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Abstract
Diagnosis of culture is extremely important and in great demand in literature particularly when it comes to public organizations which operate in complex and compelling social, political and economic environment. Scholars and practitioners also affirm that examining the culture of public organizations is a very complex and challenging task. It is well-known that any organizational development initiatives through a change of culture failed dramatically because the culture diagnosis is either ignored or not understood. Incidentally, in the public sector, empirical findings of the cultural diagnosis are either non-existent or sketchy. Therefore, we comprehensively diagnose the culture of a public organization by utilizing the most widely used competing values framework through sequential explanatory mixed method approach (a survey, observations and in-depth interviews). This ambitious research approach is undoubtedly very rare in diagnosing public sector organizational culture. This study accepts this challenge to make a meaningful contribution and analyses the culture concerning the competing values of flexibility/stability and internal/external relationship. Results indicated that a reliance on the hierarchy culture did exist, while managers want to depart from this bureaucratic culture and adopt the characteristics of the clan culture.
Keywords: diagnosis of culture, types of culture, competing values framework, public organization.
1.Introduction
Many authors and practitioners argue that diagnosis of culture is essential to achieve organizational change and the long-term effectiveness successfully. Denison (1990) claims that organizational culture is an important factor in achieving high organizational performance. The study of organizational culture began in the 1980s, and understanding organizational culture has become an essential approach to implement strategic management and achieve high performance in the organization (Sasaki et al., 2017). Diagnosing and changing existing organizational culture is a challenging and problematic area of research.
In literature, the transformation of the bureaucratic inertia, high formalization, rigid departmentalization and centralization of government requires a thorough examination of the culture of public organizations. The culture of public sector organizations is complex, especially where corruption, red tape, poor governance, political and individual influences, resources scarcity, discrimination, favoritism, low protection of public rights are prevailing causes.
Researchers, commentators on the global upheaval also agree that to survive and thrive in today's highly volatile, competitive and dynamic business environment; organizations need to be sensitive to the need of diagnosing of its culture....