Effects of Organizational Culture on Employee Performance (Case Study of Wartsila - Kipevu Ii Power Plant)

Abstract

As businesses evolve, to keep ahead of competition, so do their expectations for their employee's performance. An employee is a key element of an organisation and the success or failure of the organisation depends on individual employee performance which affects positively or negatively the organisation performance at large. Every business has their own specific way of doing things, has developed norms and procedures over time and has different atmosphere and feeling and this is the organisation culture. Organisation culture adopts overtime to cope up with such dynamic changes and meet the varying demand of employee expectations and satisfaction which in turn influence the employee's performance. The study analyses the influence of organisation culture on employee's performance with a focus on Wärtsilä Limited, a private organization in Kenya. It has offered recommendations on what can be done to achieve optimum performance while adopting the right culture. The study employed a survey research design with the target population comprising of a stratified census sample of 63 members of staff from the organization at different levels. The data has been collected using questionnaires and analysed using descriptive statistics, to determine whether organisation culture really affects the employee's performance. The researcher has provided an introduction letter from the university as assurance that the information would be treated with maximum confidentiality, as reluctance to provide some personal information was an anticipated limitation of the study. Collected data was analysed using SPSS software and data represented in graphs, charts and tables for better understanding and interpretation. Since employee's job performance is one of the important factors for a business to compete in this global market, the purpose of this study is to explain and empirically test the effect of the four elements of Organisation culture namely; organisation values, organisation climate, leadership styles and work processes to the employee's performance. The results of this study suggest that managers should focus on the factors that have a significant effect on employee performance, if they want to enhance their businesses. Based on the results, this study was able to revealed that organizational values has a more significant effect to employee's job performance at Wärtsilä, than the organisation climate as is mostly assumed as a vice versa relationship. Overly a positive relationship between organisation culture and employee performance was established, however the effect diversely varied amongst the variables with work processes and systems in Wärtsilä having more effect to employees performance. The sophisticated and extensive nature of the paper would add value to organization studies discipline by providing an important qualitative perception towards organizational culture and employee performance and would initiate further discussions to create an effective framework between organizational culture and its impact on performance.

Keywords: Organisational Culture and Employee Performance