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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.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

Scanning both the academic and popular business literature of the last 40 years puzzles the alert reader. The variety of prescriptions of how to be successful (effective, performing, etc.) 1 Organizational performance, organizational success and organizational effectiveness will be used interchangeably throughout this paper.1 in business is hardly comprehensible: “Being close to the customer,” Total Quality Management, corporate social responsibility, shareholder value maximization, efficient consumer response, management reward systems or employee involvement programs are but a few of the slogans introduced as means to increase organizational effectiveness. Management scholars have made little effort to integrate the various performance-enhancing strategies or to assess them in an orderly manner.

This study classifies organizational strategies by the importance each strategy attaches to different constituencies in the firm’s environment. A number of researchers divide an organization’s environment into various constituency groups and argue that these groups constitute – as providers and recipients of resources – the basis for organizational survival and well-being. Some theoretical schools argue for the foremost importance of responsiveness to certain constituencies while stakeholder theory calls for a – situation-contingent – balance in these responsiveness levels. Given that maximum responsiveness levels to different groups may be limited by an organization’s resource endowment or even counterbalanced, the need exists for a concurrent assessment of these competing claims by jointly evaluating the effect of the respective behaviors towards constituencies on performance. Thus, this study investigates the competing merits of implementing alternative business philosophies (e.g. balanced versus focused responsiveness to constituencies). Such a concurrent assessment provides a “critical test” of multiple, opposing theories rather than testing the merits of one theory (Carlsmith, Ellsworth & Aronson, 1976).

In the high tolerance level applied for this study (be among the top 80% of the industry) only a handful of organizations managed to sustain such a balanced strategy over the whole observation period. Continuously monitoring stakeholder demands and crafting suitable responsiveness strategies must therefore be a focus of successful business strategies. While such behavior may not be a sufficient explanation for organizational success, it certainly is a necessary one.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of affective commitment and empowerment as mediators in the relationship among high-performance work systems (HPWS) and organizational performance. Different inconsistencies found in the literature review shows the need to take into account certain mediating variables, such as employees’ behaviors and attitudes, to understand how human resource management (HRM) facilitates the achievement of organizational results.

A sample of 200 medium-sized Spanish organizations was examined through partial least squares modeling methodology.

As hypothesized, a proactive strategic HRM approach in an organization can be translated in a series of human resources practices systems of high-performance, which stimulate directly employees’ affective commitment and promote empowerment among them, getting to better results in employees’ performance and in organizational performance.

This research shows that affective commitment and empowerment play a determinant role as mediators in HPWS and performance relationship, providing a deeper understanding of the alignment of strategy and HRM practices for organizational success.

This chapter reports on a longitudinal quasi-experimental field study within an organizational design of a global consumer products manufacturer moving toward high-performance work systems (HPWSs) in North America by integrating business centers and self-directed work teams (SDWTs) coupled with 13 other action-levers within an integrated and bundled high-performance organizations (HPOs) re-design. The results of this organizational design effort are assessed using different types and levels of organizational outcomes (hard record data, behavioral, and attitudinal measures) along a 5-year temporal dimension punctuated by multiple time periods (baseline, during, and after). The organization, which was “built to change” (Lawler & Worley, 2006), in this research had already highly superior or “exemplar” (Collins, 2001) levels of organizational performance. Consequently, the real research question becomes: “What effect does state of the art organizational design and development have on an exemplar organization?” The study also calls into question the field's ability to truly assess exemplar organizations with existing measures of organizational change and development.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the causal relationships in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) Education Performance Excellence Criteria.

Using a sample of 220 respondents from 15 United Arab Emirates (UAE) universities and colleges, results of regression analysis and confirmatory structural equation modeling show that all of the hypothesized causal relationships in the Baldrige model are statistically significant.

A comprehensive “measurement model” grounded in the Baldrige Performance Excellence in Education Criteria for the 33 items of measurement is developed, tested, and found to be valid and reliable. Leadership is identified as a driver for all components in the Baldrige System, including measurement, analysis and knowledge management, strategic planning, faculty and staff focus and process management. All Baldrige components (categories) are significantly linked with organizational outcomes as represented by the two categories of organizational performance results and student, stakeholder and market focus. The paper also tests the statistical fit of the only Baldrige model dealing with higher education, which was published in 1998 by Winn and Cameron.

The data obtained are based on a sample of UAE higher education institutions. Studies in other countries should be conducted using the developed model to ensure the reliability of the results obtained.

A greater understanding of the linkages between the elements making‐up the MBNQA Education Performance Excellence Criteria model, facilitating the guiding role that the award models play in the implementation of quality management in higher education.

For the first time, an instrument of the MBNQA Education Performance Excellence Criteria is developed and tested. A new in‐depth and holistic perspective for examining the relationships and linkages in the MBNQA Education Performance Excellence Criteria model is provided.

Recent research states that both the instrumental and the behavioral dimensions of performance management have equal influence on the performance of an organization. To test this statement, these dimensions have been operationalized in an analysis tool called the performance management analysis (PMA). This paper aims to discuss the results of research into the relation between the instrumental and the behavioral dimensions and organizational performance, using the PMA.

The PMA questionnaire was developed to test the instrumental and behavioral dimensions of performance management. With the PMA an organization can score itself on both dimensions, to evaluate the degree of its result‐orientation. The more attention an organization pays to elements belonging to a certain dimension, the higher it will score on that dimension. In addition the relative competitive performance of the organization is identified. This is done by asking the respondents to compare their organization's performance to that of its competitors or organizations with similar services. During the period January 2002‐March 2006 data were obtained by distributing PMA questionnaires to work‐experienced students of MBA courses taught by the author, participants of seminars conducted by the author, and workshops held by the author and colleagues at companies. In total 577 questionnaires of organizations in The Netherlands and the UK from a broad range of industries (both profit and non‐profit), were collected.

The research results show that paying equal attention to the instrumental and behavioral dimensions of performance management systems indeed results in higher competitive performance. Therefore, the research results provide a first indication of the importance of combining instrumental and behavioral dimensions to create a successful performance‐driven organization that achieves sustained better results.

The respondents of the questionnaire may have scored their own company more favorably than an objective outsider would have done. It is also possible that there are other aspects of importance to performance‐driven behavior, which have not been included in the research.

This study identifies which instrumental and behavioral dimensions an organization has to focus on, and the extent of this focus, in order to achieve sustainable performance.

An increasing number of profit and non‐profit organizations are implementing new and alternative performance management systems in order to obtain better organizational results. Despite the increase in experience gained with this approach, there is still a lot to be learned about the factors that influence the everyday use of these systems and of the factors that influence performance‐driven behavior. The research described in this paper provides evidence that paying equal attention to both instrumental and behavioral dimensions is paramount in order to create a successful performance‐driven organization that achieves sustained better results. As these dimensions have until now not been identified as an integral set, this identification is the contribution to the literature.

This study aims to explore the impact of the availability of work life balance (WLB) practices on organisational outcomes in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) mediated by the existence of a culture that supports WLB.

An empirical study was performed with a sample of 229 SMEs representing the metal industry sector of Southeast Spain.

The findings show that a WLB supportive culture mediates the effect of the availability of WLB practices on organisational performance.

Among the limitations of this study the authors highlight the transverse nature of the research and the data collection based on self‐reports.

Companies interested in increasing organisational outcomes should introduce WLB practices. Moreover, practitioners should enhance an organisational culture positive towards employees' balance, communicating their support towards WLB initiatives.

The availability of WLB initiatives in the organisations generates not only positive outcomes for employees (e.g. reduction of inter‐role conflict, higher satisfaction, etc.), but also increases the organisational results for employers.

This research focuses on SMEs and the results have implications for practitioners and academics.

The history of Organizational Development (OD) reveals a much older tradition of organizational science than the conventional wisdom would suggest. By the 1960s and 1970s OD became self‐confident and dynamic. This period was not only highly experimental but established the principles of OD for much of the twentieth century. By the end of the twentieth century new images of OD had occurred and much of the earlier thinking had been transformed. This review illustrates some examples under a series of themes that have had a major impact on the discipline of OD and on the wider thinking of organizational theorists and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of employees’ perception of organizational climate on organizational citizenship behaviour outbreak and the impact of both of them on organizational performance.

This survey has been performed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The statistical population composed of the managers of Mazandaran small- to medium-sized enterprises. The analysis of the data obtained from distributed survey questionnaire has been performed by SPSS18 and AMOS18 software.

Findings imply that positive perception of organizational climate influences on increasing organizational citizenship behaviour outbreak and performance of enterprise, and organizational citizenship behaviour in turn has positive and significant impact on organizational performance. Results of this survey also indicate that organizational citizenship behaviour impacts on sub-criteria of enterprise performance (i.e. financial, customer, learning and growth, internal processes). Moreover, the influence of organizational climate on all sub-criteria of performance except internal processes has been confirmed.

Lack of sufficient information concerning organizational climate in internal resources, and in some external ones, and low number of surveys performed in this field, limits the possibility of comparing the results of this survey with other similar surveys.

This survey can be considered as an innovative survey, since there is no similar survey conducted in which three variables of organizational climate, performance, and citizenship behaviour studied, considering their specified sub-criteria.