Organizational Culture: Banking Industry In Pakistan

It has been long time since managers are becoming aware of the phenomena of organizational culture. Several studies have been conducted in this regard explaining different types of cultures and the ways that an organizational culture can affect an organization itself and its impact on other employee-related variables such as satisfaction, commitment, cohesion and performance etc. In today’s corporate environment, organizational culture is considered as a powerful tool to represent various aspect of an organization and also determines the functioning of the business. Various researchers have concluded that culture of an organization not only display, guide and change but also can contribute by influencing the performance of organization.

Despite the fact there is a considerable literature on the topic of organizational culture and job satisfaction in several countries but there is very little of it regarding banking especially in Pakistan. We were not able to find out any of the published data on job satisfaction in context of organizational culture regarding banking industry in Pakistan.

Background

Organizational Culture

In management of human resources organizational culture is considered as center and all other factors are derived from it. It is because that culture can influence individuals’ behavior related to organizational outcomes like commitment, satisfaction, morale and motivation. Employees’ job performance and outcomes like job satisfaction, turnover intentions and job involvement depends upon congruency and match among employees’ characteristics and culture of organization.

Concept of organizational culture is quite old and has gained a significant importance in the business world. This concept merged as cornerstone variable in 1980s when managers realized the fact that culture has substantial effect on their employee’s satisfaction and performance of the organization as well. Culture usually comprises of shared thoughts and meanings that are held by the members of an organization and these can vary from organization to organization to organization. Organizational culture if considered as system comprises of various characteristics valued by the organization. Accumulation of beliefs, rituals, values and assumptions shared by the members can be thought of as culture. Culture is also expressed by three very popular W’s i.e. what is done, how it is done and who is doing it. Organizational culture also controls how organizational members interact with each other and outside the organization.

Organizations are considered as separate legal entities just like human beings as a person has personality, organization has culture.

Job Satisfaction

When we come to discuss job satisfaction first thing that come into mind is the monetary benefits of a job. We think that a worker satisfied with monetary aspects of his is a complete satisfied worker but it’s not completely true. There are various and definite non-monetary aspects of one’s job and as much as important as monetary aspects.

Concept of Job satisfaction is also a multidimensional concept like culture. Importance of this concept become obvious as it is not only a topic of concern for management sciences but also investigated by psychology, economics and sociology. Experts of these disciplines believe that level of job satisfaction influence work effort, productivity, employee absenteeism, turnover intentions and behavior of labor markets. Employees with higher level of job satisfaction will be more willing to work efficiently and effectively with less intention to quit. A strong direct relationship is found between job satisfaction and commitment with work (Benkhoff, 1997). Employees with lower satisfaction or dissatisfaction at work will be less loyal and committed with organization and they will more likely to leave to avail some other opportunities. In case other opportunities are not available in the market as it’s the case in most of economies, employees may pullout mentally or emotionally. An organization with dissatisfied, less motivated and less committed workers would never be able to achieve its long term corporate objectives. Such consequences justify that job satisfaction of employees should be dealt very carefully especially in banking sector.

Banking Sector

Banking sector of Pakistan is the one of largest and growing sector in the country. This sector is considered to be very strict and prudent in its working practices. Banking industry in our country operates under strict authority and regulations of SBP that’s why it is most organized and well-functioning sector. Despite the fact of financial meltdown in 2008, banking industry of Pakistan remained stable and performed well.

In a world of global competition no sector of an economy is problem free, banking sector also faces many problems. Loyalty of employees and customers has always been major issues of this sector. A general phenomenon states that banks perform well if other sectors of economy are performing well because banks deal with public’s money. Energy crisis and war on terror have leaded each sector of economy to crisis. Quest for alternative energy sources have drained the profits of most businesses. Number of competitors have increased to such extent that bankers struggles a lot to retain their customers. In order to achieve corporate targets in such a competitive environment bankers sometimes drive their employees beyond their abilities. Such actions may lead employees to job frustration and burnout.

Definitions

Employee Attitude

Attitude in general is a way of expressing favor or disfavor toward someone or something. When people work in an organization, perceptions and attitudes are developed about organization, their jobs and their careers. Job Satisfaction is most important and fundamental attitude from research and practice perspective (Judge, 2004).

Attitudes are evaluative or judgmental statements about people, objects or events (Stephen P. Robbins, 2009). Attitudes are reflection of our feelings about something. When some says, “He likes his job”, he is expressing his attitude about job. Attitudes are expressed very simply like favoring or disfavoring but underlying reasons behind an attitude might not be simple.

Attitudes comprises of three components (Breckler, 1984) – cognitive, affective and behavioral component.

Cognitive- Formulation of belief or description in mind about something

Affective- On the basis of beliefs and description in mind development of emotions and feelings, which are expressed

Behavioral- Emotions and feeling lead individuals to certain behavior about something

One can have hundreds of attitudes about different aspects of his life, but there are three main job attitudes – Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement, and Organizational Commitment (Brooke Jr., Russell, & Price, 1988). These variables are discussed in literature review in detail.

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction can be defined as positive and enjoyable feelings and emotions resulted from job experiences.

Attitude of employees toward their organizations, work colleagues, their jobs and other psychological factors of organizational environment considered as Job Satisfaction (Beer, 1964). Favorable or positive attitude towards these factors can indicate Job Satisfaction, while disfavor will lead to dissatisfaction.

Organizational Culture

A system of shared thoughts and meanings held by organizational members is known as organizational culture and it can vary from organization to organization (Stephen P. Robbins, 2009). Culture can be characterized by seven primary components,

Creativity and Risk taking – whether employees encouraged to be risk takers and creative.

Attention to Detail -extent to which attention is paid to accuracy, analysis and details.

Outcome Oriented -whether focus of the management only targets and results or necessary attention is also given to processes and techniques.

People Oriented -extent to which all stake holders are taken into account while making decisions.

Team Oriented -extent to which organization is focused on team orientation.

Aggressiveness -focus from competition to easy going

Stability -extent to which attention is given to being stable rather than growing and exposing itself to new threats

Problem Statement

Our research is about determining the relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction. We will identify whether cause and effect relationship exist between these two variables. Here organizational culture will be considered as independent variable and job satisfaction as dependent variable.

We will identify how much level of job satisfaction varies across different culture types. In this study we have categorized four types of organizational culture- Clan Culture, Market Culture, Adhocracy Culture, Hierarchy Culture. We combined these cultures into two groups on the basis of some common dimensions. These groups are named as Organic Culture (clan and adhocracy) and Mechanistic Culture (hierarchy and market). For the purpose of research we have developed following hypotheses which are as follows,

Hypothesis

H0: There is a significant relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction in baking industry of Pakistan.

H2: Employees in organic culture (clan & adhocracy) have high level of job satisfaction than in mechanistic culture (hierarchy & market).

H3: Employees in the mechanistic culture (hierarchy & market) have high level of job satisfaction than in organic culture (clan & adhocracy).

Research Objectives

Through this research we have intended to achieve following objectives,

To have information about bank employees’ perception regarding Organization Culture and its influence to Job Satisfaction

To have information regarding bank employees’ perception about Job Satisfaction.

Determining the relationship between the organizational culture dimensions and job satisfaction among employees.

Identifying the most dominant culture type among banking industry of Pakistan.

Identifying which culture contributes most to job satisfaction among bank employees.

Significance of Study

Although many previous researchers have discussed job satisfaction of bank employees independently but no work has been done on studying job satisfaction in relation to organizational culture.

This study will help to understand the importance of organizational culture and how it is impacting the employees’ job satisfaction and their commitment in banking sector of Pakistan.

This study will help to measure the extent to which job satisfaction level varies among various cultural types.

This study will form a baseline in understanding banking industry culture in Pakistan.

This study will help real time bankers to identify the problems prevailing in banking culture in order to enhance employee satisfaction and thus productivity in turn.

Limitations

Researchers always have to make certain assumptions while conducting a research irrespective the level of research and availability of sources. Every research has certain limitations as well. We have tried our best to make this research definite but we have to make certain assumption and there were certain limitations.

Experimenting or researching on sample size always has been limitation for researchers.

As we tried to define cause-and-effect relationship between Organizational culture and Job Satisfaction, so we just assumed that only organizational culture is affecting job satisfaction. Although there would be other variables that may have effect on job satisfaction, but it was not possible for us to take into account all such variables, because it could lead to more complications to our research.

Chapter 2 (Literature Review)

Introduction:

We have reviewed the previous research articles, publications and thesis related to our thesis topic “influence of organizational culture on job satisfaction”. Most of the research work we reviewed belongs to foreign countries; we found very little work done in this context in our local business environment. Remarkable work has been done internationally because this issue has gained importance due to its sensitivity as ineffective organizational culture effects the employees of that specific organization and which in turn affect their performance as well.

By reviewing the past literature we have tried to determine how the culture of an organization can have impact on the job satisfaction of its employees. As our research is specifically related to banking sector of Pakistan, in our research we will try to find out the cultural type dominant in banking organizations and its impact on job satisfaction.

Organizational Culture

Culture can be referred as inquiry in understanding phenomenon of social order. Culture is a fundamental concept which can explain patterns of life in a society. All organizations have culture just like all people have personality. A culture is a persistent and patterned way of thinking about tasks of human and their relationship within an organization (Benedict, 1934).

Culture is a system of values, beliefs, social ideas, rituals and customs shared by organizational members whether consciously or unconsciously. Beliefs and values are better explained by symbolic term such as myths, rituals, legends, specialized languages and jargons.

Organizational Culture is one of most difficult attribute that can be changed (Schein, 2004). Schein described three levels of culture. The term level can be described as the extent to which phenomenon of culture is visible to observer. Although many other researchers don’t differentiate the culture to such level this leads to confusion that surrounds most of the culture definitions. Levels of culture defined by Schein ranges from the very clear manifestations observable by everyone to basic assumptions lies in the mind unconsciously. These basic assumptions are very essence in development of a culture.

Levels of Culture

Behavior of individuals and organizations as well can be affected by different kinds and levels of cultures. Religious or Hemisphere eastern culture can be the example at macro or global level, which can be the highest level of culture. National cultures like Indian or Pakistani Culture, ethnic cultures like Punjabi or Sindhi culture can be considered as second highest level of culture. However cultures can be divided on gender basis (men and women have different perceptions about life and world), on occupational basis like banking culture, on socio-economic basis like cultures of rich and poor people. Irrespective the level each culture has its own unique characteristics reflected by feelings, values, symbols and languages. As compared to the level of global culture or a culture of a country organizational culture can be thought of least broad and complex. However organizational culture is also very broad and complex in itself and our study is focused on exploring the complexities of this culture. Organizational culture is a composite of prevailing styles of leadership and management, routines, procedures, customs, how thing are value and how success is defined. Organizational culture has three levels from very visible to very tacit and invisible (Schein, 2004), which are as follows,

Artifacts

First level of organizational culture is most manifest and easiest to observe. Artifacts are what you can see, hear and feel in organizational environment. It consist of physical and social aspects of the organization which includes architecture, technology, office layout, manners of dress, visible interactions among staff members and outsiders as well. Even organization’s vision, mission statements, slogans and other important creeds are part of artifacts. Products of an organization, its technology, rituals, customs, ceremonial events, stories and myths popular about organization are also included in artifacts (Schein, 2004).

Espoused Value

Second level in an organizational culture explains the behavioral pattern in the first level. When any culture is observed at this much deeper level, underlying logics and rationales of behaviors and other artifacts expressed explicitly can be understood. Most of the customs and standardized procedures are proposals or ideas given by some early members of organization. Successfulness of these proposals and ideas made them beliefs. Consulting and interviewing senior organizational members about clearly manifested artifacts would enable someone to understand espoused values behind these artifacts (Schein, 2004).

Shared Tacit Assumption

Deepest level of organizational culture is shared tacit assumptions as it is related with the unconsciousness. Espoused or underlying values with the passage of time are transferred to unconscious level and members start to consider them as for granted and known as underlying basic assumptions. These assumptions are most difficult thing to change or relearn in a culture. These assumptions are unseen and unidentifiable for most of the organizational members in their routine work and interactions (Schein, 2004).

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These were different levels of culture when we observe any organization as a whole, however within the organization different functional units, departments, specialized teams and product development groups that may have their own unique attributes. Sometimes these functional units face problems while interacting and coordinating with each other which can be the result of cultural differentiation. Every department in the organization is given targets and goals to achieve within a specific time sometime these targets also create conflicts of interest within departments. It is most common to hear that manufacturing and marketing department of an organization have conflict on certain issues or aggressive headed human resource department is eager to put down the white collars of research and development unit. It is because, with the passage of time each department develop its own way of getting things done and their values, perception also changes slightly. Some of the times such conflicts and differences increases to such a level that organization fails to achieve their goals. However it’s not of our primary interest to assess the cultural difference among different departments but such differences leads to ineffective coordination among individuals of different units resulting in frustration and dissatisfaction. Emphasize on reducing such cultural differences can foster the organization as unit.

An organization can be regarded as hologram in which every part of the picture is a composite of its own unique attributes and attributes of whole image. Similarly each unit’s culture of an organization is a composite of core attributes of organization’s culture in addition to its own unique values and attributes. Some researchers proposed that whole organization’s culture can be assessed by identifying each unit’s culture separately and then finding out their common values and attributes. Aggregate of these common values and attributes will provide an idea of overall organizational culture. In our research we will not focus on sub cultures, we will assess organizations as a whole.

Diagnosing Organizational Culture

Organizational culture has profound effect on organizational performance, scholars spent decades on experimental research in order to proof this correlation. In past managers believed that culture is difficult to change and it has nothing to do with the organizational performance. They were not able to recognize that congruency between organizational culture and employee traits could be an edge over their competitors. Think of Apple Incorporation twelve years ago they were in great chaos, but somehow Steve Jobs was able to leverage the culture of creativity. Apple incorporation not only survived, it also gained competitive edge in the market. They invested in new ventures and explored new markets, developed new products became a highly profitable organization. All of this was because of managing and changing culture. However it is not so easy to change, first organization will to understand its prevailing culture carefully.

Culture is a complicated phenomenon as it is formed by composition of artifacts, attitudes, behaviors, shared values, deep assumptions, customs and rituals. Internal interactions and communications, external relations, individuals’ actions are encompassed by the culture to the extent even organizational members are not aware of it. Researchers like (Schein, 2004) agree that organizational culture is grounded to a group of deep assumptions made by the members about the different aspects of the organization and outside the world. Despite the ethical evolution, a common belief in the business world of being selfish unconsciously influences an organization’s dealings with its suppliers, vendors and outside consultants. However it is not outspoken or manifested to organizational members. So the question here is the possibility of assessing the culture accurately. In past it was considered to be impossible or extremely difficult. However practically it’s nearly impossible to consider all components, only dominant attributes are taken into account.

Number useful and practical approaches for assessing and diagnosing organizational culture have been developed by different researchers. These approaches fall under three categories; Behavioral Approach, Competing values approach and Deep Assumptions approach (Cummings & Worley, 2008), these are most practical and valid approaches. Several researchers have used these approaches in their researches.

Behavioral Approach

Behavioral approach provides specific description about task performance and management of relationships within the organization. This approach deals with behaviors practiced in the organization while assessing the culture. It emphasizes on the behavioral patterns that produce results and other key behaviors related with work, hence this approach deals with surface level of the organizational culture. This approach helps to identify and diagnose the risks and threats when top management seeks for major changes in the organization in order to support and implement newly developed strategy. Whenever an organization tries to implement a new strategy which is not according to the old patterns or tends to change old patterns of behavior, there will be great resistance and chance of failure to implementation are more. Behavioral approach helps the managers to identify such risks and their severity. Manager will be able to decide between whether to change the culture for the implementation of new plan or to modify the plan or goal accordingly.

This approach basically deals with artifact defined by (Schein, 2004), which are the physical and social aspect of the organizational environment.

Deep Assumption Approach

Deep assumptions approach as the name suggest deals with the deepest level of the culture not the tangible one. Researchers assessing culture through this approach start with the artifacts the tangible aspect of the culture and goes down deep to basic underlying assumptions. This approach emphasize on sensitive aspects of culture like for granted value, assumptions that form member’s behavior and these assumptions have powerful influence on members unconsciously.

Competing Values Approach

Competing values approach measures organizational culture by using a set of values. This model is based on the idea that organizational culture can be divided into different sets of similar and related attributes. Competing values as suggested by name that related and similar attributes are grouped separately so that the groups formed are contradictory to each other. These grouped attributes are placed on a cline in order to better understand and identify the culture. These groups comprises of internal emphasize to external emphasize, organic process to mechanistic process, innovation to stability and people orientation to task orientation. These competing values are of such type that organizations always have to prefer one against other like focusing internally on operational efficiency instead of aggressive external competition for continued survival. Too much emphasize on one these can result incompetency internally or externally.

As our study is focused on identifying organizational culture in which people have more job satisfaction and for the identification of organizational culture we will use competing values frame work. Therefore Competing Values Approach will be explained briefly here so that we can understand that how this approach is used in our research method.

Measuring Organizational Culture through Competing Values Framework

John Campbell 1974 and his fellow scholars pointed out 30 important attributes of organizational culture (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983). This list is still practical and helps organizations to identify their own culture. With the help of John’s list of cultural attributes and by investigating several other researches Robert Quinn and John Rohrbaugh proposed a model of competing values framework. This frame work is comprised of two dimensions and better explained by a 2×2 matrix.

When we need to assess the dominant culture of an entity, competing values frame work is the helpful due to its easy implementation. Quinn and Rohrbaugh developed this framework in early 80s. This framework is two dimensional, one dimension distinguishes, emphasize on decentralization of authority, power, pliability, enthusiasm and adaptability from control, centralization of power, order and stability. Some businesses became profitable if they are adaptable, ready to change and organic, on the other hand some are better if focused on stability, control and mechanistic. If we draw these dimensions on a line it would range from pliability and versatility on one end to stability and durability on other end. Selecting among these attributes depends on the circumstances in which an origination is operating and what are it goals.

The second dimension distinguishes emphasize, on internal unification, cohesion, integration and internal alliances from emphasize on competition, distinction and external orientation. Some businesses are effective if they develop internal harmony, on other hand some performs better if they focus on competing with the outside world. If these dimensions are drawn on a scale it would range from organizational unity and consonance on one end to organizational independence and versatility on other end.

When these two dimensional lines are brought on a continuum just like X and Y axis, four quadrants are formed. Each of these four quadrants representing a unique mix of attributes forms four cultural types. Following figure demonstrates how these two dimensional line when crosses each other results four quadrants. These dimensions identify what is valued by organizational members, how the success is determined, how good, right and appropriate are defined, how information is processed and what are the core assumptions used for decision making and taking actions Beyer & Cameron, 1997 in (Druckman, Singer, & Van Cott, 1997).

As it is shown in the figure that vertical axis places dynamism, pliability, discretion on one side while stability, control, and durability on the other. Some organizations like who are new entrants will be effective if they are more adaptive, flexible and ready to learn new things while others who are long lasting should emphasize on stability, control and predictability. In the figure horizontal axis places cohesion, internal focus, consonance on one side while versatility, competition and differentiation on the other side. Some businesses became highly effective by focusing on their internal processes e.g. making better quality products or cutting their costs. Competing in the market aggressively and hitting on rivals’ weak areas are better options for some organizations.

Striking thing about dimensions is that they both have competing and opposite values. One end of cline has opposing values than other end -stability versus flexibility and external versus internal. Combination of these values results cultures which are also different from each other. Horizontal and vertical axis having opposite values results into four quadrants which are competing and contradictory to each other. Quadrant formed with the flexibility and internal focus represents the organizational culture known as clan. Combination of flexibility and external focus forms the organizational culture known as adhocracy. Internal focus and stability represents hierarchy culture whereas external focus and stability represents market culture.

Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn (1999) further defined the relationship of these four quadrants formed by the intersection of two dimensional lines, with organizational cultural attributes (Cameron & Quinn, 2006). These quadrants describe what an organization thinks about itself -the best and appropriate way to operate. In actual competing values framework measure, how organizational members perceive their organization as culture lies on perceptions, beliefs and values. Four cultural types stated above are unique in nature and no one can be considered the best, one type may have certain advantages over others in certain circumstances. Objective of our study is to identify the culture type dominant in the banking industry of our country and level of job satisfaction in relation to identified organizational cultures.

Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument

It is a questionnaire type of the instrument used to measure organizational culture. This tool consists of six dimensions and each dimension has four alternative answers, used to access six key dimensions of an organization (Cameron & Freeman, Cutural Congruence, Strength and Type, 1991). Six key dimensions of this instrument are as follows,

1. Dominant Attributes of the Organization

2. Leadership Style

3. Management of Employees

4. Organizational Bonding

5. Strategic Emphases

6. Success Criteria

In our research we have used these dimensions -Dominant Characteristics, Leadership, Glue (Bonding), Strategic Emphasis, Management of Employees and success criteria in order to identify dominant organizational culture types in banks.

Types of Culture

Create (Adhocracy)

This environment encourages the dynamic and innovative working. People are free to take risks for creativity. The persons who are leading the different teams are also pioneers and free to take risks. The people in the organization conduct regular tests and maintain originality; these are the basics for success. Eminence is the main focus. Development and treat of new means is the objective in the long-run. Developing new products and service and make them available is considered as achievement. The enterprise appreciates ingenuity of the individual and promotes the flexibility in environment (Cameron & Freeman, Cutural Congruence, Strength and Type, 1991).

The ideal form of organizing came out when developed countries moved the industrial age in order to get creativity, to information age. This form of organizing provides the most response to hyper turbulent, because most enterprises of twenty first century are adopting this format. Due to fast decrease in the half-life of the produced goods and services, it was felt to make new set of supposition that should be differ from the other three types of enterprises. These suppositions paved the way to create innovative goods and have to take initiatives for creativity which in return provides success to those organizations which are making the products and providing services for time to come, in these organizations the people at all levels have to work for entrepreneurship, innovation and perfection in creativity. This is to be supposed that by adapting these components firms move towards new means of success and profitability. It should be kept in mind that all these things are arranged in a proper manner for getting things done correctly.

The adhocracy in its fundaments comprise of word ad hoc-which reveals something dynamic, temporary and specialized. Many non-permanent employees are the part of ad hoc committees or ad hoc forces, and after the completion or getting desired results these forces are dissolved. The most appropriate word for them is temporary. The adhocracies are also flexible in nature and they may restructure themselves according to new situation. The foremost target of adhocracy to enhance innovation, freedom of adaptability, creativity and low stress where information overload, doubt and ambiguity are typical.

The enterprises which hold the adhocracy culture exists in industries of software development, filmmaking, aerospace and think tank-consulting. But these organizations have to take the exception of producing new goods and services as early as possible to grab the opportunities. This type of culture doesn’t contain the centralized power system or authority like hierarchies and markets. In adhocracy culture the flow of power moves from one task group to other and from one individual to other depending on nature and ability to solve the problem. In adhocracy culture there is stress on individuality, forecasting for time to come and risk taking because there is continuous work on development, creativity, production and other matters. The example given as, for any consulting firm every client is considered as separate project, and different temporary structure is formed to solve the problem and achieve the goal. The set-up is dissolved after taking the solution of problem.

Another example explains the root causes of failure of space mission of Apollo 13 and tells clearly how administration changes regularly, unclear map of communication and temporary team membership make it hard to move forward. There was also not proper communication channel between the astronauts in the spacecraft and the team for their support. To cope with this, different teams were required, but they were even shifting the pilots during the flight. This was the work setting in NASA. In adhocracy culture policies, jurisdictional lines and precedents are considered as temporary. Job design, even departments operated in this culture changed weekly. This setup is also existed in huge organizations. In its qualities it matches with collaborate because both have promoted flexibility but don’t have common internal control system. But this culture is more likely with market culture in its external operations.

Control (Hierarchy)

It is a well-organized and formal atmosphere in which people perform their duties. Already defined rules and procedures tell the rights and responsibilities. Top leaders are please and satisfied due to their fast collaboration with others. Their main goal is to keep the firm functioning with die hard efforts. The predefined procedures and policies helped to maintain the firm together. By working efficiently and smooth flow of assigned tasks may help to get long-run results like stability. The keys to success are low level costs, efficient planning and trustful delivery. Working men at different levels must ensure the work done which is assigned to them (Cameron & Freeman, Cutural Congruence, Strength and Type, 1991).

These hierarchical enterprises are similar in management with bureaucratic origin and stereotypical large. The qualities of hierarchical organizations stability in work and well organized internal control at all levels. The key components this type of culture is centralized decision making authority, effective control and promotion of standardization. Able team leaders have ability to monitor, coordinate and organize the processes in hierarchical culture. The McDonald’s (efficiency and standard) and Govt. department of Motor Vehicles (bureaucracy and rules) are its examples. The Ford Motor company having its seventeen layers of management is the best example of this culture. In Pakistan WAPDA and other Government organizations can be considered as hierarchical organizations as they have strict and well defined rules, many layers of management and bureaucracy is at its higher level.

The modern research on the topic of organizing was conducted by Max Weber, who was a sociologist and belong to Germany, who works in early 1900s, on Government organization while he was staying in Europe. The problem that appeared before the companies in the start of twentieth century was to produce products and services for extremely diversified society. To cope with this weber introduced seven traits which later became the fundamentals for bureaucratic type of culture, it includes, accountability, rules, meritocracy, separate ownership, specialization, impersonality and hierarchy. These traits were highly promising to accomplish the purpose. These characteristics are effective for efficiency, reliability and predictable output. Till 1960s, almost in every book and research on management weber’s traits are considered as fundamentals for hierarchy culture. These are helpful because of stability in the environment and same goods are produced all the time and defined duties are performed by the employees. Decision making and rules are set by higher level authority and this centralized control system is the basic key to success for this type.

Effective leaders maintains the smooth running of the organization in order to reach at long term goals and promote the stable working conditions, correct forecasting of results and efficiency in coordination.

Compete (Market)

This type of culture has its main focus on getting results, highlights the completion of work and getting finished the assigned tasks. Workforce believes in competition and has concentration on set goals. Team leaders are competitors, manufactures, and hard drivers at all the time. The demands and expectations of the leaders are high. The stress on being victorious makes the firm together. Good repute and triumph in the market are foremost for companies. Keeping a good eye on competitor’s actions and moving towards the targets are keys to success. Getting the maximum market share is achievement. Comparable product prices and good leadership also plays a vital role. This kind of companies believes in competition (Cameron & Freeman, Cutural Congruence, Strength and Type, 1991).

This kind of organization of companies became common in late 1960s when they took the exception of tough competition. These organizations are completely dissimilar to hierarchy based firms and the extensive work of Oliver Willaimson, Bill Ouchi and their work mate describe the market culture. These researchers tell an entirely different form of activities which could set the foundations for market culture. The transaction costs are the important component of them.

This new structure can be known as market type of enterprise. Market term isn’t similar to marketing. It tells about the form of an organization which works itself as a market. Its main focus is on external environment rather than internal. It concentrates on dealings with external people like regulators, suppliers, unions, customers, licenses and contractors. It doesn’t work like hierarchy, where predefined rules evaluate the internal control, assigned jobs and centralized decision making, while this type works mainly mechanisms of economic market and there is also focus on monetary exchange. The goal of this form of company is to make transaction with external market factors and by grabbing the market share competitive edge is created. Loyal customers, bottom-line results and portability are the goals of the organizations. The factors that dominate this type are productivity and competitiveness.

The above two factors are obtained by strong external control. The example of Philips Electronics, when in 1991 they faced a bad period of profit and lost a major share of Europeans market, then there was a need arise in the firm to take initiatives to make better the competitive position. The new CEO of the company launches a program known as Centurion in which struggle was made to change organization’s culture from hierarchy to improved competitiveness, customer focus and premium returns on assets known as market culture. Several meetings are conducted in three years to evaluate the working performance and share of new markets. By using the OCAI it was shown a major shift of culture to other.

Another example market culture is General Electronics which has competition with Philips. The CEO of General Electronics, Jack Welch, made it clear that if we are not at number one or two, then the business will be sold out. Under Welch GE conducts hundreds of businesses in order to get competitive advantage. It was the best example of competitiveness, results-oriented and takes no prisoner sort of market culture during his tenure.

The fundamental supposition in this type is that external environment is not kind but malignant, customers have other options, and the goal of organization is to enhance its competitive position, and the management is assigned the task of improving production, profits and benefits for the organizations. This all can be achieved by adopting aggressive schemes. General George Patron describes it that companies march constantly towards their target and make advancement all the time by defeating their enemies.

This type of culture believes in results. Team leaders are rough and made demand for an increase in production in order to get competitive advantage. The component that keeps the organization together is stress on winning. A sharp eye is kept on competitor’s activities and striving towards goals. Huge market share considered as the triumph and good leadership is compulsory.

Loyalty and commitment is kept together the company. Long-run goal of company is achieved by high moral support and by promoting unity.

Collaborate (Clan)

In this atmosphere working conditions are friendly. Members have developed a family environment and also have very much common for sharing. Team leaders are so kind that they behave like fathers. The one thing which keeps the company together is developed loyalty. Employees are bound by high moral support and there are also focused for long-term development of human resources. Real understanding of necessities of customers and giving special attention to them is known as win of strategies. The focus on individual participation, mutual agreement and teamwork are the attribute of success (Cameron & Freeman, Cutural Congruence, Strength and Type, 1991).

In its characteristics it is similar to hierarchy culture and also has focus on internal control for keeping the organization together. Though clan culture has a stress on flexible working environment and freedom to perform tasks rather than centralized decision making in hierarchy culture. In1960s and 1970s, Japanese were successful by adopting this form of organizing, and it was realized by Americans that they should adopt different traits to successful. Japanese encouraged the group efforts unlike American, who have focused on individualism. This thinking paved the way for Japanese to correctly anticipate problems and find appropriate solutions. Those firms developed family like atmosphere in which they promoted unity, flexible conditions of working, group involvement and loyalty of employees. These organizations developed semi-autonomous teams and these had the authority to recruit and fire the members according to the demand of task and ability requirement. Another example of this type of organization is Tom’s, an American company, which makes hygiene products, natural toothpastes and soaps. Tom Chappel, the owner of company developed the culture in which respect and flexibility for workers, suppliers, owners and agents. Their motto is to produce atmosphere in which people have opportunity to learn and grow. The example of this company may be the best example of this type of culture.

Job Satisfaction

Attitudes are important because they form behavior at work either favorable to work or unfavorable. There are few variables in the field of human resource management and organizational behavior which have been studied and experimented by both managers and researchers a lot. One of them is Job Satisfaction.

Job satisfaction is most studied and extensively researched job attitude in management studies. Job satisfaction explains how much a worker is satisfied with his or her work. More an individual is comfortable with his job, more satisfied he will be. Sometimes job satisfaction of workers is mixed with their motivation level, but these two are different. However there is a strong link between these variables, a motivated worker is more likely to be a satisfied worker. In an organization job satisfaction of employees is influenced by job design. Mangers can produce better results by simply applying a better job design for their employees. Job rotation -changing assigned jobs over a period of time, job enlargement -adding more responsibilities, job enrichment -giving more autonomy are great tools that are used in effective job designs. Job satisfaction is not only affected by job design, other factors include country culture, personal traits, demographic characteristics, and education. These stated factors except job design are not controlled on organization’s end. These are inherited to the worker and cannot be changed by the organization. However factors like company culture, employee recognition, empowerment, rewards and many more factors like that also greatly influence job satisfaction. These factors are controlled by organization and can be changed accordingly for better output. Job satisfaction is an attitude and its level can be identified by measuring it. Questionnaires using rating scale are most commonly used by the researchers to check the responses of worker’s against various questions related to their reward system, promotional policies, job description, variety of work and relationships.

What is Job Satisfaction?

Asking someone about his job satisfaction will lead them to react emotionally, as attitudes are always attached with emotions, feelings and beliefs. A bitter truth about a worker is that he spends one third of his life at work.

Broadly speaking, job satisfaction can be defined as an employee’s overall attitude toward his work. Job satisfaction as positive and enjoyable feeling and emotions resulted from job experiences (Locke E., 1990). This definition of job satisfaction is comprehensive and broadly acceptable. Job satisfaction is a state of feelings characterized by one’s cognitive (mental), affective and evaluative reactions to his work.

Previously we have regarded job satisfaction as general attitude; however job satisfaction can be understood better if studied with specific dimensions job responsibilities, pay, relationships with supervisors and co-workers and so forth. These factors interact in different ways to influence job satisfaction. Degree of one’s satisfaction with the job is also affected by the gap between expectations and actual outcome. Mumford (1993) analyzed job satisfaction in two steps. First is congruency between employee’s perceptions and organizational requirements, which is very crucial for both employee and organization as well. Second is the level of congruency between what employee perceives and what he is actually receiving.

Since on average employee spends 33% of his life at workplace, so this matter is of great social importance. Problems faced by the workers should be dealt carefully and managers should take steps to increase job satisfaction level. However it is argued that job satisfaction is stable attitude and doesn’t change (Staw & Ross, 1985). They surveyed 5000 male employees who switched their jobs between 1969 and 1971. Their results showed that the employees’ feelings about their job satisfaction level were almost same with their previous and recent jobs. Employees showed stable attitude even though they had different types of jobs. However afterwards researchers challenged these results and stated that job satisfaction can change over time.

Work is bounded with human existence and can’t be separated. Therefor context and content of the work should be for uplifting of human beings not for damaging their dignity. Managers are morally liable to empower their employees by promoting their growth and development (Kanungo, 1992). Kanungo was strongly of the views that work conditions and norms should be analyzed to check whether these conditions promote productivity, job satisfaction and work life and they are also in line with dignity and nature of human beings. Workers from USA, Spain and Mexico were asked to indicate their satisfaction level about their jobs and supervisor’s behavior. (Page & Wiseman, 1993). Their average responses to both of these countries were quite high in all of three countries. Various studies discussed above indicate that job satisfaction is major issue of employees. It is said that our country is deprived of job opportunities; still we observe in our life that people don’t select their jobs randomly. Even if they do so they will be curious to shift to the jobs which are compatible to them. It’s because people are more inclined toward jobs in which they have interest and compatible abilities. Despite all this, different people have different reasons to join different jobs, which make job satisfaction a multifaceted and complex attitude -perceived by different people differently.

Measuring Job Satisfaction

Measuring job satisfaction has always been a challenge to social scientists as it can’t be directly observed and neither it be precisely deduced. However several useful techniques have been developed to measure job satisfaction level. Following are some of the popular theories of job satisfaction on the basis of which job satisfaction techniques are developed.

Two-Factor Theory

Motivators and Hygiene theory or Frederick Herzberg’s Theory of two factors describes motivation and satisfaction among workers at workplace. Frederick Herzberg stated that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not opposite of each other, these are separate issues. According to him opposite of ‘Job satisfaction’ is ‘No job satisfaction’ and opposite of ‘Job dissatisfaction’ is ‘No job dissatisfaction’. He identified two types of factor Motivators and Hygiene. Existences of motivators lead to job satisfaction and absence lead to no job satisfaction but not dissatisfaction. Similarly presence of hygiene factors increases dissatisfaction and absence ensure no dissatisfaction but not satisfaction.

Figure of Two Factor Theory

Findings of this theory are mixed as some researchers concluded that motivators and hygiene have strong influence on job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction as well while other studies supported that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are different concepts. In India many scholars have adopted this theory in their researches having different samples and measurement techniques. The findings are again mixed as Sutaria (1980) stated the validity of theory while Sarverswara and Rao (1973) said it’s invalid.

Some researchers like Schwab and Cummings (1970) criticized this theory heavily. He stated that two-factor theory has assumed that job satisfaction and productivity are correlated but it doesn’t measure productivity in relation job satisfaction. Despite all these conflicting findings this theory is still useful to identify the factors contributing to satisfaction and dissatisfaction of employees.

The Value Theory

Locke (1984) presented a significant theory of job satisfaction known as ‘Value Theory’. He stated that a worker would be satisfied with its job if actual benefits and outcome of job matches with the perceived benefits and outcome. Here outcome and benefits means anything valued by a worker irrespective of their magnitude and quality. Value given by the worker to the outcomes is important that is why it is named as value theory. Better the outcome more will be satisfaction level and less valuable outcome will result low level of job satisfaction. Most important factor of Locke’s theory is that it talks about congruency between actual and perceived outcomes of job like rewards, bonuses, promotion, learning opportunities and so on. Validity and reliability of this theory has been approved by many researchers like McFarlin and Rice (1992). One of considerable implications of this theory is that it identifies those facets of job and workplace that should be modified for workers to increase their satisfaction level. But this theory talks about individual’s perceptions that are most likely to change from person to person.

The Met Expectation Theory

This theory talks about the expectations of new entrants in a workplace and whether these are met or not. Workers become dissatisfied if their expectations about job are not met accordingly. This theory suggests that there is a strong correlation between met expectation and job satisfaction. Met expectation theory can be applied in real time work environment in order to reduce potential dissatisfaction among employees by bringing their expectations in line with reality. Drawback of this theory is that it ignores social aspects of employees, which is one of the key aspects of Equity theory.

The Equity Theory

Equity theory was presented by Adam in 1963. This theory suggests that employees compare their ratio of outcome over input with other employees’ ratio of outcome over input. If there is gap between these two ratios -greater or lesser employees will be dissatisfied due to this inequity. However to achieve job satisfaction these ratios should be equal or near to equal. This equality is known as equity. Basis of this starts from individual’s perceptions, hence it lies on organization’s end that it must take measures to eliminate feelings of dissatisfaction. However it is criticized that inequity can be resolved through other ways also.

The Opponent Process Model of Job Satisfaction

The opponent process model of job satisfaction was presented by Landy in (1978). Landy stated that emotional incidents and events like appreciation, evaluation and criticism results two type of processes. First process gives rise to the emotions that are in line with prevailing event and is known as primary process. Events of criticism and threats give rise to anxiety, distress and tension. Events like appreciation and meditation will give rise to relaxation.

Second process raises the emotions that are in contradiction to the primary process and this process is known as opponent process. In this process threatening events will evoke relaxation and relaxing events will raise anxiety and stress. Normally most of the emotional events will trigger primary process but highly intense events may lead to opponent processes. It normally happens when level and strength of primary processes crosses a certain limit.

Determinants of Job Satisfaction

Researchers have spent last seven decades in studying job satisfaction and with the passage of time several factors affecting the level of job satisfaction are identified. Factors affecting job satisfaction can be classified like -individual factors, social factors, environmental factors and organizational factors.

Individual Factors -related with individual’s own abilities, personality, intellectual level, gender, age, education, marital status and personal interests.

Social Factors -related with relationships among colleagues, work norms, opportunities of horizontal and vertical interactions and communication.

Cultural Factors -related with beliefs, values, customs and underlying assumptions.

Organizational Factors -related with industry type, organizational size, structure, human resource policies, personnel relationships, job nature, workplace environment, supervision, management and leadership styles, and working conditions.

Environmental Factors -related with government, political and societal influences.

We will only explain some of these important factors in relation with job satisfaction.

Individual Determinants

Different personality and biosocial attributes have been linked with job satisfaction. Sometimes it is effective to judge the level of job satisfaction through one’s own personality factors.

It has been found that employee’s position or rank in the organization contributes a lot to the job satisfaction level. An employee with a higher rank in the organization will exert higher job satisfaction than an employee in the lower rank. One reason is, an employee with a higher hierarchical position experiences relatively better working conditions and more authority as compared to lower level employees. Furthermore a satisfied worker is more likely to remain with the organization than a dissatisfied worker. As the job experience increases, level of job satisfaction among workers also increases.

Age factor also influences job satisfaction, in past an aged employee was a more satisfied than a new comer. However in the recent era of downsizing, mergers and acquisitions aged employees are more insecure as most of the times at such occasions they are considered unwanted. Rapid technological changes have also affected old workers greatly. Such circumstances have decreased their loyalty belongingness and satisfaction level. Recent studies also indicate that young employees are more satisfied at work.

Dhawan (2001) studied job satisfaction in terms of learning opportunities and challenges, influence of supervisor, work meaningfulness, satisfaction with workgroup and meaningfulness. He took sample of 110 blue collar and 50 white collar workers. He divided both of these groups into further two categories of below and above 30 year workers. Results showed that blue collar employees with the age below than 30 were more satisfied with work meaningfulness than above 30 years blue collar employees. Similarly white collar employees exerted same behavior.

Reward System

When an ordinary person thinks of job first thing that comes into mind are monetary benefits like pay, bonuses etc. Researchers have also found strong evidence that job satisfaction and reward system are highly related (Kamal, Yasir, Hanif, & Fawad, 2009). Reward system deals with pay, fringe benefits and promotional opportunities. Researchers discovered that job satisfaction increases when an employee perceive that reward system is fair and standardized -no biasness is showed when employees are evaluated.

Culture

The culture not only at national level influence the job satisfaction but at organizational level, it also effects the job satisfaction. As in flexible working environment workers experience more job satisfaction rather than a tight, complex, strict and rule oriented environment. Any culture at organizational level and positive response in the form of satisfaction from the job of employees has association with each other which is provided by the study of Daultraum B Lund (2003).

National Culture and Job Satisfaction

The behaviors, functioning and expectations of employees may vary in different set of cultures at national level (Redding, 1990). The determinants, which a nationwide culture contains has its impact on behaviors of individuals, and it may also cause to produce dissimilarities in the western type and eastern type cultures, and they have also an important impact on them. The method by which companies are being integrated and arranged, national culture has also influence on them. The example of South Korea and Pakistan implies that these two countries are influenced by different families. Due to this sort of hold, there is bureaucratic form, promotion of power and decision making made at higher level produce the low quantity work. Often position is given on the basis of family belongings and network of relationships. While on the other side of picture, the public stock holders of western firms are owner and expert mangers run them. These western companies have flat and simple in structure with reducing bureaucracy and appreciation of individualism as well as discouraging the centralized making of decisions. Workmen at different levels may independent decisions. Merit policies and expertise are the determinants for getting promotion. Due to increasing tendency of globalization, companies with their bosses must aware and have knowledge of necessary constraints for companies known as effective leadership and evaluate lines of commitment for satisfaction of jobs.

Job Satisfaction and Organizational Culture

The climate of the organization also determines the method by which employees move towards their own and organizational goals, and execute their assigned work and use the resources in appropriate way to have them. The climate of enterprise has also influence on the minds of people, by which they intentionally and unintentionally thinks, feels and make their decisions. Deal Kennedy (1982) and Pates Waterman tells that the climate of the organization has a reasonable effect in particular areas like job satisfaction, execution of tasks and commitment. The satisfaction level of the individuals and their dedication to firm may change because they bring their beliefs, attitudes and personal values. These personal traits of individuals are dissimilar because affected by their national culture.

Work itself

The type of assigned duty has a lot contribution in respect of satisfaction. Tractability, Liberty in working and prudence present in anybody’s job may contribute heavily to job satisfaction. On the other hand ambiguity in task, confusing instructions, and unclear understandings of the job leads to job dissatisfaction. Mehia (1989) concluded in his study that one third of the senior bureaucratic perceived the nature of job itself as the reason for low work satisfaction.

Supervisory behavior

It is shown in the research that satisfaction of employees will be at maximum level when the workmen are ensure that their supervision is enough capable about their interests and organizational goals, and a respectable behavior towards them (Sayeed, 1988). The other form which is known as suspensor style, it has a focus on workers’ wellbeing, gives them advices, and keeps in regular touch with them (Dhawan 2001). This form of leadership has positive impact on satisfaction level.

Working Condition

In recent years because of issue of managing diversity at work place, the environment of working takes a special attention. Working conditions is a wider construct and not only includes the established policies of enterprise but also have climate of working. The extensive research was conducted to form the components which are helpful to make better working conditions. Job satisfaction of employees may increase if the employees have a reasonable part in decision making. This is another method to increase the satisfaction of employees.

The study of 60 researchers in which Dhawan and Roy (1993) they establish thinking that Indian researchers set 5 core traits which have a significant effect on the job satisfaction. The top of them was effective coordination between workers and remaining are availability of resources, compensation, confrontation and comfort.

Promotional opportunities and extensive training present to workers increase the satisfaction level. The research on 124 persons who