ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURAL EFFECTIVENESS

Is The Influence Of Organizational Culture On Organizational Effectiveness Universal?



Is The Influence Of Organizational Culture On Organizational Effectiveness Universal?

Introduction

Asserting the universal validity and applicability of theories and models derived in one country, region, or continent has been one of the biggest challenges in international management. Discussions on the validity and applicability become even more critical and relevant, when set in the context of economic globalization defined simply by the World Bank as the growing integration of economies and societies across the world. Studies on the subject of organizational culture and organizational effectiveness have focused mainly on manufacturing entities in the larger, more developed countries.

The purpose of this research study is twofold, firstly to test the applicability of the previously established relationship between organizational culture and organizational effectiveness, in the context of the English speaking Caribbean experience and secondly to determine if the findings of the study are uniform at the managerial (policy making) and non-managerial (implementation) levels in the organizations. In this case, the reference is to three small island nation economies of the English speaking Caribbean.

The Caribbean was selected as the region of study as it differs from most of the larger countries/regions already studied, on the bases of (a) its smaller size (b) it is comprised of developing countries with small, and often weak and dependent economies (c) the countries are spread across a broad archipelagic geographical region and are not contiguous (d) its main economic activities are in the service sector and (e) there are few reported studies of this sort. For the purposes of these discussions, World Bank has considered developing countries as having low or middle-income economies. The specified countries included in the study are Jamaica, Dominica and The Bahamas. Again in order to highlight the comparison with the rest of the world this research study looks at using services as the commodity of trade, against the background that most of the previous studies have examined manufacturing and production enterprises.

Purpose and Significance of the Study

This research study in the main, examines through the study of the service sector in the English speaking Caribbean island nations of The Bahamas, Dominica and Jamaica, the universal applicability of the conclusions that have already been made arising from previous international studies in a set of circumstances that are partially or in some cases totally different from those already studied. The service sector was chosen as there is not a preponderance of research in services, in this area and because at least in the case of Jamaica, the Economic & Social Survey 2008 records over 65% of total employment resulting from services and service related organizations and business activities. Additionally, radio is particularly interesting as it represents a situation where the service can be accessed from several other forms (cellular telephones, televisions, and computers) and as a consequence there has been a drop in the number of traditional radio sets (Jelinek, 2006).

Research Study Questions

In completing this study attention will focus on the following research questions:

Q1: Is ...