The influence of organizational culture on attitudes towards organizational change

I.

Issues and arguments raised by the authors.

1. There exists a relationship between organizational culture and affective, cognitive and
behavioural tendencies of attitude towards change.
There are many factors of organizational culture that affects the psychology of
employees. Researches have shown that an organizational culture that is participative
in nature would have a positive impact upon the psychology of its employees. Also
flexible and diversified organization culture would have a certain impact upon the
psychology of the employees. This clearly shows the importance of organization
culture in shaping the employees psychology which in turn affects the attitude of
employees, attitude towards change in this particular case. This research however,
deals with the affective, cognitive and behavioural factors of attitude towards change
and organizational culture. Organization culture is a function of interlocking set of
goals, roles, processes, values, communications practices, attitudes and assumptions.
Attitude towards change is a crucial element in the change process because managing
psychology of both employees and leaders is a very challenging task. The importance
of well managed psychology towards change is being well realised by companies
these days. People are the most important factor in the change process and managing
people means managing their attitude towards change. When we talk about attitudes,
the research has forwarded the three facets of attitudes: affective, cognitive and
behavioural.

2. Certain types of organization culture might facilitate the change process while some
might not. What type of organization culture best facilitates the change process?
As discussed by the research, in an organizational culture that endorses single-minded
dedication to the organization's mission and goals (high solidarity) there is a
favourable and quick response to the change that is undertaken by the organization.
The change is also well receptive. In the mean time, people are less tolerant to change
if the organizational culture promotes a tolerance for poor performance on the part of
friends and consensus. The research has identified two different dimensions of
organizational culture: solidarity and sociability; the combination of which gives
different types of organization culture. The research has also identified the tendency
to welcome or avoid organizational change by the employees depending upon the type
of culture that is prevailing in the organization. It is indeed important to know what
type of organizational culture best facilitates the change process. As soon as the
managers implement change in an organization there generally exists two different
assessment of the change: i) a sense of momentum and achievement and ii) a sense of
difficulty and distress. These two assessments/opinions/perceptions arise as the
outcome of organization culture that is practiced.

3. The role of leadership in influencing the organizational culture and facilitating the
change process.
The elements of organization culture are generally mutually reinforcing and they are
combined in such a way that they tend to prevent any change to the function. This is
the main reason as to why a certain change that is brought in the organization seems
to work at the beginning but later would cease to align with old ways. The intertwined
elements of organizational culture take over the change back to the surface of the old

system. To change organizational culture, hence, is a very challenging task. However,

managers and leaders by the virtue of their authority and the influence they would
have over the employees have the freedom to decide on how their organization would
be run and can play a significant role in influencing and changing the culture in their
organization. It is also well explained in the research that leadership behaviours and
the domains of socialization are related to and the predictors of organization culture.
In fact, according to Forbes, In general, the most fruitful success strategy is to begin
with leadership tools, including a vision or story of the future, cement the change in
place with management tools, such as role definitions, measurement and control
systems, and use the pure power tools of coercion and punishments as a last resort,
when all else fails. The role of leadership, hence, is a very important issue in
organizational change.

II.

Comments on the methodology used by the authors

1. The response rate of the study is only 14.3 %. It is a very low response rate
hence a very low survey score. Generally a complicated questionnaire with
many questions, longer questions, complicated matrix questions lead to low
engagement from the sample population. It is always better to have a simple,
easily comprehendible questionnaire.
2. The use of nominal scale for measuring organizational culture should have
been avoided. Instead the researchers should have opted for ordinal or interval
scale. The research is a co-relational study and it is always better to use
interval scales. Nominal scale is not suitable for scientific studies or studies
that require huge data processing and data analysis.
3. The sample population mostly consisted of manufacturing firms. The
researchers should have included firms of other industries as well. It would
have increased the generalize-ability of the study.

III.

The major contributions and gaps of the study.

a. Contributions:
1. The study has established the fact that organizational culture has
2.

an effect in the organizational change process.

With the help of empirical evidences this study has established
that the type of organizational culture prevailing in an
organization would have certain impact/effects upon attitudes

3.

toward potential changes, which earlier was not known.

This study also relates cultural typology with each type of the
attitudes tendencies toward change. This has revealed the
importance of each type of cultural typology along with the level
of acceptance on attitudes towards change.

4. The findings of this study align with the findings of the previous
studies on the importance of culture in organizational change
processes.
5. This is the first ever study of the type done in non-Western
context, which is not widely known in the literature.

b. Gaps
1. The study did not encounter with much of negative associations
towards change. So, the study actually fails to establish any
substantial findings and suggestions to organizations that face
negative reactions towards change.
2. The research doesnt explain much on the role of leadership on
influencing the socialization process which is a important factor
in a network or fragmented organization culture.
3. The research is done in Malaysia. Since the organizational culture
in Asia and west varies, the findings cannot be generalized.

IV.

Recommendations
1. A longitudinal study on relationship between leadership and organization
culture should be done because the type of leadership has effect on both
organizational culture and employees attitude.
2. A longitudinal study on various dimensions of organizational change,
organizational strategy and organizational culture should be conducted.
3. The effect of the nature of bureaucracy in organizational culture should also
be accessed through a separate longitudinal study.

4. The organization culture should also be assessed in terms of: supportive,

participative, innovative, bureaucratic and other such dimensions.
5. The study should also recommend on the change initiative that aligns with
the type of organizational culture.
6. The study has touched the concept of artefacts but has failed to derive any
conceptual relation between organizational culture and artefacts. The study
should first give an operational definition to artefacts.
Jay Prakash Upadhyaya (14335)
MBA Spring 2014