2.0
Introduction
Review
Of Related Literature
The
review of related literature will be based on two points of views Viz: the
conceptual frame and theoretical framework.
2.1
Conceptual
Frame Work
In ordinary
usage, Culture refers to the finer things of life. It denote such things as
good taste, fined manner, class achievement, appreciation of fine arts, and
music or literature (Adelakun, 1990:141).
Culture
is meant to meditate the level of sophistication of the individual. In this
sense a person who does the right thing in the right way is referred to as a “
cultured man”. On the other hand,
somebody whose behaviour is deemed to be at a level of crudity is regarded as
unrefined “uncultured”. The definition of culture cannot be defined in terms of
one person possessing it and another lacking it.
It
is fact inconvincible to have human being who lack culture (Adelakun,
1990:143).Culture also refers to all non-biological actions and behaviors of a
man as a product of his culture. For
example, the functioning of the ear, nose, eye etc is “biologically”
determined.
The
usage of any part of the body to communicate appreciation or social disapproval
is cultural and not biologically determined, and it is being learned. Human
beings learn all such behaviors as greeting , shaking of hands and interaction.
Such learned ways of doing things that are modified from time-to-time and
passed from generation to generation is what is referred to as culture of the
people (Barridam,1990:145).
Nida
(1993:201) agrees that culture is learned behaviors from our social
environment, which is passed or transferred from generation to generation. Also
culture not what we inherited from our genes or biologically determined. Shapard and green
(2001:198) say that culture define how people in a society behave in relation
to others and to physical objects.
Culture consists of the knowledge, language,
value, custom and physical objects that are passed from generation to
generation among members of a group.
In
addition, shapard and green (op cit) are of the opinion that culture helps to
explain human social behavior. What people do and do not do, what they like and
dislike, what they value and discount are all based on culture. Culture
provides the blueprint that people in the society or organization use to guide
their relationship with each other. Culture and society are tightly interwoven.
One cannot exist without the other. But they are not identical. A society or
organization is a group of people who come together or live in a common place
while culture is that society’s total way of life (Shapared and Green 2001:
203).
Fundamentally,
it can be seen that human behavior then is based on culture, and culture is the
total way of life of a given people. It includes such things as the pattern of
behaviour, the attitude, norm, value, object, skill, belief system and world
out-look which human beings learn and adopt as members of a given group of
society. Since people are not born knowing their culture. Organization cultural
behaviour must be learned. It must also be modified and transfer generation to
generation.
The
concept of organizational culture is held to be vague and diverse (Cray, 2001:
371). This is largely on the account of the problem of exact definition of
culture. Indeed, several definitions exist and each is applied to wide variety
of settings. But for the purpose this work, the definition according to
(Scheins, 1991:131). Is most appropriate Viz:
“Culture is
pattern of shared basic assumptions, invented, discovered or developed by a
given group as it learn to cope with its problems of external adaptation and
internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and,
therefore, is to be taught to new members of a group, as the correct way to
perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”.
Organizations
develop shared values and ways of doing things, which constitutes their culture
and serves the purpose of uniting the members and getting them committed.
Culture focuses on the development of shared values and gaining workforce
commitment to those shared values.
The Components Of Culture
Norm: Every Culture contains a large number of
guidelines that direct the conducts in particular situation. Such guidelines
are known as norms. A norm is a specific guide to action, which defined
acceptable and appropriate behaviour in a particular situation (Haralambs et al
2004: 416).
For example, in
all society there are norms governing dressing. Norms are enforced by positive
and negative sanctions that are rewards and punishment. Sanction can be
informal, such as approving or disapproving glance or informal such as rewards
or a fine given by an official body. The sanctions that enforce norms are major
part of the mechanism of social control, which are concerned with maintaining
order in the society or organization.
Values: Unlike norms,
which provide specific direction for conduct, values provide more general
guidelines. A value is a belief that something is good and desirable. It
defines what is important, worthwhile and worth striving for, Haralambs et al
(op cit). In some countries like the Western Industrial nations, individual and
organizational achievement and materialism are major Value. Thus (Maccland,
1961: 303) refer to which his high achievement needs and upward mobile
Cultures.
2.2
The Concept Of Performance
Performance
leads to a high productivity, which in turn leads to growth and success of an
organization (Inyang 2006: 201).
The effort of
management in a well-established organization is geared towards ensuring greater
performance, proper analysis of an individual’s jobs must be done for a maximum
efficiency. Careful analysis may reveal those key points or critical incidents
for which it is possible to set performance standards expressed in measurable
behaviour (Omolu 2002:68).
A manager should
ensure that work group is cohesive enough for his workers to work together,
rather than against each other. According to (Baridam,1991: 73) individual
performance is a multiple one that is individual’s attributes, work effort and
organization support.
Individual
Attribute:
Three factors namely; demographic, competency and psychological
characteristics, we have traits, values and interest. To ensure maximum
performance individual attribute must be compactable with task requirement.
Work Efforts: These depends on
motivation, there are needs, forces within an individual, which influences his
behaviour. For an individual to perform creditably he has to be given
interesting and challenging jobs and extrinsic rewards equal to the amount of
work he does.
Organisational
Support:
An individual with the right attributes and work effort may perform badly, if
the organizational support is weak (Imaga, 1999: 163). The following forms of
organizational support are very important for effective performance.
1. Adequate
resources, capital, equipment etc.
2. Reasonable time.
3. Clear
objectives, instructions and polices.
4. Attainable
performance standard.
5. Sufficient
delegation of authority to equal responsibility and
6. Clear work
programmes, methods and procedures.
1.9 SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY
The study will be significant in
the following way:
(i.) The benefit
of shared values and their cultural implication will be understood by the staff
of Akamu Ibiam Federal Polytectnics, Afikpo and Constitute of Management and
Technology. Enugu.
(ii.) The
various staff union members will become aware of the importance of
organizational Culture in the institution and will be guided by the outcome of
this study to put in place appropriate attitude and belief system.
(iii.) The study
will be theoretically relevant to Students of organizational Culture
organization performance and organizational behaviour.
(iv.) It will be
an invaluable material to institutions of higher learning whose staff are
finding it difficult to understand their Culture.
(v.) The outcome
of the study will equally serve as a guide to private and public management
practioner who may wish to carry out further research on a related topic.
1.10 OPERATIONAL
DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
For the purpose
of this study, we adapted the operational definitions of cited authores Viz:
(1) Belief
System: This set the value of the society relative to the level of cultural
development (Onuoha, 1991).
(2) Culture:
An active living phenomenon through which people jointly create and recreate
world in which they live (Chukwu, 2001).
(3) Cultural
Assumption: This reduce uncertainly and anxiety among people in knowing how to
conduct everybody activities of business (Brown, 2006).
(4) Cultural
Belief: This dictates ways or how to alter the condition of materials like
management style, available resources both human and non-human in the
organization (Imaga, 1992).
(5) Employee: An
employee is a worker or somebody engaged so that the organization’s goals and
objectives are realize (Ewurum, 2001).
(6) Institution:
This is a custom, system of organization that has existed for a very long time
and is accepted as important part of a particular society (Desler, 1981).
(7) Norms: This
can be referred to the quide lines that direct the conduct of an individual in
a particular situation (Cray, 1982).
(8)
Organisation: this is said to be a deliberate association of individuals, with
common objective, working co-operation under leadership and authority (Brown,
2006).
(9) Performance:
This is a systematic, periodic and impartial rating of an empoyee’s excellence
in matter patterning to his or her present Job (Fillipo, 1976).
(10) Strategy:
Is an integrated plan through which organization accomplishes its objectives
(Chukwu, 2001).
(11) Social
Structure: This is the patterned and reqularized relationship among the people
in the organization (Imaga, 1999).
2.3 The Concept Of Culture
Management is largely-bound (Miller,
1963:132). The concept of Culture is a myth, stressing that each institution is
unique in its own culture and superstructures, with the capacity to generate
productive and creative talents (Okpara, 1982:401).
Culture can be
influenced indigenously which refers to native born, originating or produced
naturally in an institution and as well as being influenced by culture. This is
the type and level of nature, acquired and accepted by civilization that may
have culminated in a way of life of the people as can be spotted in every human
society and stage of development throughout the world. Pascal and Attos in
their book titled “The Art of Japanse Management” give cultural factors a pride
of place in Management. The book discusses the major factors responsible for
Japanese industrial tradition. The book also reports that managerial reality is
absolute but is rather socially and culturally determined. It further concludes
that across all culture and in all societys human beings coming to perform
collective jobs encounter common problems having to do with established
direction, coordination and motivation. Undoubtedly, culture affects how these
problems are perceived and how they are resolved.
According to (Krober, 1987:108),
culture does not exist without society. Some culture value novelty and change
positively for its own sake. The fact that something is new and different is
sufficient to examine it and perhaps try it. This led him to conclude that no
culture is dynamic because it tolerates changes. It does not have to be static
but where it does violence arises.
2.4
Benefits Of Culture
An organization
that has a well-developed culture has the following benefits Viz.
1.
High
reputation from outside world.
2.
Culture
will not manage such organization.
3.
People
will be attracted to do business with the organization.
4.
Those
organizations who lack culture will like to emulate such organization.
5.
Employees will be proud to be identifying with
such an organization.
On the other
hand, an organization that has no clear or bad culture will face the following
problems Viz.
1.
Culture
will manage them.
2.
Will
not complete favourably in the business field.
3.
In
academic organization, parents will not like their Children to pass through
such institution.
4.
Government
will not assist the institution in terms of granting financial assistance of
any sort.
5.
The
reputation of such institution will be very low.
Based on the
aforementioned benefits and problems the organizational performance may be high
or low (Yoder 1972: 281).
Finally, while
it may be easy to developed and inculate shared values in simple organization,
it is often a difficult task to do so in a
public or complex organization like Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic
Afikpo and Institute Of Management and Technology Enugu.
2.5 The Concept
Of Organizational Cultural And Organizational Performance
Academic
researchers and practitioners are now turning their attention on the concept of
organizational culture and the concept of organizational performance or
commitment both locally and internationally due to the fact that organizations
continue to face complex challenges from their internal and external
environment. Several major studies have been conducted on the concept of
organizational culture and organizational
performance because of their importance in the field of management
practice.
Organisatinal
culture is the guidelines, which the organizational members should learn very
well in other to achieve the set goals of the organization. Also organizational
culture is the personality of the organizational (Brown, 2008: 142). In a
nutshell , in creating or performing a particular organizational culture, it
must affect positively or negetively on the organisational performance or
commitment for example, is the culture of an organization is so good, well
analyzed and clearly spelt out, the organization will achieve a high
performance at long run but if the opposite is the case the organization will
suffer and may be forced out of business. A good knowledge of the norms, value,
belief system etc in an organization by her member will ensure a high level of
organizational performance or commitment.
In Nigeria
today, organizational performance in public establishment are no more effective
and efficient (Imaga, 1991:147). This means that performance or commitment is
very poor, for this singler reason, the researcher want to carry out a study on
what lead to poor performance in the public enterprise or organization.
2.5.1 The Impact Of High Commitment
Commitment
refers to attachment and loyalty. Mowday et al (1982:416), commitment consists
of three components Viz: Identification
with the goals, values of the organization and willingness to display effort on
behalf of the organization. Closely related definition of commitment,
emphasizes the importance of behaviour in creating commitment, as Salanick
(1977:306) puts it that commitment is a state of being in which an individual
becomes bound by his action to belief that sustain his activities and his own
involvement. The forgoing sees commitment as identification with the goals and
values of the organization as well as being bound by action of the belief system of the organization. A belief
in the positive value of commitment has been confidently expressed by Walton
(1985: 106).
Underlying human resources
polices is a management Philosophy, often embedded in a published statement,
that acknowledge the legitimate claim of a company’s multiple stake-holders,
owners, employees, customers and the general public. At the center of this
philosophy is a belief that employee commitment leads to enhanced
organizational performance. The evidence shows this belief to be well founded.
However, a
review by Guest (1991: 207) led to the conclusion that high organizational
commitment is associated with lower labour turnover and absence. Strong
commitment to work is likely to result in conscientious and self-directed
application to the job, regular attention, nominal supervision and high level
of effort.
Commitment to
the organization will certainly be related to the intention to stay and loyalty
to the organization (griffin, 1984: 281). In other words, efforts should be
made by management to secure workforce commitment on the part of organisational
participants, else organizational goals will be difficult to achieve.
2.6 Assessing Organizational Culture
The assessment
of organizational culture is not easy because culture is concerned with both
subjective beliefs and unconscious assumptions which might be difficult to
measure and the observed phenomena such as behavioral norms and artifacts (Ama,
2009:106). A good number of instruments abound for assessing organizational
culture. Two instruments are abound for assessing organizational culture.
The two
instruments are:
(a)
Organizational Ideology Questionnaire: These deals with
the four orientations such as power, role, task and self. The questionnaire is
completed by making statement according to views on what is closed to the
organization actual position.
(b)
Organisational Culture Inventory: This instrument
assesses organizational culture like humanistic-helpful, conventional,
dependents etc (usoro, 2002: 96).
2.6.1 Role Of
Ethics In Culture Formation
Ethics is said
to be general idea or belief that influence people’s behaviour and attitude.
Ethics and culture are closely related to an organisation’s available human
energy and its quality rate of sustained improvement. When ethics improves,
culture equally improves. Often ethics are the constraints factor holding back
process capability improvement and sometimes poor process capability encourages
poor ethical behaviour (Botoff, 2006: 358). Also managers do not cause
improvement projects to succeed as much as they think they do. It is the
operating culture or the collection effort that decides which project succeeds
or fail in various degrees.
2:6.2 Ways
Organizations Form Their Culture
Organizational
culture springs from these three situation below:-
. Beliefs, values and assumptions
of founders
. Learning experiences of the group
members, and
. New belief, values and
assumptions brought by new members.
Organizations do not form culture
spontaneously or accidentally. The process of culture formulation is the
process of creating a small group. The founders can have an idea they can bring
in one or more people and create core groups (Ama, 2009: 109).
2:6.3 Need For
Organizational Culture
Basically,
organizational culture is the personality of the organization. Culture
comprises the assumption, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of
organization members and their behaviours (Cater Manamara, 200: 143).
Organization members soon come to sense the particular culture of an
organization. Though culture is difficult to express distinctly, but everyone
knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large profit-making
corporation is quite different from that of a hospital, which is also different
from that of a polytechnic. You can tell culture of an organization by looking
at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what member wear etc.
Corporate culture can be looked at as a system. Inputs include feed-back for
example from the society, professions, laws, stories, heroes on the competition
or services etc. The process is based on our assumptions, values and norms,
example our values on money, time, facilities, space and people. Output or
efforts of our culture are for example organizational behaviours, technologies,
strategies, images, products, services, appearances etc (Cater Manamara, 200:
144).
Culture is partcultar importance when
attempting to manage organizational wide change. Practitioners are coming to
realize that despite the best-laid plan, organizational change must include not
only changing structures and processes but also changing the organizational
culture as well. Since organizational member, have no instinct to direct their
actions, their behaviour must be based on guide-lines that are learned. In
other for organization to operate effectively, these guide-lines must be shared
by its members. Without a shared culture, members of the organization would be
unable to communicate and cooperate, which invariably will result to confusion
and disorderliness among members martin Holborn et al, 2006: 416). This implies
culture has two essential qualities,
Viz:
. It is learned
and
. It is shared.
Without it,
there would be no human society let alone organization.
2:7
Organizational performances
At present in
Nigeria today, public organizations are no more effective and efficient (Imaga,
1999:124). Their performance is very poor, for this singular reason, the
researcher want to carry out a study to know and study the problems that leads
to the poor performance in the public tertiary institutions. When we speak of
organization, we are concerned with human resources, for this is the most
important of all management and business resources. The organization of
physical and financial resources cannot take place until human resources are
organized. The effectiveness of the organizational scheme depends on the manner
in which resources are utilized. The concept of managerial performance is often
called performance evaluation and it refers to a measure of how well a manager
knows his or her roles, possess the appropriate objectives and goals of the
organization. How well an organization performs. Unfortunately, in Nigeria
managers often evaluate the performance of their subordinates without their subordinates
evaluating them.
Furthermore,
organizational performance is a measure
of managerial performance and equally to the
public and private sector of the economy. As earlier pointed out, the
performance of organization is equally a measure of the performance of the
society. The core of an organization is its staff. How effective an
organization maintains quality team of employees is linked to its ability to
manage its staff and recognize the contribution of each staff or player.
Effective performance management system
enables organization to objectively and systematically rate employees
performance which provide the tools necessary to take the performance level and
equate it to compensation actions. Performance overview (htt/www.com 2004).
2.8 Motivation
Of Employees For Effective Performance
According to
(Bums, 2000:105) employees have certain wants that the organization is expected
to supply and on the other hand, the organization has certain types of
behaviors that it wishes to elicit from the employees. He further stressed that
the managerial responsibility for eliciting these behaviors is usually term
“direct” or “motivation”. He sees motivation as a skill aligning employees and
organization interests so that behaviour result in achievement of employees and
organization interests so that behaviors result in achievement of employees’
wants simultaneously with attainment of organization objectives. Good managers
study their subordinates to know what
can motivate them to be motivated for increased job performance. And this is
not an easy task to achieve in organization. One of the manager’s most
important jobs is to influence the motivation of others in the direction of
achieving organizational objectives in an effective and efficient manner
(Higins, 1991:423). To be able to do this, the manager must understand the
individual work motivation and utilize his or her knowledge of individual
motivation to turn the subordinate
effort to satisfy personal needs into enhancing organizational performance.
2.9 The Theoretical Frame Work
For the purpose
of this study, the theoretical frame work will be drawn from institutional
theory (Fillipo, 1980:207).Because the theory attends to the deeper and more
resilient aspect of social structure. It consider the process by which
structures, including schemas, rules, norms and routines, become established as
authoritative guidline for social behaviors, it inquires into how these
elements are created, diffused, adopted, adapted over space and time and how
they fall into decline and disuse. Although, the ostensible subject is
stability and order in social life, students of institutions must perforce
attend not just to consensus and conformity but also to conflict and change in
social structures (Scott,2004:142).The roots of institutional theory run richly
through the formative of scholars ranging from Marx and webber, cooley and Mead
to Veblen and Commons. Much of this work, carried out at the end of ninteenth
century and beginning of the twentieth centuries was submerged under the
onslaught of neoclassical theory in economics, behaviouralism in political
science and positivism in sociology but
has experienced a remarkable renaissance in our own time. Contemporay
institutional theory has capture the attention of a wide range of scholars
across the social science and employed to examine systems ranging from micro
interpersonal interactions to macro global frameworks (Hardgrave, 1981:263).
Although, the
presence of institutional scholars in may disciplines provides important
opportunities for exchange and cross-fertilization, an astonishing variety of
approached and something conflicting assumptions limits scholarly discourse.
A wide variety
of institutional systems have existed over space and time providing diverse
guidelines for social behaviour many of which sanction quite arbitrary
behaviour, but the modern world is dominated by system embracing rationality
and these, in turn support the proliferation of organizations. Norms of
rationality play a casual role in the creation of formal organizations (Meyer
and Rowan, 1977:410). Many of the models giving rise to organization are based
on “rationalized Myths” rule-like systems that “depend on their efficacy, for
their reality, on the fact that they are widely shared, or have been
promulgated by individuals or groups that have been granted the right to
determine such matter” (scott, 1983:147). The model provides templates for the
design of organizational structures, “the positions, policies, programmes and
procedures of modern organizations” (Myer and Rowan, 1977:343).
Too much early
theorizing and research on institutions posited “top-down” models of social
influence. Scholars examined the various ways in which rules, norms, and share
beliefs impacted organizational forms. Such a focus is understandable since a
necessary condition for calling attention to the importance of institutions is
to demonstrate their influence on organizations. However, the language used was predominantly that of “institutional
effect” as if given set of environmental focus was able to exert influence in
a unilateral manner on complaint
organizations. Two corrections were required, and both are now well underway.
First, we need to recognize that institutional environment is not monolithic,
but often varied and conflicted. Authoritative bodies may diverge indeed, in
liberal state, they are often designed to do so, providing “check and
balances”, schemes and models may compete .
The element of
institution, regulative, normative and cultural cognitive may not be aligned
and one may undermine the effects of the other. The boundaries of
organizational fields are often vague or weak, allowing alternative logics to
penetrate and support divergent models of behaviour. Suppressed groups and
interests may mobilize and successfully promote new models of structure and
repertories of acting. Some of the most interesting work of the past two
decades has helped to unpack the multiplicity of institutional arrangements,
both between and within a given fields, examining the intersection of
structures and documenting the transportability of schemas, as actors and ideas
flows across field boundaries (Friedland and Alford,1991:129).
The classic
founding statements linking organizations with latter-day versions of
institutional theory struck a common chord on contrasting institutional with
rational or efficiency-based arguments. Thus, according to Meyer and Rowan
(19997:335).”Formal structure that celebrate institutionalized myths differ
from structures that act efficiently. Categorical rules conflict with the logic
of efficiency”.
Dimagio and
powell (1983:147) concur, asserting that institutions produce structural
changes as a result of processed that make organizations more similar without
necessarily making them more efficient. These and other related arguments
focusing on “myth, “ceremonial behavior”, and mindless conformity, placed
sociological institutionalists in danger of focusing exclusively on the
irrational and the superficial aspects of organization. The problem posed by
the persistence of errors associated with thee founding period of an intellectual perspective are
not unique to institutional theory. It is all too common that errors present at
the origins prove difficult to correct. They seem to be built-in to the fabric
of the enterprise. And it takes considerable energy, even courage to confront
them. But think, this is one of the important roles of empirical research in
building theory. When predictions are confounded by findings, it suggest the
needs to re-examine premises and assumptions, as well as propositions and
logics. Empirical research does not just test arguments, it provides the bases
for reformulating them, sometimes in quite basic ways. Broadening the agenda
for studying institutional change processes, convergent and disruptive change.
Finally in an
important sense, a concern with institutional change has been present in both
the theoretical and empirical agenda of institutional theorists from beginning
of the modern period. However, virtually all-early work focused on “convergent”
change explanation for evidence of increasing similarity among organizational
structures and process. Because of the prevailing emphasis on top-down models,
it was presumed that institutional arguments were primarily of use to explain
increased conformity to a given rule or model.
2.10 Summary Of
Review Of Related Literature
This chapter has
reviewed studies related to the relationship between organizational culture and
organizational performance. To facilitate a sound grasp of the subject mater
within the thought frame work of the objective of the study and the research
questions, the scope of the review covers conceptual and theoretical frame
work, the concept of culture, performance and motivating employees for
effective performance.
The review of
literature showed that culture is meant to indicate the level of sophistication
of individual or organization doing thing in the right way. It is understood
that every individual organization has their own culture which might be quite
different from other organization. Culture can be said to be possessed by a
particular organizations or individual while others lack it.
It was
understood that culture is made up of norms and values. Also culture is not
inborn but it is learned.
In an
organization, culture serves as a guide line, direction which helps the
management to reach the stipulate objectives or goals in the organization.
Performance,
this lead to high productity, which in turn leads to growth and success of an
organization. It understood that the ability of an organizations to accomplish
activities will lead to achieving the desired goal.
Individual performance is multiple because it
comprises the following viz: individual attribut, work effort and organization
support.
The extent of
which management of the organization is able to inculscate the culture of an
organization will go a long way increasing the performance level in the
organization. The statement tells us that there is a relationship between
organizational culture and organizational performance.
Motivation of
the employees bring about commitment on the part the employees. If an employee
is well motivated he will have no option than to perform his duty creditably to
the satisfaction of his employer hence achieving the set goal of the
organization.
Finally,
materials both financial and physical if made available cannot combine itself
in production process; rather it is the responsibility of the management to
allocate these resources rationally to achieve the objective of the
organization.