WORK VALUES AND WORK CULTURE IN INDIAN
ORGANIZATIONS
EVIDENCE FROM AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
Kavita Singh
NTRODUCTION
The very notion of work involves an element of usefulness and respectability. It is an
expenditure of energy, designed to overcome the resistance the object offers to change
(Schrevkar, P 1948). Attitude to work is socially and culturally moulded as men are taught what
to expect and want from work through a variety of socializing agencies.
The meaning of work has shifted along with changes in the social order. To the ancient Greeks and
Romans, work was simply a curse. The Hebrews likewise saw work as painful drudgery, but also
as a way of expiating sin and recovering lost spiritual dignity. In primitive Christianity, work had
little intrinsic value or importance, but was instrumental in promoting health of body and soul,
making possible the virtue of charity, and guarding against evil thoughts and habits. In medieval
Catholicism, work was the natural affliction of the ‘fallen man’. But later development conceded
that work is a form of service to God. Work is valued as a means of spiritual salvation. The virtues
of austerity were added to it (Fox Alan 1971). The Bhagwat Gita advocates the philosophy that an
individual should do his work (karma) as a duty and not bother about the fruits.
The importance of organizational culture is now well established in organizational literature
(Deal and Kennedy 1992; Peters and Waterman 1982; Sathe 1985; Schien 1983, 1984, 1985).
While Deal and Kennedy describe values to be ‘the bedrock of any corporate culture” (1982), values
has been a key concept in almost all formulation of culture (Hatch 1993; Peters and Waterman
1982; Schien 1985). Values can be defined as generalized, enduring beliefs about the personal and
social desirability of modes of conduct or ‘end states’ of existence (Rokeach 1979; Schwartz 1992).
The value concept is a powerful one because it can be meaningfully employed at all levels of social
analysis – cultural, societal, institutional, organizational, group and individual. Values can have
a major impact on how employees approach their work and on their feelings about their jobs and
the organization itself (Boxx, Odom, and Dunn 1991), and consequently influence the work culture
of the organization.
A developing economy like India can achieve its pinnacle of advancement if it can increase its
productivity appreciably. Raising productivity for an economy is usually considered to be an issue
of whether an economy can encourage capital spending, i.e. increase capital, and input that
complements labour. However, productivity, especially in the short term is decisively affected by
the employee’s attitude towards work, which in turn is clearly determined by the manner in which
their work places are organized and run by management. Here-in lies the importance of work
culture of the organizations, i.e. work related activities in the framework of norms and values
regarding work.
Work organizations in India are not self-contained. They are conceived as instruments of nation
building. They are much more open to societal forces. In short, there is a basis for postulating a
desirable direction for building organizational culture. Consistency among the facets and levels of
organizational functioning and assumptions are not enough. They have to be directed towards
work : ‘Organizational culture has to be built around work’. This notion gives rise to the evolution
of work culture as a concept, which needs to be diagnosed and studied. If a particular organization
has a non-work culture, there is ground for wholesome change – including changing the basic
assumptions, which led to non-work orientations and activities.
Work culture means work related activities, and meanings attached to such activities in the
framework of norms and values, are generally contextualized in an organization. An organization
has its boundaries, goals and objectives, technology, managerial practices, material and human
resources as well as constraints. Its employees have skills, knowledge, needs and expectations.
These two sets of factors – organizational and individual – interact and over time establish roles,
norms and values pertaining to work.
The concept of work culture has been, examined by different theorists and conclusions drawn by
some of them are:
Pettigrew (1979) identifies “work culture as the system of personally and collectively accepted
meanings of work, operating for a given group at a given time’. According to Peters and Waterman
(1982): “Work culture is defined as a system of ‘shared values’, which results in high performance
in organizations”. Singh (1985) says that: “The work culture is the prevalent and common patterns
of feeling and behaviour in an organization”. Sinha (1990) labels work culture as the totality of the
various levels of interacting forces around the focal concern of work”. Work culture means work
related activities in the framework of norms and values regarding work.
Work culture in this context would include:
? Work related activities
? The cognitions, the affect and the values attached to them
? The normative structure within,
? A setting
Overall the literature indicates that the individual work values may have a lot to contribute to the
work culture of the organizations. Chakraborty (1991) studied three organizations to examine
their value systems. A closer look at the value statements examined in these organizations
showed a mixed pattern of indigenous and universal values. These value structures substantiated
the initial assertion that Indian organizations display certain unique characteristics in the way
they function despite the compulsion of modern technology. Many Indian scholars have tried to
highlight the unique Indian situations and how these situations have contributed significantly to
our understanding of the functioning of Indian organizations.
There is a growing realization that Indian socio-cultural values are not dysfunctional to the
functioning of organizations, provided that an optimal level of fit can be obtained between
individual values and organizational values. One of the modalities for obtaining this fit is through
organizational socialization in which the values of the members of an organization are integrated
with the values of the organization. Most organizations consciously encourage their members to
think and behave in consonance with the goals of the organizations (Richer 1987).
Oliver Nick (1990) examined the influence of employee’s work values, demographic characteristics
and organizational rewards on levels of organizational commitment, involvement, identification
and loyalty in a U.K. employee owned firm. The idea that commitment can be understood as a
function to ‘fit’ between employee’s values and organizational rewards was explored. Under multiple
regression analysis, demographic variables made little impact on the level of commitment, but
both organizational rewards and work values showed significant relationship to commitment.
Employee who showed strong participatory value exhibited relatively high commitment, those
with strong instrumental values showed relatively lower commitment, providing some support for
the ‘fit’ model.
Purpose
To remain competitive during this period of accelerating change, organizations will have to
continuously pay attention to the notion of work culture as the issues of positive work culture and
improving productivity, not merely of labour but of all other factors of production have acquired
special significance and urgency in the context of India’s quest for a place at the global market. It
is widely recognized that if the Indian industry is to succeed in the ever-increasing international
competitive environment, it will have to reduce costs, increase output and produce quality product
at the right price. The change in approach to industrial development through thorough dismantling
of controls and regulations, the pressures to modernize and invest in research and development,
the resolve of Indian industry to become recognized leaders, at least in some selected segments,
signal a welcome change and a new dynamism. But this, as well as foreign investors interest in the
development potential and new investment prospects in India, can be sustained only by a positive
work culture.
Work culture is the social interlocking mechanism upon which the enterprise can function effectively.
Through this organizations will be in a position to establish better psychological contract with the
employees. This, in turn, could lead organizations to higher level of performance. To develop and
maintain a functional work culture, organizations have to make conscious efforts. They cannot
afford to take either inactive or reactive positions. If they have to succeed in the emerging turbulent
environment, they have to be proactive and even interactive and work towards developing a positive
work culture. If culture is man made, organizations can make efforts to create a work culture,
which will be complementary to employee’s satisfaction and organizational performance. It is
with this forethought that this research design was envisaged which would help us in identifying
the impact of individual work values on the work cultures of the organizations.
In this context, to identify the prevalent work culture of Automobile Industry becomes a difficult
task as it is fast growing industry and has witnessed a period of maximum growth in last 15 years.
It is a highly competitive industry with new and improved technology and growth orientation. We
can observe certain commonalties in terms of technologies, processes, customer base and methods.
All the aspirants entertain the hope of initiating a market revolution because the demand for
mobility is huge. So success would depend a lot upon the work values and work behaviour of
employees and therefore the work culture of the organization.
To investigate the relationship between work values and work culture, the following hypotheses
were examined:
Hypotheses
1. There will be significant positive relationship between instrumental values and the
dimensions of work culture
2. There will be significant positive relationship between participatory values and the
dimensions of work culture
3. There will be significant positive relationship between task values and the dimensions of
work culture
Method
The sample consisted of 282 respondents working in five different automobile companies. The
study was based on non-probability incidental sampling. The sample consisted of managers,
executives and supervisors from all the major departments of the companies namely, Personnel,
Engineering, Production, Marketing, and Maintenance etc. Average age and tenure of the
sample was 39 and 12 years respectively. 22 out of the 282 respondents were females.
Instruments and Measures
Measure of Individual Work-values
For the purpose of identifying the work values, preserved and held important by people working
in organizations, an acquired work value scale developed by Oliver Nick was used.
Oliver Nick while conducting his survey gauged the work values by asking the respondents to
rate the importance they ascribed to different aspects of work and work organizations on a 5-
point scale. These included conditions regarding respondent’s immediate job, material rewards
and organizational characteristics. The data generated by these items were factor analysed
using SPSSx FACTOR routine (Principal component analysis with VARIMAX rotation)
The three factors thus extracted were assembled into 3 scales labeled as “instrumental
values” (factor 1), “participatory values” (factor 2) and “task values” (factor 3). The scale on
instrumental values ascribed to factors like job security, size and fairness of income, working
condition and so on. This scale had a reliability (alpha) coefficient of 0.84. Strong participatory
values were characterised by emphasis on opportunities to participate in decision making,
working for the mutual benefits of self and co-workers, having good relationship with
management and so on. The scale had an alpha coefficient of 0.79. The final work value scale
is task centered and refers to the importance ascribed to aspects of respondent’s immediate
job, such as variety and interest of work. The reliability of this scale was rather low, being
0.64.
Measure of Work Culture
The questionnaire on work culture was prepared using the literature on quality and the new
management paradigm by Lawrence M. Miller and Jennifer Howard. In their discussion they
have identified 12 major paradigm shifts that demonstrate the swift change in thinking and
behaviour of work environment of world-class organization. For the purpose of the present
study 8 out of 12 shifts were selected which can explain the work culture of the organization.
Each of these shifts implies new priorities. These eight shifts became the dimensions of work
culture in the present study. The shifts are:
1. Control Management to Commitment Management
The culture of the organization is changing because the nature of work and workers is
changing. In the past, work was controllable. On the assembly line, jobs were repetitive
and required little thought. Performance could be measured simply and reward and
punishment administered to provide control. The managers counted, controlled and
determined reward and punishment.
Today, however, the critical performance is thinking about better ways to get the job done,
initiating actions to improve, and creating new products, services or methods. They are
not so easily ‘controlled.’ They require innovative thinking, risk-taking and autonomy.
ORGANIZATIONS
EVIDENCE FROM AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
Kavita Singh
NTRODUCTION
The very notion of work involves an element of usefulness and respectability. It is an
expenditure of energy, designed to overcome the resistance the object offers to change
(Schrevkar, P 1948). Attitude to work is socially and culturally moulded as men are taught what
to expect and want from work through a variety of socializing agencies.
The meaning of work has shifted along with changes in the social order. To the ancient Greeks and
Romans, work was simply a curse. The Hebrews likewise saw work as painful drudgery, but also
as a way of expiating sin and recovering lost spiritual dignity. In primitive Christianity, work had
little intrinsic value or importance, but was instrumental in promoting health of body and soul,
making possible the virtue of charity, and guarding against evil thoughts and habits. In medieval
Catholicism, work was the natural affliction of the ‘fallen man’. But later development conceded
that work is a form of service to God. Work is valued as a means of spiritual salvation. The virtues
of austerity were added to it (Fox Alan 1971). The Bhagwat Gita advocates the philosophy that an
individual should do his work (karma) as a duty and not bother about the fruits.
The importance of organizational culture is now well established in organizational literature
(Deal and Kennedy 1992; Peters and Waterman 1982; Sathe 1985; Schien 1983, 1984, 1985).
While Deal and Kennedy describe values to be ‘the bedrock of any corporate culture” (1982), values
has been a key concept in almost all formulation of culture (Hatch 1993; Peters and Waterman
1982; Schien 1985). Values can be defined as generalized, enduring beliefs about the personal and
social desirability of modes of conduct or ‘end states’ of existence (Rokeach 1979; Schwartz 1992).
The value concept is a powerful one because it can be meaningfully employed at all levels of social
analysis – cultural, societal, institutional, organizational, group and individual. Values can have
a major impact on how employees approach their work and on their feelings about their jobs and
the organization itself (Boxx, Odom, and Dunn 1991), and consequently influence the work culture
of the organization.
A developing economy like India can achieve its pinnacle of advancement if it can increase its
productivity appreciably. Raising productivity for an economy is usually considered to be an issue
of whether an economy can encourage capital spending, i.e. increase capital, and input that
complements labour. However, productivity, especially in the short term is decisively affected by
the employee’s attitude towards work, which in turn is clearly determined by the manner in which
their work places are organized and run by management. Here-in lies the importance of work
culture of the organizations, i.e. work related activities in the framework of norms and values
regarding work.
Work organizations in India are not self-contained. They are conceived as instruments of nation
building. They are much more open to societal forces. In short, there is a basis for postulating a
desirable direction for building organizational culture. Consistency among the facets and levels of
organizational functioning and assumptions are not enough. They have to be directed towards
work : ‘Organizational culture has to be built around work’. This notion gives rise to the evolution
of work culture as a concept, which needs to be diagnosed and studied. If a particular organization
has a non-work culture, there is ground for wholesome change – including changing the basic
assumptions, which led to non-work orientations and activities.
Work culture means work related activities, and meanings attached to such activities in the
framework of norms and values, are generally contextualized in an organization. An organization
has its boundaries, goals and objectives, technology, managerial practices, material and human
resources as well as constraints. Its employees have skills, knowledge, needs and expectations.
These two sets of factors – organizational and individual – interact and over time establish roles,
norms and values pertaining to work.
The concept of work culture has been, examined by different theorists and conclusions drawn by
some of them are:
Pettigrew (1979) identifies “work culture as the system of personally and collectively accepted
meanings of work, operating for a given group at a given time’. According to Peters and Waterman
(1982): “Work culture is defined as a system of ‘shared values’, which results in high performance
in organizations”. Singh (1985) says that: “The work culture is the prevalent and common patterns
of feeling and behaviour in an organization”. Sinha (1990) labels work culture as the totality of the
various levels of interacting forces around the focal concern of work”. Work culture means work
related activities in the framework of norms and values regarding work.
Work culture in this context would include:
? Work related activities
? The cognitions, the affect and the values attached to them
? The normative structure within,
? A setting
Overall the literature indicates that the individual work values may have a lot to contribute to the
work culture of the organizations. Chakraborty (1991) studied three organizations to examine
their value systems. A closer look at the value statements examined in these organizations
showed a mixed pattern of indigenous and universal values. These value structures substantiated
the initial assertion that Indian organizations display certain unique characteristics in the way
they function despite the compulsion of modern technology. Many Indian scholars have tried to
highlight the unique Indian situations and how these situations have contributed significantly to
our understanding of the functioning of Indian organizations.
There is a growing realization that Indian socio-cultural values are not dysfunctional to the
functioning of organizations, provided that an optimal level of fit can be obtained between
individual values and organizational values. One of the modalities for obtaining this fit is through
organizational socialization in which the values of the members of an organization are integrated
with the values of the organization. Most organizations consciously encourage their members to
think and behave in consonance with the goals of the organizations (Richer 1987).
Oliver Nick (1990) examined the influence of employee’s work values, demographic characteristics
and organizational rewards on levels of organizational commitment, involvement, identification
and loyalty in a U.K. employee owned firm. The idea that commitment can be understood as a
function to ‘fit’ between employee’s values and organizational rewards was explored. Under multiple
regression analysis, demographic variables made little impact on the level of commitment, but
both organizational rewards and work values showed significant relationship to commitment.
Employee who showed strong participatory value exhibited relatively high commitment, those
with strong instrumental values showed relatively lower commitment, providing some support for
the ‘fit’ model.
Purpose
To remain competitive during this period of accelerating change, organizations will have to
continuously pay attention to the notion of work culture as the issues of positive work culture and
improving productivity, not merely of labour but of all other factors of production have acquired
special significance and urgency in the context of India’s quest for a place at the global market. It
is widely recognized that if the Indian industry is to succeed in the ever-increasing international
competitive environment, it will have to reduce costs, increase output and produce quality product
at the right price. The change in approach to industrial development through thorough dismantling
of controls and regulations, the pressures to modernize and invest in research and development,
the resolve of Indian industry to become recognized leaders, at least in some selected segments,
signal a welcome change and a new dynamism. But this, as well as foreign investors interest in the
development potential and new investment prospects in India, can be sustained only by a positive
work culture.
Work culture is the social interlocking mechanism upon which the enterprise can function effectively.
Through this organizations will be in a position to establish better psychological contract with the
employees. This, in turn, could lead organizations to higher level of performance. To develop and
maintain a functional work culture, organizations have to make conscious efforts. They cannot
afford to take either inactive or reactive positions. If they have to succeed in the emerging turbulent
environment, they have to be proactive and even interactive and work towards developing a positive
work culture. If culture is man made, organizations can make efforts to create a work culture,
which will be complementary to employee’s satisfaction and organizational performance. It is
with this forethought that this research design was envisaged which would help us in identifying
the impact of individual work values on the work cultures of the organizations.
In this context, to identify the prevalent work culture of Automobile Industry becomes a difficult
task as it is fast growing industry and has witnessed a period of maximum growth in last 15 years.
It is a highly competitive industry with new and improved technology and growth orientation. We
can observe certain commonalties in terms of technologies, processes, customer base and methods.
All the aspirants entertain the hope of initiating a market revolution because the demand for
mobility is huge. So success would depend a lot upon the work values and work behaviour of
employees and therefore the work culture of the organization.
To investigate the relationship between work values and work culture, the following hypotheses
were examined:
Hypotheses
1. There will be significant positive relationship between instrumental values and the
dimensions of work culture
2. There will be significant positive relationship between participatory values and the
dimensions of work culture
3. There will be significant positive relationship between task values and the dimensions of
work culture
Method
The sample consisted of 282 respondents working in five different automobile companies. The
study was based on non-probability incidental sampling. The sample consisted of managers,
executives and supervisors from all the major departments of the companies namely, Personnel,
Engineering, Production, Marketing, and Maintenance etc. Average age and tenure of the
sample was 39 and 12 years respectively. 22 out of the 282 respondents were females.
Instruments and Measures
Measure of Individual Work-values
For the purpose of identifying the work values, preserved and held important by people working
in organizations, an acquired work value scale developed by Oliver Nick was used.
Oliver Nick while conducting his survey gauged the work values by asking the respondents to
rate the importance they ascribed to different aspects of work and work organizations on a 5-
point scale. These included conditions regarding respondent’s immediate job, material rewards
and organizational characteristics. The data generated by these items were factor analysed
using SPSSx FACTOR routine (Principal component analysis with VARIMAX rotation)
The three factors thus extracted were assembled into 3 scales labeled as “instrumental
values” (factor 1), “participatory values” (factor 2) and “task values” (factor 3). The scale on
instrumental values ascribed to factors like job security, size and fairness of income, working
condition and so on. This scale had a reliability (alpha) coefficient of 0.84. Strong participatory
values were characterised by emphasis on opportunities to participate in decision making,
working for the mutual benefits of self and co-workers, having good relationship with
management and so on. The scale had an alpha coefficient of 0.79. The final work value scale
is task centered and refers to the importance ascribed to aspects of respondent’s immediate
job, such as variety and interest of work. The reliability of this scale was rather low, being
0.64.
Measure of Work Culture
The questionnaire on work culture was prepared using the literature on quality and the new
management paradigm by Lawrence M. Miller and Jennifer Howard. In their discussion they
have identified 12 major paradigm shifts that demonstrate the swift change in thinking and
behaviour of work environment of world-class organization. For the purpose of the present
study 8 out of 12 shifts were selected which can explain the work culture of the organization.
Each of these shifts implies new priorities. These eight shifts became the dimensions of work
culture in the present study. The shifts are:
1. Control Management to Commitment Management
The culture of the organization is changing because the nature of work and workers is
changing. In the past, work was controllable. On the assembly line, jobs were repetitive
and required little thought. Performance could be measured simply and reward and
punishment administered to provide control. The managers counted, controlled and
determined reward and punishment.
Today, however, the critical performance is thinking about better ways to get the job done,
initiating actions to improve, and creating new products, services or methods. They are
not so easily ‘controlled.’ They require innovative thinking, risk-taking and autonomy.
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