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A comparative study of organizational strategy and culture across industry

Bindu Gupta
Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, India
Abstract
Purpose The present study examines the strategy and culture of 32 Indian organizations belonging to seven industry segments namely construction, banking, information technology (IT), pharmaceuticals, power, steel, and telecom. Further it also examines the linkage between the organizations strategy and the culture of the organization. Design/methodology/approach It has used the typology suggested by Miles and Snow and organizational culture assessment instrument developed by Cameron and Quinn which is based on the competing values framework of Quinn and Rohrbaugh. The Miles and Snow framework suggests four organizational strategies namely, prospector, defender, analyzer and reactor. Organizational culture is categorized into four types: adhocracy, clan, market, and hierarchy. Findings The ndings indicated that there are signicant differences in the strategy and culture of organizations belonging to different industry segments. Prospector strategy is most widely used by the telecom industry and least in construction. The analyzer strategy was reported to be most frequently used by the IT sector and defender and reactor strategy were used by the construction sector. Adhocracy culture was most prevalent in the pharmaceutical sector. Clan, market, and hierarchy culture were most prevalent in the construction industry. Further organizations using prospector strategy were high on adhocracy culture. Both clan and adhocracy cultures were found more in organizations with analyzer strategy. Organizations with defender and reactor strategy were high on hierarchy and clan culture, respectively. Practical implications This study asserts that different culture and strategy is used in Indian organizations. Originality/value The contribution of the study lies in examining the differences in culture and strategy of organizations belonging to different industry segments. Keywords Culture, India, Industry type, Strategy, Organizational culture, Corporate strategy Paper type Research paper

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Benchmarking: An International Journal Vol. 18 No. 4, 2011 pp. 510-528 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1463-5771 DOI 10.1108/14635771111147614

In the global environment, organizations all around the world are constantly facing challenges to have competitive advantage. The global world is characterized by more competition, diverse work force, continuously changing customers needs, and new technological changes, etc. Till the nineties the process of globalisation of the Indian economy was constrained by the barriers to trade and investment. The organizations were working in protected environment with few competitors. After the liberalisation of trade, investment and nancial ows initiated in the nineties has progressively lowered the barriers to competition and hastened the pace of globalisation. In this uncertain environment only those organizations can survive and grow which are able to dene
The author sincerely acknowledges the reviewer for giving constructive criticisms which have helped to improve the paper. The author also acknowledges the contribution of colleagues and students who have helped directly and indirectly in developing this paper.

the strategy which is aligned with the industry environment. Numerous researches across the world indicate that rms with a strategy have got much more chances of success compared to those without a strategy. Within India, strategy has become popular particularly after the reforms on 1991 brought and inux of multinational and increasing competition. The companies operating in India need to understand the inherent issues in strategy on one hand and focus on strategy implementation on the other hand to get the intended results. (Pillania, 2009). Organizational strategy can be dened as a plan for interacting with the competitive environments to achieve organizational goals (Daft, 1995, p. 49). The study of organizational strategy started with Andre (Collis and Montgomery, 1995) who dened strategy as the match between what an organization can do within the universe of what it might do. Later researchers, as represented by Porter (1980), focused on the industry environment of an organization and concluded that the structural characteristics of an industry determine the strategy of organizations in it. There have been different typologies for strategy and among all the typologies, the most frequently used in empirical research into a wide variety of organizations and industries, is that proposed by Miles and Snow. The various studies that have applied Miles and Snows model have lent it strong support in different environments (Zahra and Pearce, 1990). Dent (1990) concludes that the Miles and Snow typology provides the richest portrayal of organizational arrangements associated with particular business strategies. Various studies have provided support for the reliability and validity of this approach and it has recognized as one having good codication and prediction strengths (Snow and Hambrick, 1980; Hambrick, 1983a, b; Shortell and Zajac, 1990; Abernethy and Guthrie, 1994). The purpose of this study is to address three questions in the context of Indian enterprises. First, what is the dominant strategy across the industries in India and are there signicant differences in the strategy of organizations belonging to different industry segment? Second, which is the most prevalent culture across the industries in India and are there signicant differences in the culture of organizations belonging to different industry segment? Further, there have been rich theoretical descriptions to demonstrate the importance of aligning culture and strategy for organizational performance and effectiveness (Schein, 2004; Sackmann, 1991). However, researchers have pointed out (Bitici et al., 2004; Lee and Yu, 2004) that there are few studies that have examined empirically, and across multiple organizations, the link between specic components of culture and strategy. So, this study intends to examine the relationship between different components of organizational culture and strategy of the organization. It has used the strategy typology suggested by Miles and Snow (1978) and the competing values framework (CVF) of Quinn and Rohrbaugh (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1981; Quinn, 1988; Rohrbaugh, 1983) for measuring organisational culture. Miles and Snows strategy framework Miles and Snows (1978) framework is rooted in Childs (1972) conceptualization of strategic choice and considers the rate at which organizations change their products or markets. According to Miles and Snow (1978) organizations act to create their own environments through a series of choices regarding markets, products, technologies, desired scale of operations, and so on. Miles and Snow (1978) classied strategy types as defender, analyzer, prospector, and reactor. Research over the years has investigated differences among these four

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strategic types with respect to variety of internal factors, including innovation, management characteristics, organizational performance, and organizational design. According to Miles and Snow (1978), organizations in each category show a consistent pattern of strategic behavior in their decisions when dealing with various environmental forces (Conant et al., 1990). More than one strategy can be successful in a given environment, but it is imperative for a rm to be organized appropriately and to plan and implement strategies relevant to a particular strategic type (Gupta et al., 1997, p. 400). Defenders are internally oriented organizations. They stress efciency, and are tightly organized rms focused on maintaining a niche with a limited range of products or services (Miles and Snow, 1978). They try to protect their markets through lower prices, high-quality, well-target products, and superior delivery while not often being at the forefront of industry developments. Because of their narrow focus, these rms hardly ever need to make major adjustments in their technology, structure, or methods of operation. These rms devote primary attention to improving the efciency of existing operations. They develop a core technology that is highly efcient and uses an organization structure with centralized control. The prospectors are the exact opposite of a defender. The prospectors have an external focus and assumes more business risk than the defender by attempting to be rst to market with new products and services, even when these efforts are not highly protable initially. These rms more emphasizes in maintaining the image of an innovator in product terms than securing high protability (McDaniel and Kolari, 1987). They are continuously involved in monitoring the external environment as these intend to respond quickly to early signs of opportunities and exploiting the benets of being a pioneer in a new product/market area (Mitchell, 1991; Robinson et al., 1992). They are aggressive, rather than passive, in their efforts. The prospector avoids long-term commitments to any type of technological process. These rms usually create change and uncertainty in the marketplace to which competitors are forced to react (Stathakopoulos, 1998, p. 539) The structure of these rms is characterized by a low degree of formalization and routine, decentralization and lateral as well as vertical communication, emphasizing aspects such as innovation and exibility. Analyzers blend the characteristics of both the prospector and defender orientations (Miles and Snow, 1978). The analyzer maintains a moderate level of business risk by waiting to see the experience of others before entering a market. They are rarely rst-in with new services or into new markets, but are often second-in with better offerings. Analyzer rms show frequent dialogue with customers and commonly weigh up their competitors activities (Slater and Narver, 1993). They put emphasis on longer-term planning and much thought about decisions prior to action in most instances. The analyzer partitions its technology so that it can serve its stable domains with efcient technologies and its dynamic domains with exible and effective technologies. They include exibility as well as stability, adopting structures that can accommodate both stable and changing domains. Reactor organizations do not present any consistent pattern of response behavior to environmental conditions (Matsuno and Metzer, 2000, p. 4). These rms do not attempt to maintain an already acquired dened product/market domain, nor do they try to capitalize on viable environmental opportunities or take true risks (Croteau et al., 1999, p. 2). Their actions are mostly reaction to outside forces, such as the economy, competitors, or market pressures. They lack a consistent strategy-structure relationship

(Parnell and Wright, 1993, p. 30).They are not planners, but reactive and thinkers by necessity. Miles and Snow consider this strategy type to be a nonstrategy, but Hrebiniak and Joyce (1985) consider the reactor to be an appropriate strategy in an extremely placid environment. Organizational culture Organizational culture can be dened a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group has learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to these problems (Schein, 1985, p. 12). Organizational culture can serve as a tool to improve productivity and has a signicant effect on an organizations long term sustainability, economic performance and outcomes such as protability, turnover, and commitment (Kotter and Heskett, 1992; Tidball, 1988; Cremer, 1993) and if properly communicated, culture can be used to encourage all employees to subscribe to organizational goals (Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Wilkins and Ouchi, 1983). According to Schein (1992) understanding of organizational culture is fundamental to examine what goes on in organizations, how to run them and how to improve them. Studies have emphasized the importance of culture in implementing organizational initiatives such as supply chain management (Mello and Stank, 2005) and reported that the organizational culture supports the linkages between the adoption of technology and organizational growth and as critical factor in determining the success or failure of mergers and acquisitions (Balthazard et al., 2006). It has also been considered a form of organizational capital (Barney, 1985; Camerer and Vepsalainen, 1988). A range of tools to measure organizational culture have been developed and applied in industrial, educational, and health care settings over the last two decades. For the present study, the CVF of Quinn and Rohrbaugh (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1981; Quinn, 1988; Rohrbaugh, 1983) has been adopted. Quinn and Cameron (1983) assert that organizational culture is a complex, interrelated, comprehensive and ambiguous set of factors and it is impossible to include all relevant factors in diagnosing and assessing organizational culture. Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), has been developed by Cameron and Quinn (1999) which is based on the competing value framework. Cameron and Quinn (1999) categorized organizational culture into four types: hierarchy, clan, market, and adhocracy. Their two cultural variables are stability and control versus exibility and direction, and internal focus versus external focus. While stressing the importance of establishing a t between organizational culture and the organization, Cameron and Quinn (1999) concluded that there is a progression toward higher exibility and external focus in order for an organization to thrive. These four patterns of organizational culture show differences in terms of focus, leadership styles, criteria for effectiveness, management of employees, organizational glue and criteria of success (Cameron and Quinn, 1999). Hierarchy culture emphasizes stability or control with high level of internal focus. This culture is characterized by uniformity, coordination, internal efciency, and a close adherence to rules and regulations. The leaders are coordinators and organisers. Formal rules and policies hold the organisation together. Success is dened in terms of dependable delivery, smooth scheduling, and low cost. Adhocracy culture would be its opposing contrast in that it underlines exibility and external orientation toward changes. Creativity, innovation,

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and external growth are emphasized in response to the changing demands of the external environments (e.g. competitors and customers). Clan culture is similar to hierarchy culture in that it stresses the internal aspects of an organization, but different in that an emphasis is given more on the exibility dimension. In this culture, employees are empowered and encouraged to participate in enhancing and optimizing internal resources and business processes. Market culture is externally oriented with a stress on control and stability. Organizations with market culture accentuate productivity and achievement with well-dened objectives against external competitions (Stock et al., 2007). People are competitive and goal-oriented. The leaders are hard drivers, producers, and competitors. Success is dened in terms of market share and penetration. Competitive pricing and market leadership are important in this culture (Cameron and Quinn, 1999, p. 87). The market, adhocracy, clan, and hierarchy culture types are dominant ones rather than mutually exclusive classications. Hence although the majority of organizations may be characterized by more than one form of culture, one culture type assumes a predominant position over a period of time (Deshpande and Webster, 1989). Cameron and Quinn (1999) explained some examples of different types of organisations and pointed out that government organisations t in the hierarchy quadrant. Government organizations share some characteristics such as being well-organised, secure, stable, controlled systems. Financial organisations belonged to the hierarchical and market quadrant. Strategy and culture Organizational culture and strategy are highly interrelated. It is generally accepted that once the organization change strategy, it must align organizational culture with strategy, or face almost certain strategic failure. Behaviors that are intended to achieve strategic goals may be supported or impeded by the culture (Semler, 1997; Tosti and Jackson, 1994). Vestal et al. (1997) explained the relationship between organizational culture and strategy and it was supported by other researchers (Semler, 1997; Tushman and O Reilly, 1996). Schwartz and Davis (1981, p. 47) pointed out, for better or worse, a corporate culture has a major impact on a companys ability to carry out objectives and plans, especially when a company is shifting its strategic direction. Studies also have indicated the signicance of organizational culture in strategy implementation among the other factors such as organization structure, work and information system, and essential business process (Wu et al., 2004). Bates et al. (1995) found that in manufacturing environment, strategy that include formal planning, communication of strategy, contribution to competitive position, and a long range orientation co-exist with a clan oriented culture that is characterized by the use of groups and teams (Bates et al., 1995). Weber and Pliskin (1996) explained culture as a determinant of quality in public sector organizations. Organizations, such as Hewlett-Packard, which pursued a prospector/differentiation strategy developed a culture that fostered risk-taking, individuality, and innovation. In contrast, Emerson Electric pursued a defender/low cost strategy and, also appropriately, shaped a culture that emphasized frugality, attention to detail, and discipline (Miles et al., 1993). The above discussions re-emphasize that component of organizational culture need to be aligned with specic organizational strategy. Following section discusses some more ndings related to specic strategy and culture of the organization and hypotheses for investigation.

Prospectors are highly proactive and innovative and need exibility and effectiveness while defenders are much less proactive and need stability and efciency (Reeve, 1994, p. 19). Studies indicate that the prospector strategy is associated with more with R&D, new product introduction, and marketing efforts compared to analyzer and defender strategy (Thomas et al., 1991; Hambrick, 1983a, b, Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980; and Connant et al., 1990). Organization with prospector strategies are more likely to encourage experimentation and innovation (Brown, 2005), are likely to emphasize creativity to a great extent (O Regan and Ghobadian, 2006), and characterized by organizational cultures higher on innovation and outcome orientation than defenders (Baird et al., 2007). Defenders emphasis on low cost requires close attention to operational details, including the relentless pursuit of cost economies and productivity improvements through standardization of components and processes, routinization of procedures and the integration of functional activities across business units (Walker and Ruekert, 1987). According to Day and Nedungadi (1994), preoccupation with the internal business environment is common with defenders, causing executives to emphasize efciency rather than effectiveness. The ndings of the study by Baird et al. (2007) indicated that defenders were characterized by culture higher on stability. Analyzer strategy is a hybrid strategy which greatly focuses both on aspects of innovation and efciency. Analyzers are an intermediate type both as regards proactiveness and innovativeness, needing greater stability and efciency than prospectors but greater exibility and effectiveness than defenders (Reeve, 1994, p. 19). Information needs of analyzers will be the combination of the needs identied for prospectors and defenders (Miles and Snow, 1978). Alike to rms emphasizing prospector strategy, rms emphasizing analyzer strategy also are expected to view customer and learning and growth measures as being very important. Shortell and Zajac (1990) found no signicant differences in the actual number of new services offered by health care organizations adopting prospector and analyzer strategy. The above discussions lead to the development of the following hypotheses: H1. Organizations following defender strategy will be high on hierarchy and market culture. H2. Organizations following prospector strategy will be high on adhocracy and clan culture. H3. Organization with analyzer strategy will be high on market and adhocracy culture. Methodology Industry/sample description Data were collected by means of questionnaires that were sent through electronic mail. Overall 1,600 questionnaires were mailed, and 1,030 usable questionnaires were received, with response rate 64.37 per cent of respondents. Thus, sample was not random; only participants who volunteered to take part in the study were surveyed. The respondents came from 32 organizations from seven industries namely construction, Banking, Information technology (IT), pharmaceutical, power, steel, and telecom. These industries have been considered to make signicant contribution to Indian economy for some decades. The breakdown of the respondents by industrial groups is as follows:

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IT 31.9 per cent. Steel industry 17.5 per cent. Banking 15.1 per cent. Pharmaceutical 9.3 per cent. Telecom 8.7 per cent. Construction 8.7 per cent. Power 8.6 per cent.

There have been variations in the number of organizations and participants from each industry; this can be attributed to some of the factors like presence of organizations across India and percentage of returned responses from participants. The organizations selected for the study are high performance organizations within their industry segment and are among the top ten organizations in India and represent right mix of public, private, and multinationals. The average age of participants was 35.09 years, average experience in current organisation 5.61 years. The only those employees were requested to respond to questionnaire who have minimum three years of experience with the present organization, as employees need to spend some time with the organization to understand the strategy of organization. With respect to the level of qualications, 60.8 percent were graduates from various streams (i.e. commerce, science, computers, arts, management, electrical, textile etc); and 39.2 per cent were post-graduates from management, science, etc. Male respondents accounted for 64.5 percent of the population and 35.5 percent were the females. Earlier studies examining the strategy of organizations relied on CEO of company, which was challenged by later studies (Bowen, 1987; Chaganti and Sambharya, 1987). Golden (1992) reported that 58 per cent of CEOs surveyed did not agree with the previously validated accounts of their organizations past strategies (see also Hiam, 1993; Sayles, 1993). In respond to these observations later studies have surveyed the individuals from lower-top, middle and lower level to analyze the strategy of the company (Parnell, 1997). The present study also took the responses from the lower, middle and top level employees from of the organizations surveyed. Description about industries The economy of India is as diverse as it is large, with a number of major sectors including manufacturing industries, agriculture, textiles and handicrafts, and services. Thirty-two organizations from seven industries were selected to investigate their dominant strategy and culture. This section discusses briey the industries represented in the study. Banking. Banking in India has a long and detailed history of more than 200 years. This industry started in 1786, when the countrys rst bank, Bank of Bengal, was established. The industry has changed rapidly and drastically, after the nationalization of banks in 1969.Liberalization and economic provided the Indian banking scenario a remarkable facelift that only continues to get better with time. The Indian banking system includes nationalized banks, private banks and specialized banking institutions. Nationalized banks are the biggest lenders in the country because of the size of the banks and the penetration of the networks. The Reserve Bank of India is a centralized body in the Indian nancial sector that monitors discrepancies and shortcomings in the system (http://info.shine.com/Industry-Information/Finance-and-Banking/117.aspx).

The study sampled 156 managers from the six organizations. The participants belonged to both from the public and private banks. Information technology. IT industry in India is among the rapidly growing industries. It has created brand equity for itself in the global markets. IT industry in India involves software industry and information technology enabled services (ITES), which also includes business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. India is pioneer in software development and a favorite destination for IT-enabled services. Today, Indian IT companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Infosys, HCL, etc. are renowned in the global market for their IT prociency. The organizations surveyed produced 329 responses from 10 major IT organizations including Indian and multinational organizations. Telecom. Telecom industry in India has a high market potentiality and is a fast growing sector. India has nearly 200 million telephone lines which make it the third largest network in the world after China and USA. With a growth rate of 45 per cent, Indian telecom industry has the highest growth rate in the world. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices, Reliance communications and IDEA are the major telecommunications service providers in India. In this study, 90 respondents from three major private telecom players participated in the survey. Construction. The Indian construction industry is a one of the key growth driver for the national economy and it contributes on average 6.3 per cent of the GDP. It is the second largest contributor to the national economy and second largest employment generation avenue in the country. This industry is highly fragmented. It includes smaller builders and major players those involved in infrastructure development. For this study, 90 responses were received from the employees of three organizations representing the major players in construction industry. Pharmaceutical. The Indian Pharmaceutical Industry is among the top rank of Indias science-based industries with extensive ranging capabilities in the eld of drug manufacture and technology. It is estimated to be worth $ 4.5 billion, growing at about 8 to 9 percent annually. It ranks very high in the third world for technology, quality and range of medicines manufactured. This sector is highly fragmented and has more than 20,000 registered units (http://pharmaceutical-drug-manufacturers.com/ pharmaceutical-industry/). It has expanded signicantly in the last two decades. Ninety-six respondents from three Indian private players participated in the survey. Power. India is the 5th largest power producer in the world with the total power capacity of more than 145,000MW (http://researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo. asp?report_id694706). Key players in the Indian power sector are National Thermal Power Corporation Limited, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited, Power Grid Corporation of India, Tata Power, etc. The study sampled 89 managers from the three organizations. The participants belonged to both from the public and private organizations. Steel. Indias rapid economic growth and increasing demand by sectors like infrastructure, real estate and automobiles, at home and abroad, has put Indian steel industry on the global map. The report by International Iron and Steel Institute indicate that India is the seventh largest steel producer in the world. This industry is organized in three categories, i.e. main producers, other major producers and the secondary producers. The main producers and other major producers have integrated steel making

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facility with plant capacities over 0.5 mT and utilize iron ore and coal/gas for production of steel. The major players are Tata Steel, SAIL, and RINL, and the other major producers are ESSAR, ISPAT and JVSL (http://iloveindia.com/economy-of-india/steelindustry.html). The organizations surveyed produced 180 responses from main producers and major producers in steel industry. Measures Business strategy. A multi-item scale developed by Parnell (1997), based on the work of Conant et al. (1990) was used for operationalizing the Miles and Snow strategic typology. This multi-item scale can be referred to as multivariate measurement of strategy which contains a broad set of strategic variables (Hambrick, 1980). There were a total of 12 questions with each consisting of four statements, one for each possible strategy. Each respondent was required to indicate which statement is true for his/her organization. The terms Prospector, Analyzer, Defender, and Reactor were omitted from the questions in order not to indicate that the types necessarily represent good or poor strategy. To measure the strategy, an overall evaluation of the degree to which the rm emphasizes a given strategy was derived by taking the no of agreements across the twelve items. The study assigned strategies to organizations based on the degree of agreement among the respondents of specic organization. The twelve responses for each participant in each organization was used to classify the business into one of the four strategy categories, depending on which strategy received the more than and equal to 50 per cent responses. Organizational culture was measured with OCAI developed by Cameron and Quinn (1999). There were 20 items in all, ve for each of the culture classications. Within this classication, a question for each type of culture was considered in the context of ve different organizational variables, namely organizational leadership, management of employees, organizational glue, strategic emphasis, and criteria of success. Each respondent was required to indicate whether he or she agrees or disagrees with each statement concerning their organization by using a ve-point Likert scale ranging from 1 Strongly disagree to 5 Strongly agree. To measure the culture, an overall evaluation of the degree to which the rm emphasizes a given culture was derived by taking the mean score across the ve items for each culture dimension. A reliability check using Cronbach alpha was done to test the internal consistency of the culture constructs. This test produced the alpha coefcients of 0.65 (clan), 0.60 (adhocracy) and 0.62 (Market), and 0.70 (Hierarchy). According to Nunnally (1978), alpha coefcients of 0.50 to 0.60 are acceptable for exploratory research. Data analysis data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results Results for business strategy Table I shows the mean scores for all the strategy across the industries and for each industry. The mean score indicates that most used strategy is analyzer (M 4.36) followed by prospector (M 3.53). The least used strategy is defender (M 1.97). The results of ANOVA with repeated measure on strategy indicated the signicant difference in the use of these four strategy F (3, 3069) 217.48, p , 0.00.

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Industry Prospector Construction Banking IT Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total Analyzer Construction Banking IT Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total Defender Construction Banking IT Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total Reactor Construction Banking IT Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total

Mean 2.18 3.36 3.63 3.86 2.52 3.96 4.64 3.53 3.39 4.45 4.69 4.60 4.57 4.31 3.60 4.36 3.46 2.50 1.38 1.50 3.24 1.49 1.88 1.97 2.96 1.50 2.22 1.54 1.67 2.24 1.87 2.04

SD 1.58 2.05 2.28 2.23 1.52 1.82 2.31 2.15 2.03 2.03 1.98 1.96 2.16 2.04 1.99 2.06 1.52 1.93 1.27 1.09 1.57 1.29 1.73 1.64 1.75 1.28 1.58 1.39 1.18 1.78 1.42 1.58

n 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030

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Table I. Mean scores for business strategies

The mean scores for different industries indicate that prospector strategy is most used in telecom sector and least in construction industry. The result of ANOVA indicated the signicant differences in different industries for the use of prospector strategy (F (6, 1023) 16.47, p , 0.00. There is also signicant difference in the use of analyzer, defender, and reactor strategy in different industries (F (6, 1023) 7.51, p , 0.00.; F (6, 1023) 43.50, p , 0.00; and F (6, 1023) 12.59, p , 0.00, respectively). Analyser strategy is most used in IT sector and least in construction sector. Defender and reactor are most used in construction industry (Table I). Results for organizational culture Table II shows the mean scores for different organizational culture across the industries which indicates that most prevalent culture is adhocracy culture (M 4.36) followed

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Industry Clan culture Construction Banking IT Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total Adhocracy culture Construction Banking IT Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total Market culture Construction Banking It Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total Hierarchy culture Construction Banking IT Pharmaceutical Power Steel Telecom Total

Mean 3.69 3.43 3.62 3.53 3.03 3.43 3.06 3.46 3.51 3.49 3.54 3.59 3.31 3.39 3.34 3.47 3.50 3.27 3.47 3.48 3.44 3.20 2.93 3.35 3.63 3.49 3.49 3.38 3.27 3.42 3.07 3.42

SD 0.48 0.68 0.46 0.41 0.49 0.47 0.56 0.55 0.50 0.55 0.52 0.37 0.73 0.54 0.46 0.54 0.52 0.58 0.55 0.49 0.64 0.39 0.52 0.55 0.54 0.65 0.62 0.53 0.83 0.55 0.56 0.63

n 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030 90 156 329 96 89 180 90 1,030

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Table II. Mean scores for organizational culture

by clan culture (M 3.45). The least prevalent culture is market culture (M 3.35). The results of ANOVA with repeated measure on culture indicated the signicant difference in industries in terms of these four culture F (3, 3069) 13.26, p , 0.00. The mean scores of organizational culture for different industries indicate that clan culture is most prevalent in construction sector and least in power sector. The result of ANOVA indicated the signicant differences in different industries for the clan culture (F (6, 1023) 29.32, p , 0.00). There is also signicant difference for adhocracy, market, and hierarchy culture in different industries (F (6, 1023) 4.51, p , 0.00.; F (6, 1023) 17.58, p , 0.00; and F (6, 1023) 8.74, p , 0.00, respectively). Adhocracy culture is most prevalent in pharmaceutical sector and least in power sector. Market and hierarchy culture is most prevalent in construction industry (Table II).

Table III shows the mean scores of organizational culture for different strategy. These results indicated that when organizations use defender strategy the most prevalent cultures is hierarchy culture (M 3.41) followed by market culture (3.34) which support the stated hypotheses hypothesized that the organizations following defender strategy more likely to have market culture and hierarchy culture (H1). The results of ANOVA with repeated measure on culture indicated the signicant difference in prevalent cultures when organization use defender strategy F (3, 87) 6.77, p , 0.00. In the case when organizations use prospector strategy the most prevalent culture is adhocracy (M 3.60) followed by clan culture (M 3.53) and these results support the stated hypothesis organizations following prospector strategy will be high on adhocracy culture and clan culture. (H2). The results of ANOVA with repeated measure on culture also indicated the signicant difference in prevalent cultures when organization use prospector strategy F (3, 237) 38.83, p , 0.00. When organizations use analyzer strategy the most prevalent cultures are clan culture (M 3.43) and adhocracy culture (M 3.43). The results of ANOVA with repeated measure on culture indicated the signicant difference in prevalent cultures when organization use analyzer strategy F (3, 667) 3.02, p , 0.029. The most prevalent culture was clan culture (M 3.97) when organization use reactor strategy and results of ANOVA with repeated measure on culture indicated the signicant difference in prevalent cultures when organization use reactor strategy F (3, 27) 7.43, p , 0.001. Discussion Strategy type, viewed as the particular approach chosen by the rm to achieve success in its competitive environment, may require a tailored culture for effective implementation. This research focused on organizational culture and type of strategy adopted by Indian organization. Three basic questions regarding organizational strategy and culture were examined. First, what is the dominant strategy across the industries in India and are there signicant differences in the strategy of organizations belonging to different industry segment? Second, which is the most prevalent culture across the industries in India and are there signicant differences in the culture of organizations belonging to different industry segment? Third, it examined the linkage between types of business strategies and culture of organization. The contribution of the study lies in examining the differences in culture
Strategy Analyzer Prospector Defender Reactor Mean SD n Mean SD n Mean SD n Mean SD n Clan culture 3.43 0.57 670 3.53 0.45 240 3.28 0.55 90 3.97 0.26 30 Adhocracy culture 3.43 0.57 670 3.60 0.42 240 3.16 0.50 90 3.70 0.36 30 Market culture 3.37 0.56 670 3.28 0.48 240 3.34 0.56 90 3.74 0.35 30 Hierarchy culture 3.42 0.65 3.38 0.58 240 3.41 0.54 90 3.83 0.44 30

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Table III. Means scores for culture for different strategy

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and strategy of organizations belonging to different industry segment. Further it also examines the culture and strategy of the organizations in the Indian context which is considered to be one of the stars of global economics The ndings indicated that most dominant strategy is analyzer strategy and most prevalent culture is adhocracy culture followed by clan culture across the industries in India. These ndings may be interpreted in the light of the national culture dimension of Hofstede (1991). Hofstede (1991) dened the national value as the collective mental programming of the people of a nation, which shapes the values, attitudes, competencies, behaviors and perceptions of individuals of specic nations in a particular manner. It is known to have a signicant inuence on managerial styles and functions of an organization (e.g. Hofstede, 1993; Budhwar and Sparrow, 2002). Indian work culture exhibits a high power-distance, collectivism and affective reciprocity among the cultural values of Indian managers (Chhokar, 2000; Sinha, 1997). With respect to uncertainty avoidance, while Hofstede (1997) suggests that India is high on uncertainty avoidance, a later study by Chhokar (2000) found India to be moderate on this dimension, which may be the reason that Indian organizations use more analyzer strategy which maintains a moderate level of business risk by waiting to see the experience of others before entering a market. Further, in the line of contingency perspective, these ndings may be attributed to the journey of Indian organizations from protected environment to more global competitive environment. According to Kumar (2009), India organizations transformed from domestic players, scared of global competitors and constantly seeking government protection in domestic markets, into condent players capable of building Indian multinational. The study also points out there are signicant differences in the strategy and culture of organizations belonging to different industry segment. The ndings indicated that prospector strategy is most widely used by telecom industry and most prevalent culture is adhocracy culture in organizations belonging to telecom industry. Miles and Snow (1978) proposed that organizations develop relatively enduring patterns of strategic behavior to co-align the organization with the environment. Prospectors perceive a dynamic, uncertain environment and maintain exibility to combat environmental change. The prospector seeks to identify and exploit new product and market opportunities. Telecom industry in India has a big market potentiality and is a fast growing sector. With a growth rate of 45 per cent, Indian telecom industry has the highest growth rate in the world. These facts may justify why prospector strategy is dominant in telecom sector in India. Defender strategy was found most dominant in organizations belonging to construction industry and most dominant culture was clan culture followed by hierarchy culture. The current size of the construction industry in India is estimated at $70.8bn, of which the 87 key players account for nearly one third, while the rest is distributed amongst the 25,000 plus smaller players. The present study includes the organizations from the key players segment that may be the reason these organizations perceive the environment to be stable and certain, and thus seek stability and control in their operations to achieve maximum efciency. The analyzer strategy was reported to be most frequently used by IT sector and most prevalent culture is clan culture. IT industry in India comprises of software industry and ITES, which also includes BPO industry. Further, the organizations belonging to IT provides products, solutions, and services to client organizations, these factors may be some of the reasons of using analyzer strategy by IT industry.

Regarding the relationship between strategy and culture, the direction is viewed differently by different authors. Some studies views strategy as a outcome of organizational culture (Saffold, 1988) and maintains that strategic options are limited by the culture of the organization (Schein, 2004, p. 91). Others maintain that an organizations strategic position may subsequently inuence culture (Joyce and Slocum, 1990). While, the direction of causality between culture and strategy is beyond the scope of this study, the ndings of the study indicate that the two concepts are interrelated and need to be aligned to ensure organizational success and support the ndings of earlier studies (Bate, 1994; Lado and Wilson, 1994). As expected, organizations with prospector strategy were characterized by organizational cultures higher on adhocracy (combination of exibility and external focus) than defenders. These ndings are aligned with ndings of other studies which stated that organization with prospector strategies are more likely to encourage experimentation and innovation (Brown, 2005), are likely to emphasize creativity to a great extent (O Regan and Ghobadian, 2006), and characterized by organizational cultures higher on innovation and outcome orientation than defenders (Baird et al., 2007). Defenders were characterized by cultures higher on hierarchy (combination of stability and internal focus) and are congruent with the the ndings of the study conducted in Australian organizations (Baird et al., 2007) which indicated that defenders are characterized by culture higher on stability. Organizations with analyzer strategy was high on both clan and adhocracy culture. For reactor strategy no hypothesis was proposed, however the ndings indicated that in the organizations using the reactor strategy the most prevalent culture is clan culture. Implications of the study This study suggests that the organizations that operate in different competitive environments and rely on the different types of strategies should have different cultures, with the characteristics of the culture aligned to the unique demands of the competitive environment and strategy type. The results obtained in the study study have implications for Indian organizations. There have been few studies in Indian context examining the strategy and culture of organizations of different industry segment. The specic implications are discussed below: (1) Organizations in the telecom sector need to use more prospector strategy as lot of untapped market in this sector and scope for innovation. (2) Organizations in the IT industry need to have blend of defender and prospector industry, as this industry is not very old in India. It started with imitation and to provide services to global clients. Now it needs to bring more innovation along with leveraging on existing products and services. (3) Organizations which are high capital intensive such as construction and power, the better strategy will be defender. (4) Organizations with prospector strategy should support its strategy with adhocracy culture, which reinforce the creativity among employees. (5) Organizations with defender strategy should be high on hierarchy which is more efciency focused. (6) Organizations with analyzer strategy need to blend clan and adhocracy culture.

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Conclusions It is concluded that this study reafrms the theoretical contention that culture needs to be aligned with strategic intent. Organizations seeking particular strategies need to consider whether their culture is favorable to, or can be changed to be favorable to, the desired strategy. As the organizations strategy evolves, managers need to create or modify systems and structures to install and reinforce the kind of culture needed to effectively implement the type of strategy selected. The ndings of study can be used as benchmarking tool to select the right strategy and culture for the organizations to suit their environment and to develop right culture and cultural artifacts for dominant organizational strategy. The present study has also some limitations that need to be addressed in future research. The study would have included nancial performance of the organizations which can be strong indicator of how the congruence between strategy and culture inuence organizations effectiveness. Yet, some inferences can be made as the organizations surveyed were among the top ten organizations of country. Further the study did not examined the differences among organizations belonging to same industry segment as Indian organizations varies in terms of ownership, i.e. public, private and multinational organizations. Future study can examine the differences in organizational strategy and culture with respect to size, ownership and cross cultural variables.
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