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This paper aims to assess the relationship between cultural profiles and the economic, environmental and social dimensions of electricity companies’ reporting based on the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) sustainability framework.

The authors used the competing values framework, developed by Cameron and Quinn, as the theoretical starting point, with primary data collected through surveys that assessed organizational culture and with secondary data collected through the GRI indicators reported by the companies.

First, the framework shows whether a company’s organizational culture corresponds with one of the following options: clan, adhocracy, market or hierarchy. The results show that most of the companies’ organizational cultures were hierarchical, characterized by a greater need for stability and control and a formal work environment. Clans were the second most popular type of organizational culture, characterized as having greater internal flexibility, more informal environments and fewer hierarchical levels. Second, by combining the above results with the assessment of the GRI indicators in the companies’ sustainability reports, the study checked whether the companies had strong (balanced) or non-balanced cultures. The results show that there was a greater correlation between a strong (balanced) culture and the total value of the reported indicators, compared to a non-balanced culture.

The paper takes an innovative approach by correlating two different but well-recognized methodologies as a way to create a more holistic assessment that can help stakeholders to understand both the way these companies work and how this choice reflects the transparency of their reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that managers in independent hotels can influence to improve organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) by examining the relationship between leadership style and OCB through newly developed balanced organisational culture and trust variables. Unlike most studies, which have been on chain hotels, this study investigates these relationships in independent hotels in Iran. Additionally, organisational size was also included in the study.

Using information from Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism, 160 independent hotels were identified and approached. A survey was assembled using well-known instruments. In total, 392 usable questionnaires out of 1,150 distributed were collected from employees and analysed using structural equation modelling.

Contrary to previous studies, it was found that in this context, neither transformational nor transactional leadership affects trust directly but only through balanced organisational culture, and only transactional leadership had a direct relationship with OCB. Also, organisational size had a moderating effect on the relationship between trust and OCB.

The authors add to the theoretical literature dealing with the different behaviour of constructs developed in a Western context in other contexts and suggests that hotel managers in a collectivist culture, like Iran, who want to build OCB can do so by creating organisational culture conditions (Balanced Organisational Culture) that foster trust between managers and their subordinates.

From the data derived from a Vietnamese hospital, this study seeks to discern which organisational culture types, leadership styles, and trust types pave the path for the implementation of the balanced scorecard (BSC) system.

The study uses a case research approach with a triangulation of data collation methods encompassing access to documents, field observations, and interviews. The in‐depth interviews with 37 hospital members and field observations were conducted during 21 months from March 2009 to November 2010.

The findings show that features relating to organisational change in terms of organisational culture, leadership style, and trust can impact the success of BSC implementation; nonetheless, the opposite direction can merely be encountered in the relationship between leadership style and BSC implementation.

The study offers insights into a successful model of BSC implementation in the healthcare sector built on such antecedents as organisational culture, leadership, and trust.

This study investigates the relationship between organizational culture and organizational performance in non-profit religious organizations (churches). A quantitative methodology was utilized to explore this relationship. Denison's model of organizational culture which includes examining the organization in four areas (involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission) was explored to determine how this theoretical model aligns with the culture of the church and its efforts to perform at optimal level. Data were provided by staff and pastors of 43 Christian churches. The findings showed partial evidence for a relationship between culture and performance in churches. Church leaders can utilize these findings to determine if the balanced scorecard method should be implemented in their churches as a means of discovering if the values and beliefs of the church are influencing the church's overall performance.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and performance. It concerns the aspects of culture related to culture strength and unbalance and its impact on introvert and extrovert firm performance, controlling for business environment and size.

Based on the competing values model (CVM), culture strength is measured as the intensity of the culture values driving the company. The cultural unbalance is measured by the sum of absolute deviations of organizational members’ culture perceptions across the four archetypes (adhocracy, clan, hierarchy and market) imposed by CVM from the individual “average” shared cultural value. Evidence is drawn upon a sample of 1,305 employees of 114 Greek firms.

The findings indicate a strong positive relationship between culture strength and internal performance (innovation competence and human relations) as well as firm outcomes (profitability, growth and reputational assets). On the contrary, culture unbalance exerts a negative influence to market position, growth and innovation competence.

Understanding the nature of the association between culture strength, unbalance and firm performance would enable academics and practitioners to reflect critically on the core culture values which shape employee involvement and formulate leaders’ quality improvement decisions and actions, so as to achieve sustainable competitive advantage at the organizational level.

This research provides supporting empirical evidence for the culture–performance link by identifying the principle culture value characteristics (strength and unbalance), which exert both direct and interaction effects on the introvert and extrovert aspects of firm performance.

The marketing literature indicates that a firm’s organizational culture plays a critical role in determining its market orientation (MO) and thereby the firm’s ability to successfully adapt to its environment to achieve superior business performance. However, our understanding of the organizational culture of market-oriented firms and its relationship with business performance remains limited in a number of important ways. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm and the competing values theory perspective on organizational culture, our empirical study addresses important knowledge gaps concerning the relationship between firm MO culture, MO behaviors, innovation, customer satisfaction, and business performance.

We used a survey methodology with Clan Cultural Orientation, Adhocracy Cultural Orientation, Market Cultural Orientation, and Hierarchy Cultural Orientation Clan. Market Orientation Behaviors, Innovation, and Customer Satisfaction and CFROA _t (Net Operating Income + Depreciation and Amortization – Disposal of Assets)/Total Assets.

The overall fit of the first Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) containing the three MO behavior sub-scales, the four organizational culture scales, and the innovation and satisfaction performance measures was good with a χ ² = 760.89, 524 df, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.916 and RMSEA = 0.055. The overall fit of the second CFA containing the business strategy, bureaucracy, and customer expectations control variables was also good with a χ ² = 243.26, 156 df, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.937 and RMSEA = 0.061. We also subsequently ran a third CFA in which the MO behavior construct was modeled as a second-order factor comprising the three first-order sub-scales (generation of market intelligence, dissemination of market intelligence, and responsiveness to market intelligence) each of which in turn arose from the relevant survey indicants. This measurement model also fit well with the data with a χ ² = 84.06, 63 df, p < 0.039; CFI = 0.955 and RMSEA = 0.047. Regressions using seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) with control variables and with R ² values ranging from 0.28 to 0.54.

MO culture has an important direct effect on firms’ financial performance as well as an indirect effect via MO behaviors and innovations. Importantly, our findings suggest that MO culture facilitates value-creating behaviors above and beyond those identified in the marketing literature as MO behaviors. In contrast to a series of studies by Deshpandé and colleagues (1993, 1999, 2000, 2004), our empirical results suggest the value of the internally oriented Clan and to a lesser degree Hierarchy cultural orientations as well as the more externally oriented Adhocracy and Market cultural orientations. The benchmark ideal MO culture profile we identify is consistent with organization theory conceptualizations of strong balanced organizational cultures in which each of the four competing values orientations is simultaneously exhibited to a significant degree (e.g., Cameron & Freeman, 1991). Our findings indicate that the organizational culture domain of MO appears to be at least as important (if not more so) in explaining firm performance and suggest that researchers need to re-visit the conceptualization, and perhaps more importantly the operationalization, of MO as a central construct in strategic marketing thought.

In building an MO culture, an important first step is to assess the firm’s existing organizational culture profile (e.g., Goodman, Zammuto, & Gifford, 2001). Organization theory researchers have developed competing values theory-based organizational culture assessment tools that can provide managers with an easily accessible mechanism for accomplishing this (Cameron & Quinn, 1999). The profile of the firm’s existing culture and the profile of the ideal culture for MO from our study can then be plotted on a “spider’s web” graphical representation (e.g., Hooijberg & Petrock, 1993). This aids the comparison of the firm’s existing cultural profile with the ideal MO profile, enabling managers to easily diagnose the areas, direction, and magnitude MO culture profile “gaps” in their firm (Cameron, 1997). Specific gap-closing plans and tactics for gaps on each of the four cultural orientations can then be identified as part of the development of a change management program designed to create an MO culture profile (e.g., Chang & Wiebe, 1996). Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) workbook provides managers with an excellent operational resource for planning and undertaking such gap-closing organizational culture change initiatives.

The balanced scorecard (BSC) has been a popular management innovation in health care. Implementing an innovation like the BSC can change the professional subcultures of a hospital. The purpose of this paper is to measure subcultures to establish the level of change during the implementation of a management innovation in a single Chinese public hospital.

Four surveys were administered to the staff of a single hospital, and a 100,000-word research diary was compiled from observation of the research process. A longitudinal case study design was administered from 2006 to 2009. The competing values tool was administered twice to assess organizational cultural change.

There was a change in the culture of different professional groups. The group with the strongest dominating culture type, which relies on cohesion, morale and employee participation in decision-making, shows the most positive change in cultural types during the BSC implementation process. Management innovations such as the BSC can create more balance in each professional group.

The successful implementation of a management innovation in a hospital requires the managers to consider meeting the demand of medical professional groups and achieve desired culture type change, which in turn may help to achieve the expected results.

This paper provides support to the finding that groups with a dominant group culture are more receptive to change and implementing a management innovation can influence professional group’s culture. It also provides evidence that the implementation of BSC can create more balance in each professional group’s culture. Although these findings come from health care, it may have relevance to other contexts in China.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the impact of different dimensions of organizational culture (mission culture, adaptability culture, involvement culture and consistency culture) on business excellence results criteria (customer results, people results, society results and business results) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and explore the moderating role of information and communication technology (ICT) use in both service and manufacturing industries.

Data were collected by questionnaire from 448 managers in nine companies that have won the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award in the last three years. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the data.

Organizational culture is significantly related to business excellence. However, these effects varied for different business excellence criteria. Three organizational culture types had a significant positive role in achieving excellent customer-related results. All four types of organizational culture had a positive role in achieving excellent people-related results. Only two culture types had significant role in achieving excellent society-related results. Business results were positively related to a balance between the four types of organizational culture. ICT use moderated the relationship between organizational culture and results related to customers, people and business, but not society.

This study had some conceptual limitations. In particular, it considered the organizational culture as four types in the research model, but without structuring the indices under each type. It also had some methodological limitations. It was cross-sectional and used a self-administered questionnaire, which means that no causal relationships can be implied, and there may have been some bias in responding.

This is one of the first studies that investigate the relationship between organizational culture and business excellence in UAE excellence award-winning companies.

Previous literature suggests that people might purchase symbolic products to signal their social identity. However, in the organizational context, subordinates as customers might choose products with less brand prestige than what they want and can afford, just to make sure their choices are below the invisible “red-line” set by the brands of their supervisors. The authors term the phenomenon as “boss ceiling effect,” and term the behavior that people often downgrade their original choice to make sure the brand prestige is lower than that of the product owned by their boss as “downgrading behavior,” which have not been explored and well explained by existing literature so far. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The authors conduct qualitative study to explore the existence of boss ceiling effect and providing possible influential factors of brand downgrading attitude. The quantitative study empirically examines the relationships among undesired self, perceived risk, organizational culture balance, and downgrading attitude and intension.

The authors find that undesired self-congruence and perceived risk are positively related to the downgrading attitude. In addition, the culture balance directly affects the brand downgrading attitude negatively and also moderates the relationship between undesired self-congruence and downgrading attitude positively and the relationship between perceived risk and downgrading attitude negatively.

The authors contribute to both organizational culture research and symbolic consumption research by considering symbolic consumption behavior in organization context. It is of great practical implications for marketers of symbolic consumption to understand the downgrading behavior.

Lean systems thinking was widely studied using relevant variables, but there is a dearth of published theoretical or empirical evidence about the cultural aspects of lean processes. The lack of conceptual development is one of the motivations for this study. Do organizational cultural variations correlate with the success and effectiveness of lean processes? What organizational infrastructures are required for effective lean implementation and continuation? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Examining literature in the area of lean production and lean management, the authors sought current literature at the intersection of organizational culture and lean processes, particularly implementation and sustainability, but found little relating to the topic. Therefore, using the Competing Values Framework taxonomy, the authors examine this intersection, relying on related research in the areas.

In this paper, a brief discussion of lean processes in relation to organizational culture leads to propositions that identify the various cultural dimensions and their purported effect on lean implementation and sustainability. A model of this interaction is developed. Those quadrants of the Competing Values Framework that might be useful in developing research directions for the future are identified.

Future research directions include the measurement of organizational culture in firms that have implemented lean processes. This would be a step toward looking at the effect that the different quadrants in the Competing Values Framework have on various elements of lean efforts. This would take a significant amount of work, because the manufacturing industry, the leader in implementing and sustaining lean processes, may have institutionalized particular organizational cultures. It would be an interesting step forward in the understanding of how lean processes are operationalized across different firms and industries. However, there are multiple ways to examine culture; the authors believe this method allows the capture of the entire spectrum.

Knowing which dimensions influence lean effectiveness and the way that they wield that influence allows managers to develop the firm’s organizational culture to one that will support implementing and sustaining lean efforts. The challenge to implement and sustain lean processes lies in the need to identify the organizational culture infrastructure that will allow this system that was first used by Japanese firms to operate well in other organizational contexts. The values and norms that underlie lean processes may create conflict with the culture that already exists within the organization; such divergence retards adoption and performance.

There is a lack of research at the critical intersection of organizational culture and lean implementation/sustainability. Culture is key to making the changes required of lean implementation and in sustaining the drive toward lean production and management. The paper begins to fill that gap.