THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE(A SURVEY OF FIRST ALUMINUM COMPANY PORT HARCOURT)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Organizational development is concerned with the analysis and diagnosis of the factors that determine organizational effectiveness, and the planning and delivery of programmes to increase that effectiveness.

Organizations want to obtain the commitment of their employees. Management would like its employees to identify with the values, norms and artifacts of the organization; hence the need for organizational culture. Management needs to explain and infuse its culture in its employees; this will enable the employee to get familiar with the organizational system.

During this process of explanation, the employee learns about the organizational culture and decides whether he/she can cope with it or not. This means that each organization is a learning environment. It is the proper understanding of the organizational culture that, the performance of employee in the organization is ascertained. Performance is the extent to which an individual is carrying out assignment or task. It refers to the degree of accomplishment of the task that makes up an employee’s job (Cascio, 2006). Job performance is that net effect of an employee’s effort as modified by abilities and roles or task perception (Jones, 2003). The culture of the organization should be developed to support continuous improvement, improve employees style of performing their jobs and thus develop quality awareness. To operate successfully across cultures, it is important to be able to recognize cultural differences and be adaptable.

Organizational culture finds expression through the though, intentions, actions and interpretations of members of the organization (Hallett, 2003).

Academic interest in corporate culture is evidence by the level of attention it has received over the last few decades. The relationship between corporate culture and performance has been the subject of abundant research in several fields, including strategic management, and organizational behaviour of the while this topic is rich in studies, many researchers concur on the fact that there is not agreement on the precise nature of the relationship between corporate culture and performance. Despite the plethora of studies on corporate in the last few decades, there is no widely acceptable causal relationship between corporate and performance. The empirical evidences emerging from various studies about the effect of corporate cultured on performance have so far yielded mixed results that are inconclusive and contradictory. Because of these contradictory results, the questions of whether corporate culture improves or worsens employee’s performance is still worthy of further research such as the one being undertaken in this study.

In addition, despite the existence of these studies, very little attention has been given to the Aluminium Companies has not received adequate research attention in Nigeria. Thus, there is a major gap in the relevant literature on Nigeria, which has to be covered by research. This research attempts to fill this gap by studying the situation of the Nigerian Aluminium Companies and providing more empirical evidence on the on the impact of organizational culture on employee job performance.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Employee performance poses a lot of problems and concerns to managers in both public and private enterprises the world over, the reason being that, the successfully venture of business is the sole responsibility of corporate managers in trying to coordinate organizational resources to achieve predetermined objectives within a specific time frame. These objectives are the main reasons for the establishment of individual organization, there managers must raise the performance level for their employees by looking for what would motivate each employee including creating an organizational climate that enables learning and innovative responds to challenges, competitive threats, or new opportunities. A strong culture that encourages adaptation and change enhances organizational performance by energizing and motivating employees, unipting people around shared goals and a higher mission, and shaping and guiding employee behaviour so that everyone’s actions are aligned with strategic priorities. Thus, creating and influencing on adaptive culture is one of the most important jobs for organizational leaders. The right quality culture can drives good performance.

McHugh et al (1993) argue that bad and poor culture of the organization will lower the level employee performance and productivity from the employees and consequently contributes to decrease the efficiency and performance of the organization. When this happened, organization is at risk of fulfilling its social responsibilities to its customers, suppliers, employees, and its host communities. This is the only way organization(s) can achieve its goals and objectives.

Organizational culture reflects employee’s views about the way     things are done around here”. In fact, corporate culture may be considered to be personality of the organization. In every organization, there are ways of doing things, if maintain over the years, the ways of doing things become that organization’s culture (Handy, 1986). Defined organizational culture as: Deep set of beliefs about ways works should be organized, the way authority be exercised, people rewarded, people controlled the degree of formalization required, how much planning and how far ahead? What combination of obedience and initiative is looking for in the subordinate? Do committees control individuals? Are rules and procedures strictly adheres to? These are all parts of organizational culture.

From the above definition, one can then research that organizational culture is embedded in the way people act, what they expect from each other and how they make sense of each other’s actions.

However, this study will base its frame of reference in the work of (Delong, 1997) who measured organizational culture in terms of values norms and work practices.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of this work is to examine the influence of organizational culture on employee performance. Other objectives are;

1. To examine how organizational values impact on employee performance.
2. To examine how organizational norms impact on employee performance.
3. To examine how organizational work practices impact on employee performance.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study is important because, it will expose students, and other academicians to the concept and principles of organizational culture and its concomitant effect on organizational variables. This study will aid business managers and other corporate bodies to come to terms with organizational cultural influences and the best possible way to align them to the best interest of the organization. It will also be useful to other researchers and the general public.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

It is the desire f the researcher to investigate the development of the influence of organizational culture on employee performance with the following research question;

1. To what extent does organizational values impacts on employee performance?
2. To what extent does organizational norms impact on employee performance?
3. To what extent does organizational work practices impact on employee performance?

1.6 STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS

HO1: Organizational value does not significantly impact on employee performance.

HO2: Organizational norm does not significantly impact on employee performance.

HO3: Organizational work practices do not significantly impact on employee performance.

1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study is the Aluminium Companies in Port Harcourt. Limitations include time and other resources constraints. More so, since the time frame given for the research was too limited scope with my study, because time given to me for the research was not enough both in financial aspect and also unwillingness of my case study scope with my population to given me the full details information was also a limitation to my study.

1.8 DEFINITION OF RELATED TERMS

Culture:- Is a aspect of beliefs, values and norms that control how individual and groups in an organization interact with each other and with people outside the organization.

Employee:- Are members of the organization who are responsible for achieving the pre-determined goals of the organization.

Organization:- Are human and non-human elements brought objective(s).

Norms:- Are social rules that specify appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in an organization.

Performance:- an action through which set goal or target uis achieved.

Work Practices:- This is the process of sharing knowledge, information, encouragement, ideas and risk taking in organization.