viewed most effective if they are changing, adaptive and organic while other organizations are viewed most effective if they are stable, predictable and mechanistic (Cameron and Quinn, 2006). The second dimension represents the contrast between internal orientation, integration and unity on one hand and external orientation, differentiation and rivalry on the other hand (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983). That is, some organizations are viewed as more effective if they have harmonious internal characteristics, while other organizations are viewed as more effective if they are focused on interacting or competing with others outside their boundaries (Cameron and Quinn, 2006).
11 Those two dimensions form four organizational culture types: clan, adhocracy, hierarchy and market culture. (See figure 1). Each culture type is characterized by a particular set of shared beliefs, style of leadership, set of shared values that act as a bond or glue to its members. According to Denison and Spreitzer (1991) the Competing Values Framework does not attempt to highlight unique qualities of an organization but rather groups them into broad categories based on general characteristics shared by all organizational systems.
Figure 1: Competing Values Framework adapted from TruPath (2017)
While validating the usefulness of the four organizational cultures, Deshpande et al. (1993) emphasizes these culture types are modal or dominant ones rather than mutually exclusive ones. Most organizations can and do have elements of several types of cultures. As Cameron (1986) found, paradoxical combinations of values are often found in organizations. As a typology based on general characteristics of organizational cultures, this framework does not attempt to highlight the unique qualities of an organizations culture, but rather group cultures into broad categories based on general characteristics shared by all social systems (Hofstede, 1980; Ouchi, 1981). O’Neill and Quinn (1993) added the Competing Values
12 Framework received its name because the criteria within the four models seems, at first, to carry conflicting messeages. Organizations should be adaptable and flexible but also stable and controlled. Organizations want growth, resource acquisition and external support but they also want strong information management and formal communication. There is need for emphasis on the value of human resources but also on planning and goal setting. In any organization all of these are, to some extent, necessary. While the framework is divided into four entirely different dimensions or perspectives, these can be viewed as closely related and interwoven.
2.2.1 Clan culture
The clan culture, also called group culture, has a flexible and an internal focus (Cameron & Quinn 2011; Hartnell, Ou & Kinicki 2011). William Ouchi (1987) used the term clan to describe a control system based on socialization and internalized values and norms. The individuals’ long-term commitment to the organization (loyalty) is exchanged for the organizations long-term commitment to the individual (security). This relationship is predicated on mutual interests. Often old members of the clan serve as mentors and role models for younger members. It is through these relationships that the values and norms of the organization are maintained over successive generations of managers. The development of human resources and employee participation in decision-making are highly valued. Emphasis is placed on teamwork and cohesiveness.
2.2.2 Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction has been widely studied over the last four decades of organizational research (Currivan, 1999). In general, overall job satisfaction has been defined as a function of the perceived relationship between what one wants from their job and what one perceives it is offering (Locke, 1969). Because the overlap in the definition of job satisfaction and
13 organizational commitment, the following criteria are taken into consideration: commitment emphasizes attachment to the employing organization, including its goals and values, while satisfaction emphasizes the specific task environment where an employee performs his or her duties. In addition, organizational commitment should be more stable over time than job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is influenced by day-to-day events in the work place and that may affect an employee’s level of job satisfaction (Porter, 1974). For example, reactions to specific and tangible aspects of the work environment like salary and supervision. Job satisfaction is a popular variable to study given the number of researchers. Most of them use job satisfaction as a moderator or mediator, for example, with employee turnover and employee citizenship (Mobley, 1977; Bateman, 1983). I am curious to research the another perspective; if a company has a clan-oriented culture, will the employees feel happier directly or do the work activities have more influence on their satisfaction.
2.2.3 Hypothesis 1
Following Hooijberg and Petrock (1993) clan culture is characterized as a friendly place to work where people share a lot of themselves. Extended family, loyalty and tradition are key words. The organization emphasizes the long-term benefit of human resources development with high cohesion and morale being important. It is expected organizations dominated in clan culture are focused on employee well-being. Therefore, the following hypothesis is formulated:
H1: The more clan-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the level of job satisfaction.
14 2.3.1 Adhocracy culture
The adhocracy culture type combines informal governance with an external orientation (Cameron and Quinn, 1999). Firm members take risks in this dynamic and creative workplace. It is like a temporary institution, that is dismissed whenever the organizational tasks are ended, and reloaded rapidly whenever new tasks emerge. Individual initiative and spontaneity are highly valued. Adhocracy culture is in the quadrant external positioned: high degree of flexibility and individuality. It assumes change is inevitable. Individuals are motivated by the importance and ideological appeal of the tasks to be addressed. Unlike the clan culture, it is characterized by an emphasis on external positioning, a long-term frame, and achievement-oriented activities. The entrepreneur and innovator leadership styles are prevalent in adhocracy cultures; the bonding mechanisms emphasize innovation and development.
2.3.2 Innovative work behavior
Innovativeness in an organization can be broadly defined, ranging from the intention to be innovative to the capacity to introduce some new product, service or idea through to the introduction of processes and systems which can lead to enhanced business performance. Cultural openness is concerned with the organization’s cultural attention needed to recognize the need for employee innovation (Van de Ven, 1986). When employees are showing innovative work behavior, Farr and Ford (1990) define this concept as in individual’s behavior that aims to achieve the initiation and intentional introduction (within a work role, group or organization) of new and useful ideas, processes, products or procedures. Innovative work behavior has several dimensions, linked to different stages of the innovation process. For example, Kanter (1988) outlined three stages: idea generation, coalition building and implementation. Due to the broad scope of those stages, de Jong and den Hartog (2010) divided IWB into four stages: idea exploration, idea generation, idea championing and idea
15 implementation. The first stage is the discovery of an opportunity or some problem arising. It includes looking for ways to improve current products, services or processes or trying to think about them in alternative ways (Kanter, 1988; Farr and Ford, 1990). The second stage, idea generation, appears to be the combination and reorganization of information and existing concepts to solve problems or to improve performance. Once an idea has been generated, idea championing becomes relevant. Most ideas need to be promoted, as they often do not match what is already used. In the last stage, the idea needs to be implemented. Idea implementation also includes making innovations part of regular work processed (Kleysen & Street, 2001). There are several variables that can influence innovative work behavior, for example motivation, job demands and leadership styles. But also, a study on organizational climate as predictor of innovative work behavior (Imran & Saeed, 2010). However, an organizational climate is not the same as an organizational culture and in all the studies so far, climate is being used for the moderating power because it influences organizational processes such as problem solving, decision-making, communications, motivation and commitment (Ekvall, 2008). Up to now, there is no research or evidence that a specific culture stimulates innovative work behavior.
2.3.3 Hypothesis 2
Adhocracy culture is characterized as a dynamic, entrepreneurial and creative workplace. Employees stick their neck out and are willing to take risks. It has been found that levels of innovativeness in an organization are associated with cultures that emphasize learning development and participative decision-making (Hurley and Hult, 1998). Innovators are known for taking risks and therefore the following hypothesis is formulated:
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H2: The more adhocracy-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the level of innovative work behavior.
2.4.1 Hierarchy culture
Clear lines of decision-making authority, standardized rules and procedures, control and accountability mechanism characterize hierarchy culture. This culture can be traced to the image of bureaucracy in Weber’s (1947) works on modern organizational management. It emphasizes internal efficiency, uniformity, coordination and evaluation. The focus is on the logics of the internal organization and the emphasis is on stability. Leaders tend to be conservative and cautions, paying close attention to technical matters. Effectiveness criteria include control, stability, predictability, conformity and efficiency.
2.4.2 Role clarity
According to Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek and Rosenthal (1964), role clarity is defined as the degree to which individuals feel they have clear guidance about expected roles and behaviors associated with their job. Role clarity may be helpful for employees who experience high job demands because role clarity results in clear expectations. But role clarity can be operationalized in two ways. First, it can refer to the presence or absence of adequate role relevant information due to the restriction of the information or due to variations of the quality of the information. This is called objective role clarity. Role clarity and its opposite, ambiguity, can also refer to the subjective feeling of having as much or not as much role relevant information as the person would like to have (Lyons, 1971). Role clarity and ambiguity have been explored in hundreds of occupational stress studies. For example, Bliese and Castro (2010)
17 stated two hypotheses; (a) when supervisory support is high, high role clarity will buffer the negative relationship between demands and strain. And (b) when supervisory support is low, buffering effects of high role clarity will not be present. In some way, this is comparable to this research. A hierarchical culture consists of layers of employees, tasks and functions.
2.4.3 Hypothesis 3
The hierarchy culture is a more structured and formalized place to work. Leaders are coordinators and organizers in order to maintain a smooth-running organization. Participation (getting people together with an opportunity to exercise influence) can usefully be regarded as part of an organization structure (authorized interactions under formal rules and guidelines). Participation democratizes hierarchical authority. It equals power in the organization, provides human relations touch to impersonal organizations and provides creative input to routine work (Dickson, 1983). On the other hand, there is a tradition that maintains that technology, task, structure and people are congruent with each other (Leavitt, 1965). High-control structures create feelings of alienation, whereas organic, high-self-control organizations create trust and motivation in members (Burns and Stalker, 1961). This leads to the following prediction:
H3: The more hierarchy-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the degree of role clarity.
18 2.5.1 Market culture
Market culture is oriented toward the external environment and is focused on transactions with external parties including suppliers, customers and regulators. Competitiveness and productivity are achieved by placing great emphasis on external positioning and control. This concept originates from Ouchi’s (1979, 1984) study on the market control system. According to the CVF an assumption underlying market cultures is that an achievement focus produces competitiveness and aggressiveness, resulting in productivity and shareholder value in the short and immediate term (Cameron & Quinn, 1999). The primary belief in market culture is that clear goals and contingent rewards motivate employees to perform and meet shareholders’ expectations. Therefore, market culture organizations value communication, competences and achievement. Behaviors associated with those values are planning, task focus, centralized decision-making and articulation of clear goals (Cameron et al., 2006).
2.5.2 Goal motivation
According to Pintrich (1999) there are three general perspectives on goals, each reflecting a different level of analysis of the goal construct. The most task-specific level is the social cognitive research on individual’s goals for a particular task (Bandura, 1997). This perspective includes target goals that do specify the standards or criteria by which individuals can evaluate their performance, but they do not really address the reasons or purposes individual may be seeking to attain these target goals for their achievement. The second perspective concerns general goals that individuals may pursue addressing, not only the target goals, but also the reasons why an individual is motivated. And the third perspective reflects an intermediate level between the very specific target goals and the more global goal content approach. This approach may be applied to many different contexts or type of goals, for
19 example happiness and safety. Specific goals, for example achievement goals, are to explain achievement motivation and behavior. This perspective can be tested in a market culture type of organization. As Elliot (1997) pointed out, achievement motivation research has been concerned with the energization and direction of competence-related behavior, including evaluation of competence relative to a standard of excellence. Goal achievement also influences how individuals respond to task difficulty or task failure (Elliot and Dweck, 1988). With a learning goal orientation, individuals pursue an adaptive response pattern in persisting, escalate effort, engage in solution-oriented self-instruction and report to be enjoying the challenge. Because employees often encounter work situations in which their task performance or confidence is low, goal orientation is a potentially important predictor of employee responses in such situations (van de Walle, 1997). Individual preferences, beliefs and values are often argued to be the optimal sources for goal motivation. However, this assertion has been recently called into question by cultural psychologist (Markus & Kiatayama, 2003). The degree to which people consider the interest of close others in their reason for pursuing their goals can be a powerful motivation for action. But those types of reasons for goals have not been examined in cross-cultural studies. Employees’ work-related goals are expected to embody employees’ self-imposed intentions and demands within their own work environment (Harris, Daniels & Briner, 2003). Salmela-Aro and Mutanen (2012) have investigated career preparedness and work motivation and their results showed that intervention increased career preparedness, which in turn was related to intrinsic work-goal motivation and increased this intrinsic work-goal motivation.
2.5.3 Hypothesis 4
The fourth type of culture is market culture. Market culture is characterized as a results-oriented organization. The leaders are hard drivers, procedures and competitors (Hooijberg and
20 Petrock, 1993). Due to the long-term focus, goals and targets are measured and incentives are important. I assume that someone is only able to work in a market-oriented company when he or she is competitive and target driven. Besides, in nine of the eleven studies reviewed by Locke (1968) persons with highly specified goals performed at significantly higher levels than persons with a more general goal of ‘doing their best’. Therefore, the following hypothesis is formulated:
H4: The more market-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the level of goal motivation.
This research studies the influence of the four dimensions of perceived organizational culture as identified in the Competing Values Framework on employee performance. I predict some culture types have a stronger positive relationship with employee performance than other culture types. But irrespective of the specific culture type, it is critically important the culture is strong in order to achieve maximum effectiveness (Smart & John, 1996). According to Schein’s premise (1992) the only thing of real importance is for leaders to create and manage culture. If the contributions are of an independent nature, this will suggest the benefits (dependent variable) of a particular culture type in enhancing organizational outcome are not dependent upon culture strength. On the other hand, if the contributions are of a conditional nature, this will suggest the benefits (dependent variable) of a particular culture type are dependent on the strength of that culture.
21 2.6. Conceptual model
Based on the literature review and hypotheses, the conceptual model in figure 2 is proposed. Employee outcomes - job satisfaction, innovation, role-clarity and goal motivation - are the dependent variables. The four different types of perceived organizational culture are the independent variables. All the hypotheses refer to bivariate relationships between pairs of variables. These hypotheses will be tested by regression analyses.
Figure 2: Conceptual Model
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3. Research design
Research question: What effect has a perceived organizational culture on employee outcomes?
The effect of perceived organizational culture on job satisfaction, employee work innovation, role clarity and goal motivation.
3.1 Sample and data collection
In past studies, researchers have collected data on perceived organizational culture from individual respondents employed in firms in various industries (Appiah-Adu and Singh, 1999; Boxx et al., 1991). In this thesis, a quantitative method is used and so the data is collected with a survey. In appendix A, the full survey is given. Using a survey is a structured and affordable way of collecting data from a population (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2009). This survey was developed by combining several existing surveys, which were found in the literature. The self-administered structured survey elicited responses from employees of all levels on several issues, including perceived organizational culture, job satisfaction, innovation, role-clarity and goal motivation. Whenever needed, items were translated in Dutch and reworded or adapted. Surveys were administered in three organizations in the recycling industry, printed out on paper, and could be completed during working hours. Participation was voluntary for all employees and confidentiality of responses was assured. I used the online research program Qualtrics to increase the sample size. The link was shared on Social Media such as Facebook and LinkedIn where people could anonymously fill in the survey. Participants filled in the survey only once since this is a cross-sectional study.
My sample of 101 respondents in different sectors, made judgements about the four competing dimensions – clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture and hierarchy culture. This non-probability volunteer sample also rated how much they agreed on judgements about
23 job satisfaction, employee innovative behavior, role clarity and goal motivation with their own organization and / or job in mind. The overall employees are working in the recycling industry, 65 out of 101. The other 36 employees who filled in the survey are men and women between 30 and 60 years old, working in a Dutch (speaking) company and are active on Social Media.
3.2 Measurement Independent Variables
The original scale for measuring perceived organizational culture is the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) and has been widely used in past research and acceptable levels of reliability and validity have been reported across numerous studies (Cameron and Quinn, 1999). For example, measures of perceived organizational culture that directly or indirectly assesses the CVF have been administrated in over 10,000 organizations globally within the following academic disciplines: management, marketing, supply-chain management, accounting, social services, hospitality and health care (Cameron et al., 2006). Another way to measure perceived organizational culture is by using descriptions for each type of organizational culture. The respondents distribute 100 points among the four descriptions depending on how similar the description is to their company. The four culture scores are computed by adding all four values of the A items for clan, the B items for adhocracy, the C items for hierarchy and the D items for market (Deshpande et al., 1993). In this study, the scale for all variables is the same and so the statements that will lead to a perceived culture profile are adapted to the 5-point Likert-scale. The perceived organizational culture scale consisted of ‘Strongly disagree (1)’, ‘Disagree (2)’, ‘Neutral (3), ‘Agree (4)’ and ‘Strongly agree (5)’. The respondents rated each statement, attributing a score that he or she believes best represents his/her organization.
24 3.2.1 Measurement perceived clan culture
The independent variable clan culture perception exists of four statements. Example questions are ‘The head of my organization is generally considered to be a mentor, sage or a father or mother figure’ and ‘The glue that holds my organization together is loyalty and tradition. Commitment to this firm runs high.‘ The Cronbach’s alpha for this variable is .712.
3.2.2 Measurement perceived adhocracy culture
The second independent variable is adhocracy culture perception and like all the variables of perceived organizational culture, this variable also exists of four statements. A sample item is ‘The head of my organization is generally considered to be an entrepreneur, an innovator or risk taker.’ Another sample item is ‘The glue that holds my organization together is commitment to innovation and development. There is an emphasis on being first.’ The Cronbach’s alpha for the variable adhocracy culture is .632, which is low but the Cronbach’s alpha will not increase when an item in this variable will be deleted.
3.2.3 Measurement perceived hierarchy culture
The next independent variable is hierarchy culture perception. The statements for this type of perceived organizational culture are focused on rules and regulations of an organization. Examples of statements are ‘My organization is a very formalized and structured place. Established procedures generally govern what people do’ and ‘My organization emphasizes hum resources. High cohesion and morale in the firm are important’. The Cronbach’s alpha for the variable hierarchy culture is .522. Cronbach’s alpha if item ‘The head of my organization is generally considered to be a coordinator, an organizer or an administrator’ is deleted, is .584. Although this item increases the Cronbach’s alpha, it is not significant higher (rule of thumb is ∆ > 0.10) so this item is not deleted.
25 3.2.4 Measurement perceived market culture
The fourth independent variable is market culture perception and is focused on statements about for example productivity and competitors. A sample item is ‘The glue that holds my organization together is the emphasis on tasks and goal accomplishment. A production orientation is commonly shared’. The Cronbach’s alpha is .316. This Cronbach’s alpha will increase to .417 when the following item is deleted: ‘The head of my organization is generally considered to be a producer, a technician or a hard-driver’. In this case it would substantially affect reliability (∆ > .10) so this item is deleted.
3.3 Measurement Dependent Variables
3.3.1 Measurement job satisfaction
Job satisfaction measures were adapted from Wright and Cropanzano (1998). A five-item scale operationalized job satisfaction and each five-item measured a dimension of the satisfaction construct: degree of satisfaction with the work, co-workers, supervision, total salary and promotion opportunities. For example, ‘All in all, I’m satisfied with the work of my job’ and ‘All in all, I’m satisfied with the promotional opportunities’. Each of the items was measured on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (=strongly disagree) to 5 (=strongly agree). The Cronbach’s alpha is .721.
3.3.2 Measurement innovative work behavior
The Innovative Work Behavior (IWB) survey consists of 17 items, inspired by Janssen (2000), Kleysen and Street (2001), Scott and Bruce (1994) and adapted by de Jong and den Hartog (2010). Due to the many questions in this survey, the questions that did not relate to this research were deleted. Now, the measure contains five statements on employee innovation
26 behavior, for example the frequency of contacts with customers, suggestions for improvements and implementation efforts related to new products and services. A sample item is ‘In your job, how often do you make suggestions to improve current products or services?’ Another sample item is ‘In your job, how often do you acquire new knowledge?’ Answers are measured on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (=never) to 5 (=nearly all the time). The Cronbach’s alpha for the variable innovative work behavior is .791.
3.3.3 Measurement role clarity
To measure the degree of role clarity perceived by an employee, I used the Role Clarity Index composed by Lyons (1971). This existing survey consists of four items with five possible answers. The response categories for this index are: never (1), rarely (2), sometimes (3), rather often (4) and nearly all the time (5). Lyons used those questions for a research in a hospital so the last questions ‘In general, how clearly defined are the policies and the various rules and regulations of the hospital that affect your job?’ is turned into ‘company’ instead of ‘hospital’. The Cronbach’s alpha is .735.
3.3.4 Measurement goal motivation
Van de Walle (1997) developed and validated an instrument to assess the goal orientation of adults in the work domain. Three dimensions and definitions of goal orientation are developed: 1) Learning goal orientation: a desire for personal development by acquiring new skills, mastering new situations and improving the competence. 2) Prove performance goal orientations: the desire to prove one’s competence and to gain favorable judgements about it. 3) Avoid performance orientation: the desire to avoid the disproving of one’s competence to avoid negative judgements about it. Due to the many questions in this existing survey, I used the questions which are related to work motivation with emphasis on performance goals. An
27 example item is ‘I prefer to work in situations that require a high level of ability and talent’. A 5-point Likert-type response scale, (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) is used for each item. One item would substantially affect reliability if it were deleted, (∆ > .10). In this case the question ‘When I don’t understand something at work, I prefer to avoid asking what might appear to others to be dumb questions that I should know the answer to already’, will be deleted to increase Cronbach’s alpha by .35 to a α = .711.
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4. Results
After processing all data of the organization culture surveys in SPSS, the data needed to be checked and prepared before analyzing. To screen the data, frequency distribution is used to show how many times each of the scores occurs in the data set. This test is also to examine errors in the data entry. Four questions were not answered. Excluding those 4 incomplete surveys or adding the values with the mean of the variable did not affect the results of the analyses. In this study those missing values are substituted with the mean of the variable. In this way I could include the whole survey instead of list wise deletion. Likert scales are categorized as type numeric date with an interval scale. In this survey numbers are used to order the answers in equal intervals. The difference between the different levels of the scale are the same but there is not a true zero point.
4.1 Descriptive statistics
This section describes all variables of the model used in this study: perceived organizational culture, job satisfaction, employee innovation, role clarity and goal motivation.
The four independent variables are perceived clan culture, perceived adhocracy culture, perceived hierarchy culture and perceived market culture. The means of the four cultures are close to each other, however, adhocracy culture has the highest mean (M = 3.46, SD = .64), followed by clan culture (M = 3.33, SD = .75), hierarchy culture (M = 3.30, SD = .61) and market culture (M = 3.22, SD = .55). There is a wide range in all four types of cultures (rangeadhocracy= 3.00, rangeclan= 3.25, rangehierarchy= 3.75, rangemarket= 3.00), meaning there is a lot of variation between the perceived organizational cultures indicated by the respondents.
29 The means of the dependent variables job satisfaction (M = 3.69, SD = .61), goal motivation (M = 3.33, SD = .47), role clarity (M = 3.28, SD = .60) and innovative work behavior (M = 3.05, SD = .70) are more or less the same. Although innovative work behavior has a relatively low mean, the range goes from 1 to 5.
4.2 Normality analyses
A normality analyses was conducted to assess whether the variables perceived clan culture, perceived adhocracy culture, perceived hierarchy culture, perceived market culture, job satisfaction, goal motivation, role clarity and innovative work behavior were normally distributed. There are two main methods of assessing normality: graphically and numerically. In this study, both are used because a visual inspection can be interpreted in different ways, especially when the experience of interpreting normality graphically is low. However, a statistical test has the disadvantage of being not sensitive enough at low sample sizes. The Q-Q plots of all variables are shown in appendix B. The numerically data is shown table 1 whereas the skewness explains the amount and direction of skew and the kurtosis explains the height and sharpness of the central peak, relative to that of a standard bell curve. The general rule of thumb for normality is that for highly skewed distribution the values of skewness is less than -1 or greater than +-1. If skewness is between --1 and -0.5 or between 0.5 and -1, the distribution is moderately skewed and if the skewness is between -0.5 and 0.5, the distribution is approximately symmetric. The values for kurtosis between -2 and +2 are considered acceptable in order to prove normal univariate distribution (George and Mallery, 2010). The following conclusions are based on above rules of thumb. Clan culture is normally distributed with a moderate negative skewness of -.515 (SE = .240) and a kurtosis of -.186 (SE = .476). Adhocracy culture has a skewness of .059 (SE = .240), the distribution is approximately symmetric and has a kurtosis of -.070 (SE = .476). Hierarchy culture is normally distributed with a moderate
30 negative skewness of -.552 (SE = .240) and a kurtosis of 1.206 (SE = .476). Market culture is normally distributed with a skewness of -.318 (SE = .240) and a kurtosis of .474 (SE = .476). Job satisfaction is also normally distributed with a skewness of -.333 (SE = .240) and a kurtosis of -.130 (SE = .476). The distribution of goal motivation is approximately symmetric, a skewness of -.086 (SE = .240) and a kurtosis of .666 (SE = .476). Role clarity is normally distributed but with a moderate positive skewness of .530 (SE = .240) and a kurtosis of .557 (SE = .476). The last variable is innovative work behavior and is also normally distributed, a skewness of .285 (SE = .240) and a kurtosis of 1.191 (SE = .476).
Table 1: Normality analysis (SE = Standard Error)
4.3 Correlation analyses
This section discusses the correlation of all variables. By doing correlation analyses we can quantify the intensity and meaning of the relationship between two variables. Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation of all variables used in this study.
Variables
Skewness (SE = .240) Kurtosis (SE = .476)
Clan Culture -.515 -.186 Adhocracy Culture .059 -.070 Hierarchy Culture -.552 1.206 Market Culture -.318 .474 Job Satisfaction -.333 -.130 Goal Motivation -.086 .666 Role Clarity .530 .557
Innovative Work Behavior .285 1.191
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Table 2: Means, Standard Deviations, Correlation
As shown in above table, innovative work behavior is negatively correlated with hierarchy culture (r = -.204, p = .041). Meaning when one variable increases the other variable decreases. In this case it means that the more an employee perceived the organizational culture as a hierarchy-oriented culture, the lower the amount of self-reported innovative work behavior. There is no correlation between innovative work behavior and market culture (r = .037, p = .712). But innovative work behavior is positively correlated with clan culture (r = .214, p = .032) and adhocracy culture (r = .264, p = .008). Role clarity has no correlation with market culture (r = .156, p = .120). Role clarity has correlations with the other three perceived organizational cultures, whereby with hierarchy culture the most (r = .441, p = .000). And role clarity has a similar correlation level with clan culture (r = .280, p = .005) as with adhocracy culture (r = .261, p = .009). The next dependent variable is goal motivation. Goal motivation has a correlation with clan culture (r = .084, p = .406) and with hierarchy culture (r = .070, p = .485). Besides, goal motivation is positively correlated with market culture (r = .211, p = .034) and somewhat stronger with adhocracy culture (r = .218, p = .028). The last dependent variable to explain is job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is strong positively correlated with clan culture (r
32 = .448, p = .000) and positively correlated with adhocracy culture (r = .418, p = .000). Job satisfaction has a tendency to positive relate with hierarchy culture (r = .249, p = .012) and has a weak but positive relationship with market culture (r = .068, p = .496).
Concerning the correlation between the four culture types (the independent variables), table 2 (page 30) shows that clan culture is positively correlated with adhocracy culture (r = .484, p = .000). Clan culture is also positively correlated with hierarchy culture (r = .296, p = .003). There is a negligible relationship between clan culture and market culture (r = .075, p = .455). Adhocracy culture is positively correlated with hierarchy culture (r = .312, p = .001) and also positively correlated with market culture (r = .327, p = .001). Hierarchy culture and market culture are positively correlated with a r = .414 (p = .000).
Compared to the Competing Values Framework, these correlations are, more or less, in line with the two dimensions of the framework; flexible versus stable and internal versus external of Quin and Rohrbaugh (1983) and Cameron and Quinn (2006). The dimension internal focus and integration are strongly positively correlated (r = .296) and external focus and differentiation are also strongly positively correlated (r = .327). Looking at the other dimension, flexibility and discretion are strongly positively correlated (r = .484) and stability and control are also strongly positively correlated (r = .414). Figure 3, next page, shows the figures in the Competing Values Framework to give an overview of those strong relationships between the variables clan culture, adhocracy culture, hierarchy culture and market culture.
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Figure 3: Correlations independent variables using the Competing Values Framework
4.4 Hypotheses testing
Linear regression is used to predict the value of a variable based on the value of another variable. The variable I want to predict is the dependent variable (outcome variable, for example job satisfaction) and the variable I am using to predict the other variable’s value is the independent variable (for example clan culture). Each dependent variable is tested against all independent variables in order to control for the influence of the other culture perceptions. All of the tests were measured at 0.05 alpha level, implying that it is acceptable to have a 5% probability of incorrectly rejecting the null hypotheses.
Model 1 exists of the dependent variable job satisfaction. The results in the coefficients table, table 3, indicates that the p-value from perceived clan culture is .006, which means the B coefficient is statistically significant. The B coefficients gives the information of how many units the level of job satisfaction increases for a single unit increase in each predictor. In this case, 1-point increase on the perceived clan culture corresponds to .236 points increase on the level of job satisfaction. So, the main hypothesis for job satisfaction is supported, the more
clan-Clan culture Adhocracy culture
Hierarchy culture Market culture Flexibility and discretion
Stability and control
In te rn a l fo cu s a n d i n te g ra ti o n E x te rn a l f o cu s a n d d if fe re n tia tio n r = . 2 9 6 r = . 3 2 7 r = .484 r = .414
34 oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the level of job satisfaction. Moreover, the p-value for perceived adhocracy culture is .012 which means the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. There is a significant relationship between job satisfaction and perceived adhocracy culture.
Table 3: Coefficients table model 1 – Job Satisfaction
Model 2 exists of the dependent variable goal motivation. All hypotheses about goal motivation are non-significant, as shown in table 4. A higher level of perceived clan culture (B= -.010, p = .870), perceived adhocracy culture (B= .097 p = .206), perceived hierarchy culture (B= .015, p = .842) and perceived market culture (B= .149, p = .076) are not associated
with a significant higher or lower level of goal motivation.
Table 4: Coefficients table model 2 – Goal Motivation
M odel 1 Standardized
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
(Constant) 1.942 .415 4.679 .000 Clan Culture .236 .084 .288 2.797 .006 Adhocracy Culture .262 .102 .272 2.558 .012 Hierarchy Culture .116 .101 .116 1.147 .254 Market Culture -.101 .112 -.090 -.897 .372 Unstandardized Coefficients
a. Dependent Variable: Job Satisfaction
M odel 2 Standardized
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
(Constant) 2.333 .308 7.581 .000 Clan Culture -.010 .062 -.019 -.165 .870 Adhocracy Culture .097 .076 .151 1.272 .206 Hierarchy Culture .015 .075 .023 .200 .842 Market Culture .149 .083 .201 1.795 .076 Unstandardized Coefficients
35 The next regressions test the relation between role clarity and four types of perceived organizational cultures. Those regressions are used to test hypothesis 3, which argues that role clarity is positively influenced by a perceived hierarchy-oriented organizational culture. Perceived hierarchy culture has a significant coefficient of .385 with a p-value of .000. All other p-values are >.05 so the null hypotheses are supported: there are no significant relationships found between role clarity and perceived clan, perceived adhocracy, and perceived market cultures.
Table 5: Coefficients table model 3 – Role Clarity
According to the findings of the final model, it can be seen that two p-values from the coefficients table, table 6, is less than .023. The null hypotheses can be rejected, which means there is significant relationship between innovative work behavior and perceived adhocracy culture (B= .284, p = .023) and between innovative work behavior and perceived hierarchy culture (B= -.437, p = .000). Although the alternative hypothesis is accepted and there is a relationship between innovative work behavior and perceived hierarchy culture, the B coefficient has a minus sign. This means that the more an employee perceived the organizational culture as a hierarchy-oriented culture, the lower the amount of self-reported innovative work behavior.
M odel 3 Standardized
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
(Constant) 1.555 .415 3.749 .000
Clan Culture .096 .084 .121 1.138 .258 Adhocracy Culture .089 .102 .094 .865 .389 Hierarchy Culture .385 .101 .395 3.819 .000
Market Culture -.052 .112 -.048 -.463 .644 a. Dependent Variable: Role Clarity
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Table 6: Coefficients table model 4 – Innovative Work Behavior
M odel 4 Standardized
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
(Constant) 2.505 .498 5.029 .000
Clan Culture .182 .101 .195 1.803 .075
Adhocracy Culture .284 .123 .257 2.306 .023
Hierarchy Culture -.437 .121 -.382 -3.611 .000
Market Culture .124 .135 .097 .918 .361
a. Dependent Variable: Innovative Work Behavior
37 5. Discussion
The results of this study are discussed in this chapter. This study tried to expand the literature by specifying different perceived organizational culture types that could lead to higher employee outcomes.
First, the interpretation of the results is discussed in order to define the main effect, followed by additional results. Subsequently, theoretical and practical implications are given. Finally, this chapter ends with the limitations of this study and suggestions for future research.
5.1 Interpretation results
This research tested the direct relationship between four different perceived organizational culture types and four different employee outcomes. The pattern of results is generally in line with the formulated hypotheses. The previous chapter showed that three of the four main hypotheses are supported by the results. Besides those three supported main hypotheses, there are two perceived organizational cultures that are linked to other employee outcomes than first expected. The supported main hypotheses are presented in table 7 and the additional supported findings in table 8.
Table 7: Supported main hypotheses
Table 8: Supported additional findings
H1: The more clan-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the level of job satisfaction.
H2: The more adhocracy-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the level of innovative work behavior. H3: The more hierarchy-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the degree of role clarity.
H2.1: The more adhocracy-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the higher the level of job satisfaction. H3.2: The more hierarchy-oriented a perceived organizational culture is, the lower the level of innovative work behavior.
38 The results show a positive relationship between a perceived clan-oriented organizational culture and the level of job satisfaction, hypothesis 1. Perceived adhocracy-oriented organizational culture also had a significance positive impact on job satisfaction. The difference between those perceived organizational cultures is that perceived adhocracy culture has an emphasis on external positioning, a long-term frame, and achievement-oriented activities. Besides, it also emphasizes the way individuals are motivated. But due to the fact that employees take risks in this dynamic and creative workplace and given that spontaneity is highly valued, this relationship can be explained.
The results that confirmed Hypothesis 2 showed the positive relationship between a perceived adhocracy-oriented organizational culture and the level of innovative work behavior. Meaning employees who work in a more perceived adhocracy-oriented organizational culture are motivated to show innovative work behavior. A reason for this could be the level of risk employees are taking in an adhocracy-oriented organizational culture and the focus on innovation itself. Farr and Ford (1990) mentioned employee innovation as a concept that aims to achieve new ideas, processes, products and procedures. Those are key words for an organization that is oriented towards the external environment and has a focus on transactions with external parties including suppliers and regulators. However, perceived hierarchy-oriented organizational culture had a significance negative impact on innovative work behavior. Meaning the more an employee perceived the organizational culture as a hierarchy-oriented culture, the lower the amount of self-reported innovative work behavior. Characteristics of a hierarchy-oriented organizational culture are clear lines of decision-making authority, standardized rules and procedures, which could interfere the creativeness and innovativeness of an employee.
39 Hypothesis 3, a perceived hierarchy-oriented organizational culture leads to a higher degree of role clarity, can be explained by the values, structure and control, and coordination and efficiency (Cameron et al., 2006). When it’s clear for employees what managers are expecting from them, they can fulfill their tasks more efficiently. Besides to that, open communication will lead to less confusion between employees, managers and departments.
An explanation for not finding a relationship between a perceived market-oriented organizational culture and the level of goal motivation could be the different orientations. Market culture is oriented toward the external environment and goal motivation is focused on individuals (internal). Moreover, goal motivation is a broad concept that has several perspectives. The questions used in the survey emphasized performance goals. This lead to a narrow description of goal motivation.
5.2 Theoretical and practical implications
Given the exploratory nature of the results, suggestions for theoretical and practical implications are brief. First, being cognizant of the dominant perceived organizational culture can help management assess inherent strengths and limitations of their strategies. Since attributes of several cultures are present in most organizations, some of which have opposing values and emphasis, managers’ sensitivity to the existence of these paradoxes can be heightened towards more effective strategies (Lund, 2003). For example, attributes of a market-oriented and a clan-market-oriented culture may exist in the same organization although these are opposite in emphasis. This is the first study that takes into account all types of perceived organizational cultures. The confirmation of the additional supported hypotheses raises new questions for research, especially finding 2.1 where the level of job satisfaction will increase when employees perceive their organizational culture as an adhocracy-oriented culture. How
40 can management encourage an adhocracy organizational culture? And how can they facilitate this?
Second, the present study results suggest perceived clan-oriented organizational culture is conducive for higher levels of job satisfaction. Literature suggests that employees who are more satisfied with their jobs are less absent (Hackett and Guion, 1985), less likely to leave (Carsten and Spector, 1987) and more likely to show organizational citizenship behavior (Organ and Konovsky, 1989). For example, the clear lines of decision-making authority, standardized rules and procedures of the hierarchy-oriented culture may not generate the level of job satisfaction needed to foster loyalty and commitment to the organization. Based on the results, managers could focus on creating an organizational culture with emphasis on people orientation. The work environment should be based on employees, trust and support since these are characteristics of clan culture, which is found to positively relate to job satisfaction.
Furthermore, this study makes a contribution to the recent literature about work innovation behavior by showing that a perceived adhocracy-oriented organizational culture has a direct, positive influence on the level of employee innovation. This finding supports previous research into the effect of employee innovation by Imran & Saeed, 2010. Moreover, due to this cross-sectional type of study, it could have a self-selecting effect; employees with a high level of innovative behavior tend to work in a perceived adhocracy-oriented type of organization. This finding is in line with the situation-selection argument of Cohen and Morse (2014) which stated that people choose to opt in or opt out in a certain situation. For example, people with high levels of innovativeness will avoid strict rules and regulations and therefore should avoid hierarchy-oriented type of organizations.
The results of this study can also contribute to future research in the way to debate the importance of congruence between employees and organizational cultures. These results
41 demonstrate that the fit between an individual’s preference for a particular culture is related to commitment and satisfaction. This study can help clarify both the nature of organizational perceived culture and the impact of that perceived culture on employees.
5.3 Limitations and suggestions
Before drawing conclusions, limitations of this study will be discussed, as well as suggestions for future research. Some important limitations concern the sample and research methodology.
First, the type of measurement used in this study to measure the type of perceived organizational culture needs to be considered. Cameron and Quinn (2011) originally developed the OCAI (Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument) as an ipsative rating scale, in which respondents have to divide 100 points among alternatives. Due to other questions in this research, a 5-point Likert scale was considered the most appropriate statistical technique for this research. A disadvantage of using a Likert scale is that less differentiation between the four types of values tends to occur (Cameron & Quinn, 2011) and in the OCAI respondents can divide 100 points among four organizational culture types.
Together with the fact that the statements of the OCAI for this research are translated from English to Dutch and the self-reported measures is probably the reason that not all independent variables have a Cronbach’s alpha of >.70. Another measure-related concern is that all variables are measured by questionnaires. Although a survey method offers many advantages, such as being cost effective, familiar to respondents and easy to analyze (Saunder et al., 2009), a multimethod approach may produce richer data. Besides this, all variables are reported and on the individual level, which could lead to several biases. For instance, self-reporting will lead to social durability. Respondents give answers which are socially desired
42 (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). Future research could for example use supervisor ratings or peer ratings.
Second, a total of 101 people completed the survey. Although 4 questions were not answered, taking the mean did not change the value. Around 64% of the respondents work in the recycling industry (convenience sampling technique) which means that the respondents tend to have many things in common and not vary in terms of demographics, beliefs and interest (Nadler, 2015). The other 36% of the sample consists of employees who found the survey online via Social Media websites and due to a connection with my page, they do not accurately represent a hypothesized population. Due to the small sample size and convenient sample, the generalizability of this study remains a question. Therefore, I recommend larger studies across different contexts.
Limitations in regard to establishing causality have to be considered while this study involves a cross-sectional research design. The results in regard to all hypotheses support there is a positive relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable, assuming the first influences the second. Although all hypotheses are tested two-tailed (non-directional), this research could not conduct in a controlled environment, so the opposite could also have been the case.
Another point to discuss is the choice of employee outcome variables. The choice for this study - job satisfaction, role-clarity, goal motivation and innovative work behavior – is based on several articles about organizational culture. According to the literature, the hypotheses should be supported so it is interesting to investigate more why this is not the case for perceived adhocracy, - hierarchy, - and market organizational culture. But besides testing the same employee outcome variables, there are many more types of employee outcomes to test in a certain perceived organizational culture. For example, in a hierarchy-oriented culture,
