The Genesis and scope of organisational culture

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Chapter 4 METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the detailed and rigorous methodology is presented. The methodological choice for this study considered cross-fertilisation of existing good practice and new approaches in order to expand the contribution to the knowledge base, including measurement and methodology.

INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapters, the place of cross-cultural organisational research in the field of organisational behaviour and theory was established. This field of study is the young, but the discussions demonstrated that methodological and conceptual debates are maturing towards an implicit agreement (Chan 2014; Schneider et al. 2013; Van de Vijver, Van Hemert & Poortinga 2014a).
The critical importance of organisational culture lies in its pervasive influence on the “structure, policies, and practices” of an organisation (Chan 2014:484). It has also been noted that, because of globalisation, the diversity of the workforce in organisations is increasing, and a growing number of companies expand across borders. These two phenomena bring people from diverse cultural backgrounds together under one roof or in one team, or bring organisations into a new operating cultural context, making cross-cultural research increasingly significant.
A gap in the field of study was noted where research in the field is concentrated in the for-profit sector, and opportunities that can gain further knowledge from other industries and governance structures are untapped. Further, no evidence was established regarding the transferability of culture inventory tools developed in the for-profit industry for the non-profit sector and other governance models. Culture research was also dominated by the quantitative method and the integration perspective (Martin 2002). Other gaps in the field of study involved clarity and agreement in operationalisation of culture measurements. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing empirical knowledge and additional insight in the gaps identified above.
In this chapter, the researcher will report on the problem statement, objectives of the research, and then reflects on the methodology of the research.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Previous cross-cultural organisational studies have focused exclusively on for-profit multinational organisations with a single origin as well as monolithic and centralised governance structures (see for instance the major studies of Hofstede (1981) and House et al. (2004) as well as reviews of Gelfand, Erez & Aycan (2007), Kirkman et al. (2006) and Werner (2002) that reviewed several hundreds of published research in organisational culture). While knowledge was built covering especially the importance of national culture on organisational culture, the importance of other variables, such as various governance models and industries beyond the for-profit domain, has not been studied so far. The absence of research in other governance and non-profit models limits the depth and breadth of the knowledge base and constrains cross-industry and governance learning opportunities. In addition, studies have not yet captured complexities of culture by looking at the integration, differentiation and fragmentation phenomena in a complex organisation simultaneously.
Research in for-profit multinationals is not necessarily directly transferable to diverse organisational typologies. Internationally federated organisations face cultural layers at local (country) and federation (international) level, making the optimisation of integration, differentiation and fragmentation of organisational culture challenging in such complex agencies. The absence of research covering such types of complex organisations and gaps in operationalisation and measurement in such contexts limits our understanding of the importance of industry and governance in terms of culture and the cultural dispositions of such complex organisations. Studying complex, internationally federated NPOs can contribute significant insight about the importance of industry and governance in terms of organisational culture and the nature of cross-cultural or international interactions in such contexts. In addition, an understanding of the balance and interactions of integration, differentiation and fragmentation in such complex and large organisations adds to a better understanding of the field of organisational culture.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The primary objective of this research was to explore the nature and behaviour of organisational culture in the context of a federated, international NPO, and how leadership espouses, enacts and balances cultural uniformity and diversity to maintain organisational integration and survival.
This broad objective can be detailed in the following more specific objectives:
understand the overall behaviour of organisational cultural values and practices in the internationally federated and NPO context;
examine the degree of integration, differentiation and fragmentation of organisational culture in the internationally federated and NPO context;
compare and contrast senior leadership group and middle management group perceptions on organisational values and practices respectively, and reasons behind alignment and misalignment of the perceptions of the two groups; and
understand any distinct behaviour of culture in the internationally federated NPO context as compared to the for-profit and centrally governed organisation counterparts.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This research answered the following research questions that covered the above four principal objectives of the research.
What are the homogeneity and heterogeneity of values versus practices for various cultural dimensions?
What is the degree of integration, differentiation and fragmentation of cultural practices across the internationally federated entities?
What are the expressions of alignment or misalignment of perception between middle-level managers and leadership?
Which distinct cultural characteristics could an internationally federated NPO reveal that support the argument for a systematic study of diverse industry and governance contexts?

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES AND PROPOSITIONS

Before discussing the research hypotheses and propositions, it is necessary to articulate the premises upon which the hypotheses and propositions were built.
Internationally federated organisations behave in two ways: as a single global entity or as many independently governed and sovereign entities, because independent sovereign entities are united by will to form the federation (Boschken 1982; Heminway 2005; Papillon 2012). Therefore, we can test the unity of the global federation, while at the same time we can treat each entity as an organisation by its own right and examine its uniqueness. International federations also involve the reality of sovereign entities existing in nation states and societies that have their own unique cultures and identities that influence the entities that operate in them, a phenomenon that House et al. (2004) described as inclusiveness or nested-ness. This means that the organisations are nested within the societal culture and hence are influenced by it (House et al. 2004; Javidan et al. 2006).
Therefore, it is expected that cause for existence and the need for survival of the federation should create cultural characteristics that promote integration and cohesion across entities, while sovereignty, local societal culture, identity and context should facilitate differentiation and fragmentation when federations are formed across political and societal boundaries (Boschken, 1982). The limitation of authority of the central power to enforce isomorphic culture also implies that cultural uniformity is a matter of consensus.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Hypothesis 1: Regarding co-existence of integration, differentiation and fragmentation:
Internationally federated NPOs demonstrate a proportional mix of homogeneous and heterogeneous cultural practice scores indicating the balance of integration versus differentiation respectively.
Considering the essence of culture is primarily providing organisations with solutions for internal integration as well adaptation to the external environment (Javidan & House 2004), which in turn calls for integration and differentiation (Boisnier 2003; Cooke & Rousseau 1988; Gerdhe 2012; Hofstede 1998b; House et al. 2004; Sackmann 1992), and that:
− in the context of multicultural organisations, a policy response for coping with cultural and social diversity (Cox 1991; Edwor & Aluko 2007; Inglis 1996) calls for accommodating exceptions, fragmentation or multiplicity of sub-cultures and (Gerdhe 2012; Martin 2002; Meyerson & Martin 1987; Schneider et al. 2013); and
− the fact that the demands of federated governance are likely to pronounce the need for accommodating diversity of sovereign entities by allowing even otherwise negligible voices (Thorlakson 2003);
it should be expected that the simultaneous co-existence of integration, differentiation and fragmentation of organisational culture in such organisational context would be vivid.
Hypothesis 2: Regarding culture strength:
Cultural value scores of senior leaders across federated entities demonstrate a proportional mix of strong and weak agreements indicative of a mix of widely shared versus ambiguous values among federated entities.
Hypothesis one deals with the co-existence of integration, differentiation and fragmentation. Differentiation and fragmentation manifest in the form of weak integration (Martin 2002). It therefore means that measuring culture strength will provide another perspective of differentiation and fragmentation. The unidimensional operationalisation of culture strength discussed in the literature review (see section 3.5.3) (also see Chan 2014) is applied to explore integration and fragmentation (Chan 2014; Schneider et al. 2013) using the unique opportunity presented by the federated structure. In the context of internationally federated organisations, the strength or weakness of agreement among top leaders across the federated entities demonstrates overall areas of cultural consensus and diversity among leaders. Considering leaders take responsibility to espouse and enact organisational culture (House et al. 2004; Kreitner & Kinicki 2006; Schein 1983), the strength of agreement among leaders across the federated entities or the lack thereof demonstrates the overall consensus or fragmentation across federated entities.
Hypothesis 3: Regarding cultural congruence:
There is a direct relationship between the degree of agreement/disagreement among senior leaders versus the degree of alignment of a cultural practice across the federated entities.
A distinction was made between values as espoused versus values as enacted (Kreitner & Kinicki 2006), which GLOBE researchers measured as values and practices (House et al. 2004). Again, considering the roles of leadership to espouse the values of the organisation, and then championing the enactment of those values (House et al. 2004; Kreitner & Kinicki 2006; Schein 1983), it could be expected that their strong agreement across federated entities translates into wider enactment and hence alignment across entities. The researcher took the unique opportunity of evaluating agreement of leaders across federated entities to the next level of evaluation of the translation of the agreement or lack thereof in practice across units.
Hypothesis 4: Regarding unique industry and governance implication:
The institutional collectivism dimension will demonstrate strong homogeneity and inter-rater agreement across values and practices indicative of the role of institutional collectivism as cultural anchor for integration derived from the shared mission.
The unique contribution of this study lies in the nature and complexity of the organisation that covers new industry and governance across societal boundaries in the field of study. Considering the nature of federations as decentred in governance but bonded in an area of common interest (Thorlakson 2003), it is expected that the area of bond must be strong to assure organisational survival. The significance of the organisational mission (Baruch & Ramalho 2006; Campbell 1983; McDonald 2007) and its translation are expected to be reflected in an organisational culture dimension providing the solution for integration (Javidan & Houser 2004). Institutional collectivism, through inherent values for collective action in terms of the organisational cause or mission along with the drive of federations for equity reflects an area of cohesion that overcomes the disintegrating tendencies of the federation.

RESEARCH PROPOSITIONS

Proposition 1. The differentiating power of diversity and governance style in internationally federated NPOs is overcome by a cultural dimension founded on universal or etic values that help anchor organisational integration across societal cultural boundaries.
Proposition 2. Internationally federated organisations pursue a yearning for integration to control the fragmenting tendencies of diverse and locally adapted federated entities.
Proposition 3. Cultural tension is exemplified by strong employee discontent and ambiguity on the part of top leadership.
Proposition 4. One or more conventional organisational dimensions assume a unique significance in the non-profit industry and federated governance model.

RESEARCH PARADIGM (PHILOSOPHY)

Diverse uses of the research paradigm are observed in existing culture literature, ranging from the positivist modernist to the postmodernist approach (Calas & Smircich 1999; Hassard 1994; Schultz & Hatch 1996; Willmott 1992). The current research applied a positivist paradigm that was grounded in theory. However, the current research allowed paradigm flexibility in the application of a quantitative theory-driven method in a confirmatory/dis-confirmatory approach (Markus 1989), mixed with a qualitative exploratory and explanatory component, which sought to explore new meaning and enhance understanding and meaning of data. The notion of paradigm flexibility (see Calas & Smircich 1999; Creswell & Plano 2011; Martin 2002) as opposed to paradigm dogmatism (see Calas & Smircich 1999; Creswell & Plano 2011) is well argued as being critical, specifically if research in culture is to take a more rounded approach of understanding integration, differentiation and fragmentation (Martin 2002).
While paradigm rigidity dominates some spheres of study, the “interdisciplinary domain of organizational studies, in contrast [to other disciplines] is faced with overt and more common debates” (Martin 2002:212). Quantitative research dominated organisational studies since the mid-1970s (Martin 2002), and later in the 1980s, cultural studies more easily accepted qualitative methods in the field (Cooke and Rousseau 1988) and gradually, researchers acknowledged and promoted the advantages of a mixed methods approach describing the dichotomous view as oversimplification (Cooke & Rousseau 1988; Fielding 2012; Hofstede et al. 1990; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie 2004; Martin 2002; Yauch & Steudel 2003). Study findings by Johnson, Onwuegbuzie and Turner (2007) showed that mixed methods research is one of the three major research paradigms (the three being quantitative research, qualitative research, and mixed methods research) used by leading culture researchers.
In addition, in this research, a pragmatic paradigm (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011; Johnson et al. 2007) was employed, which allowed hypothesis testing with specific variables developed with existing theory through empirical measures and an application of a qualitative study to enrich research outcomes (Ivankova, Creswell
& Stick 2006). Because of the nature of the research questions and objectives, a mixed methodology with a dominant quantitative approach and complementary qualitative approach was preferred for this study where qualitative inquiry was primarily used for explanatory purposes. This approach is commonly applied as a sequential explanatory design (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011; Ivankova et al. 2006; Patton 2005). A sequential explanatory design anchors in the quantitative data and the testing of hypothesis, but follows this up with the use qualitative inquiry as complementary to provide context, explanation and depth of understanding. The research objectives also required an exploratory application to allow generation of new insight, which informed the formulation of new theory. A paradigm pragmatism allows the application of research methods and instruments to meet objectives that cut across paradigms (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011; Ivankova et al. 2006; Johnson et al. 2007). Hence, unlike a pure positivist design, a methodological dogmatism to depend on quantitative data was not followed. Rather, methodological pragmatism in the use of a mixed method allowed proceeding with qualitative inquiry to unearth further understanding on key findings and issues that were difficult to understand with only the quantitative data (as obtained by the survey).
According to Creswell and Plano Clark (2011), pragmatism as a research philosophy allows an ontological view of singular and multiple realities, an epistemology of practicality, an axiology of multiple stances, combining different methodologies, and following formal and informal rhetoric (for a detailed elaboration see Creswell and Plano Clark 2011:42). Based on this paradigm stance, the researcher discusses the chosen methodology to address the research questions and objectives in the following sections of this chapter.

RESEARCH DESIGN

The literature review on the operationalisation and measurement of organisational culture was discussed in section 3.5, and the complexity that cross-cultural research involves, was acknowledged. The debates surrounding major operationalisation issues, including the conceptualisation of organisational culture, since the publication by GLOBE’s (House et al. 2004), have filtered through to a level where, at this point, existing models are distinctly categorised together with their pros and cons (Fischer 2014). The emerging consensus shows that two models, namely the referent shift consensus model (see Chan 2014; Fischer 2014) and the aggregate model (see Chan 2014; Fischer 2014) have demonstrated true collective constructs (Fisher 2014).
In addition, section 3.5 of the literature review also highlighted how organisational culture research evolved methodologically from starting as a research purely based on a qualitative method to one that is dominated by measurement of constructs, and leaving a complementary, exploratory and explanatory role for qualitative research (Smith 2006). However, scholars gradually moved to promoting a mixed methods design, and the issue of paradigm rigidity became less relevant (Martin 2002).
This study approached organisational culture research through a simultaneous analysis of the integration, differentiation and fragmentation perspectives (Martin 2002). This required that the researcher exploited the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative methods in the choice of the research design.

MIXED METHOD DESIGN

The advantages of a mixed method approach in studies of organisational culture are well established, well-argued and applied by leading researchers in the field (Cooke & Rousseau 1988; Fielding 2012; Hofstede et al. 1990; House et al. 2004; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie 2004; Morgan & Smircich 1980; Vitale, Armenakis & Field 2008; Yauch & Steudel 2003). The ‘how’ of the mix of methods is a matter of justification for each research depending on research objectives and questions. A research design issue is different from the type of data (Patton 2005); therefore, a mixed method can be designed in different ways.
In this research, the sequential explanatory design approach was chosen (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011; Ivankova et al. 2006; Patton 2005) where data were collected over the study period in two consecutive phases. In the first phase, the researcher collected and analysed the quantitative data. In the second phase, qualitative data were collected in relation to the outcomes of the first phase of the study. The decision for the sequence of quantitative–qualitative data collection and analysis was based on the need to make the research design fit for purpose, that is, a confirmatory/dis-confirmatory quantitative method that needed to be supported by an exploratory and explanatory qualitative method. In other words, the research questions seeking a contextual explanation and exploration of factors behind the statistical results (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011; Green & Caracelli 1997; Patton 2005) required this approach.
The quantitative part of the study was grounded on theory and testing of hypotheses, while the qualitative part mainly served the further explanation of quantitative results as well as exploratory purposes that answered questions posed in areas such as the importance of industry and governance. Berry, Poortinga, Breugelmans, Chasiotis and Sam (2012:25) claim, “Most culture-comparative research tends to follow a quantitative approach.” Under this design, a quantitative approach dominated because of the comparative design of the research agenda. Qualitative research played a role in explaining the initial findings, as richness and depth are always challenges of culture research based on quantitative methods. A mixed method enabled balancing the two as well as gaining a more robust design that combined the strengths of both approaches (Cooke & Rousseau 1988; House et al. 2004; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie 2004; Yauch & Steudel 2003).
A strategy on which quantitative results to explore during the qualitative study was determined after the quantitative data analysis. Focus was put on key and significant predictors, as recommended by Creswell and Plano Clark (2011) for this type of methodology, namely the variables that distinguished between country offices, statistically significant findings between groups or discord between values and practices.

Table of contents
Chapter 1 Background
1.1. Background to the research context
1.2. Objectives of the research
1.3 Delineation of field and scope of the study
1.4. Importance of the study
1.5. Limitations
1.6. Overview
Chapter 2 Theoretical foundation of the study
2.1. The Genesis and scope of organisational culture
2.2. Definition of organisational culture
2.3. The Growth and breadth of organisational culture research
2.4. Paradigm choice in organisational culture research
Chapter 3 Literature review
3.1. Key concepts in organisational cross-cultural research
3.2. Cross-cultural Research
3.3. Organisational culture versus national culture
3.4. Organisational culture in cross-cultural context
3.5. Operationalisation and measurement of cross-cultural organisational research
3.6. The three perspectives to studying culture
3.7. Conclusion
Chapter 4 Methodology
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Problem statement
4.3. Research objectives
4.4. Research questions
4.5. Research hypotheses and propositions
4.6. Research paradigm (philosophy)
4.7. Research design
4.8. Sampling
4.9. Questionnaires and instruments
4.10. Data collection
4.11. Data analysis
Chapter 5 Results and findings
5.1. Quantitative results
5.2 Qualitative findings
Chapter 6 Interpretation of results and findings
6.1 Testing of the hypotheses
6.2. Evaluation of propositions
6.3. Meta-inference
Chapter 7 Conclusion and recommendations
7.1. Summary and conclusion
7.2. Contribution of this research
7.3 Recommendations
7.4 Implications for future research
List of references
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