Original Article

Research Study on Organisation Culture in IT Industry

 

 

INTRODUCTION

The term Culture signifies values, beliefs, morals, customs, habits and knowledge acquired by people living in a society. Organisation Culture is the acquisition of values, beliefs, attitudes, expectations etc by employees of the Organisation. Organisation Culture means a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behaviour of its members. The purpose of culture is to help cultivate internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization much closer together and enhance their performance. Organisation have personalities like individuals and like individuals, they have enduring and stable traits that help us predict their attitudes and behaviours. To understand one’s behaviour in an organization culture it helps to understand the dominant culture in an organization and to figure out how individuals come to learn that culture and how the culture affects them.

 

Organisation Culture

The success of an organisation depends to a large extent upon the capabilities, competence, efficiency and effectiveness of its Employees. The Cultural system adopted in an Organisation is an essential tool for management in order to develop a strong capability, competence and responsibility among the employees of a concern. It is a firm belief that organization can improve their effectiveness and productivity through the development of human beings. Thus Employee in the Organisation are at the core of existence and strength of an organisation; no organisation is immune to the needs of HRD to acquire and increase its capabilities for stability and renewal.

In the field of management sciences, the 1980s can be called the decade of computers and Human Resource Development. The present decade is likely to continue to be a decade of the following:

Management Policies

Employees Potentiality

Goal Achieving

Reward Facilities

Role of Employees

Executive Development

Performance Appraisal

Career Planning

Values, Beliefs and Norms

 

Work Culture

An organization is formed to achieve certain goals and objectives by bringing individuals together on a common platform and motivating them to deliver their level best. It is essential for the employees to enjoy themselves at the workplace for them to develop a sense of loyalty towards it. Work culture plays an important role in extracting the best out of employees and making them stick to the organization for a longer duration. The organization must offer a positive ambience to the employees for them to concentrate on their work rather than interfering in each other’s work. Work culture is a concept which deals in the –

·        Beliefs, thought processes, attitudes of the employees.

·        Ideologies and principles of the organization.

It is work culture which decides the way employees interact with each other and

how an organization functions. Work culture refers to the mentality of the employees which new technologies in every field including human resources. It is now well recognized that human competency development is an essential pre-requisite for the development of any organization. Culture, therefore should be a continuous process in the organizations. However, the nature of efforts and investments in developing human resources may vary from organization to organization depending on its need, the nature of capabilities the organization wants to build up, the change process, the size of the organization etc.

 

Organizational Culture and Organisational Goals

Culture is helpful in the fulfilment of committed goals of an individual, organization and society. It increases the capabilities and efficiency of an individual which is likely to reflect itself in the long run in the well-being of the individual good reputation of the institution and ultimately the well-being of society.                

 

Determinants of Organisational Culture

Organisational culture is a set of attitudes, opinions, beliefs, values, morals, etc, acquired by the people in a particular organization and these are also peculiar to a particular Organisation. Every Organisation has a unique culture. Some of the determinants of Organisation Culture are –

1)     The extent of responsibility given to employees

2)     The extent to which employees are encouraged to be creative and aggressive

3)     The degree of coordination between different departments

4)     Top management support

5)     Rules and regulation of the Organisation

6)     The way the employees identify themselves with the Organisation

7)     The reward System

8)     The system of Communication in vogue

 

Need for The Study

Organisation culture has gained increasing attention in the last decade in every organization to achieve the efficiency, Productivity, and development. Every organization felt that it can become dynamic and grow only through the efforts and competencies of their human resources. Work culture can be studied in 3 different contexts – Individual context, Organisational context and National context.

organisation culture plays the vital and profound role in the national development. It brings out collective efforts and dynamic potential from the source of human and converts these constructive tides into tool for development (Welbourne, Theresa and Alice Andrews.

In general, this study will have a positive value because of its necessity for national development and thereby build a good economy for a country. The study would also be helpful for the BPO companies to identify the way of building more optimistic Organisation culture for the Organisation Development.

 

Statement of the Problem

Technology development is of recent development of this new millennium. The growth and Development of Technology have been strongly influenced by several vital factors. The Development of this industry has contributed a lot towards the economic development of our country. The factors of organization culture in IT Industry such as Management Policies. Goal Achieving, Values, Beliefs and norms. Role of Employees are creating a stress among the Employees and the Employees and the Work Pressure and Cultural fatigue leads to dissatisfaction among the Employees and Job turnover. Most of the Employees in the IT Industry feel that their services and tenure at their companies are not long lasting and their growth is temporary. Hence the emphasis on continuous growth and development of the Organisation.

 

Objective of the Study

The main objective of the study is to determine the impact of organisation of culture and its performance in IT industry.

 

Scope of the Study

Work culture plays a vital role in designing and monitoring efforts in the organization. It brings out the best in employees’ potentialities. Culture refers to empowering the people and enabling them to use their power for development of the organization. Each and every organization in our country is more enthusiastic in the application of Work culture. The Government of India has separate ministry called Human Resource Development ministry which is an amalgam of all the ministries.

So work culture is a tool for national development and requires more concentration for it to flourish. Culture has several branches each one of them consists of so many dimensions. Therefore, studying Work culture has got good scope for national development and to build fundamental building blocks for constructive resources.

 

Research Methodology

The study is conducted using both analytical and descriptive type of methodology. The study primarily depends on primary and secondary data.

 

Study Area

The Survey is conducted in IT Companies located in Chennai city. Chennai hosts a number of IT companies making the study realistic and meaningful. The city consists of Business process giants, medium and small units dealing with Public sector, private sector and Various MNC. As ITES companies have entered the economic arena, their high level of pay has raised the economic standing of young and educated professionals. Chennai, being the metropolitan city, truly represents employees belonging to various strata of the society.

 

Pilot Study

A Pilot study was conducted to validate the questionnaire and to confirm the feasibility of the study. The filled up Questionnaires were collected from 60 respondents and Cronbach’s Alpha Criterion was applied to test the reliability. The value determined is 0.914 proving the reliability of the instrument. The quality of the questionnaire was ascertained and the test showed high reliability. The variables considered for the analysis satisfied the normal probability distribution. Based on the pilot study, the questionnaire was modified suitably to elicit response from the sample group.

 

Sampling Size and Design

The primary data were collected through the survey method. The survey was conducted using the well formulated Questionnaire. Multi Stage Random Sampling was applied for generating data. Samples for the purpose of the study were selected systematically. A Total of 594 Questionnaires were distributed and 502 were collected, out of which 500 completed questionnaires were found usable.

 

Work Culture of Review of Literature

The review of literature of work culture studies are narrated as under:

Abdelgadir (2001) – This comprehensive study was attempted to examine the emphasis given for training activities both internal and external to maintain competitiveness in the market. The study was conducted among 30 Polish companies to determine the training needs, developing programs and assessing outcomes. The results revealed that many companies neglected to assess training needs and evaluate outcome properly, providing for suggestions and improvements.

Shawn Kent (2001) – This article examined the values of Mentor system prevailing in the organisations. The employees who became more productive, derived greater career satisfaction and enjoyed accelerated career growth were identified. Mentoring was considered to be a mutually advantageous way to both attract and retain employees. Mentoring programs were inexpensive, to inspire future leaders, improve management and staff relationship and prepare people to succeed ab aging workforce. Mentors could provide just in time, development to those employees aspiring to grow.

Susan Geertshuis, Mary Holmes, Harry Geertshuis, David Clancy, Amanda Bristol (2002) – This paper supported the earlier work to implement good practices in training and its evaluation. The learning process is influenced by multiplicity of factors based on perceptions about learning and performance outcomes. Organisations were expected to implement cost effective evaluation methods acknowledge the status of the learner. The study also examined the evaluation methodologies and the role played by the trainers in improving learning process.

Gaurav Patra and Jasrotia (2002) – The potential to leverage IT is enormous in the Indian Software sector. The government identified this as an area of focus many years ago, and in 1986 announced a policy making software exports, software development and training as major thrust areas. The government further identified some of the factors impeding the growth of the Software industry and formulated the Software Technology Park (STP) scheme with a view to boost Software exports from the country.

Satish Nambisan (2002) – This paper examines the evolution and growth of Software firms from an innovation orientation perspective. The future growth of Software firms purely depends on the innovative product development as apparent through the attitudes and perceptions of firm’s key stakeholders. A Software firm’s growth stage model was developed in this study reflecting the changes in firm’s process and product portfolios.

 

Research Gap

The above studies show that IT sector has emerged as a major contributor to the development of Indian Economy. Apart from direct benefits, it is bringing about indirect benefits improving the socio economic status. The effective use of human resource are bringing about improvement in the quality of life. A focused approach for all stakeholders to identify, monitor and improve the available abundant human resource is needed. Organizational culture is to meet the requirements of the organisation has become imperative. The various methods adopted to evaluate the performance of the knowledge workers in order to gain career moves compels the workforce to put forth their best. There are different studies concentrating on the individual aspects of Organization Work Culture in terms of Training. Performance and Career and other sub-systems.

 

Statistical Analysis

The Statistical Analysis is examined with the help of cluster analysis and chi-square test to understand the Impact of work culture and organisation.

 

Association Between The Clusters of External Factors Influencing The Work Culture of BPO Employees And Its Impact on Organisations

The Cluster analysis has classified the external factors influencing the Work culture of BPO employees in organisations into three clusters and its impact on organisations into two clusters as shown in the table. So the non-parametric chi-square test is applied to find the association between these two clusters and the following results are obtained as a consequence.

Null Hypothesis: There is no association between clusters of external factors influencing work culture of BPO employees and clusters of organisational impact.

Table 1

Table 1 Association between clusters of External Influence and clusters of Organization Impact
		Organization Impact		Total
		1	2
External	1	30	66	96
	2	80	108	188
	3	75	141	216
Total		185	315	500
Source: Computed data

 

Table 2

Table 2 Chi-Square Tests for External Influence and Organization Impact
	Value	Df	Asymp.Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	4.127	2	0.127
Likelihood Ratio	4.116	2	0.128
Linear-by-Linear Association	0	1	0.999
N of Valid Cases	500
Source: Computed Data

 

From the above chi-square table, it is found that chi-square value is 4.127 and P value is 0.127 with 2 degree of freedom. Null Hypothesis: There is no association between clusters of organisation and cultures of individual impact. This implies that the probability value is insignificant. So the null hypothesis is accepted at 5% level of significance and concluded that there is no association between clusters of external factors influencing Work culture of BPO employees and clusters of organisational impact. This shows that the external factors like government, media, technology and the society aimed at empowering the employees with least economic independence and social independence. There are no direct implications of these governmental activities to improve the potentiality of BPO employees in the organisation.

 

Findings of the Study

·        The IT Employees are aware of their present Management Policies and also agreed their appropriateness for the self-improvement and extraction of best services. The suitability of Work Culture in the Organisation creates positive impact over the BPO Employees.

·        IT Employees strongly agree as their talents are being identified. Conducting psychological test and personal interactions have posted them in suitable departments and lead to potential development.

·        IT Employees strongly agree with the achievement of suitable goals. BPO Employees are assisted by their superiors in their organisation, the existed departmental and Organisational objectives and Organisation Policies.

·        The IT Employees differ in their opinion of facilities given for job involvement. IT Employees in Chennai city have difference opinion about the rewards and facilities given in their organisation.

·        IT Employees strongly agree with the role of encouragement in the Organisation. They also agree with the opinion of role analysis, channelizing the potential, interpersonal relationship and key area placement. The employees have major roles in their Organisation by channelizing their potentiality.

·        IT Employees agree that periodic performance reviews acknowledge their strength and promotions. Performance evaluation identifies and removes the weakness and creates a competitive work force. The performance evaluation of IT Employees in their Organisation help them to achieve more by placing themselves in a considerable position in the Organisation.

·        IT Employees strongly identify with job rotation. Career and individual efficiency and elevation to senior positions. The Development of their career in their Organisation helps them to believe that they are suitable for all jobs

·        IT Employees differ in their opinion about technological training, case study and audio-visual training, incentives to attend training motivates employees to learn. IT companies have formidable training policies in their Organisation. Training helps the IT employees to develop their potentiality and to cope with work related challenges.

·        IT Employees identify with the participative style of Management in their organisation. However, they feel that they are not empowered enough at all levels. As a consequence, they tend to take risk at work

·        IT Employees identify with the interdepartmental relationship, involvement in jobs and job rotation in the work place, appreciable customer relations, increased facilities, constructive interpersonal relations and employee’s contribution have led to the smooth achievement of Organisational goals. IT Employees believe that in empowering them in organizational efficiency, the Organisation’s reputation is enhanced. Work culture has an impact on their working organisation.

 

Conclusion

Organizational Work Culture is the general perception of the working conditions of an enterprise, including the level of motivation, innovation, trust, conflict, morale, rewards equity, leader credibility, and resistance to change. Because work Culture develops over many years and is affected by many factors, as it cannot be changed by simply dusting off the top layer of discontent or vacuuming up the problem around the perimeter. The study confirms the relationship between work Culture job satisfaction and organizational commitment. So managers need to make effort to develop human resources policies that are in alignment to the needs and motivation of the employees. The study would be beneficial for the manager as the study focuses on the impact of work Culture and climate on citizenship behaviour of employees for a particular organization. Career development plans for employees will strengthen employee satisfaction and retention. It would behove IT HR to work to benchmark their pay against other regional IT during the applicant processing, highlighting other areas of internal brand strength.

  

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

None.

 

REFERENCES     

Abdelgadir, N. A. E. (2001). Training Practices of Polish Companies: An Appraisal and Agenda for Improvement. Journal of European Industrial Training, 25(2/3/4), 69–79. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005438

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Geertshuis, S., Holmes, M., Geertshuis, H., Clancy, D., and Bristol, A. (2002). Evaluation of Workplace Learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 14(1), 11–18. https://doi.org/10.1108/13665620210422398  

Kent, S. (2001, February). Mentoring: An Age-Old Idea Whose Time Has Come in Corporate America. Effective Executive, 29–31.

Majumdar, S. (2004, January). Pay, Perks or Something More? Indian Management, 43(1), 56–59.

Nambisan, S. (2002). Software Firm Evolution and Innovation Orientation. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 19(2), 41–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0923-4748(02)00007-3

Patra, G., and Jasrotia, P. (2002, September 23). Does STPI Still Have a Role to Play in India Software Inc.? Express Computer.