Organizational culture can be defined as a set of values and behavior that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization. It is the major contributing factor in determining the progress of an organization towards the desired objectives. The importance of organizational culture for successful Lean transformation has been emphasized prior research. Lean implementation is based on continuous improvement, the achievement of which is based on problem solving practices. For sustained continuous improvement, problem solving must be done in a repeatable and disciplined way. However, not many organizations follow a structured approach towards problem solving. Some preliminary research indicates that organizational culture appears to be an important factor that influences the nature of problem solving practices used in an organization. This research, therefore, is focused towards establishing whether a relationship exists between these two aspects, namely, organizational culture and problem solving practices in relation to an organization’s success with Lean transformation. A comprehensive survey was developed to evaluate these two aspects. The survey was then administered to employees at different organizations, designations, various sectors and geographical regions. The survey results were analyzed to evaluate if an organization’s culture influences the problem solving practices used.

Based on previous research readiness for strategic change has found to impact employee commitment and flexibility positively, by increasing the willingness to embrace and adapt changes faster. However, the relationship has mainly been investigated within the health care industry or from a national perspective, but lacks empirical research taking organizational culture into account. This study aims to investigate the relationship between readiness for strategic change, employee commitment and flexibility, with organizational culture as a moderating factor. The survey was conducted at an organization belonging to a multinational company including participants in four different countries. The results only showed partial support for the investigated relationship, and significant differentials between areas was also found to be present. A main finding was the major impact by organizational culture for employee commitment and flexibility at the presence of strategic changes.

Research on the development of management strategies for the establishment of an effective organizational culture in schools was conducted in the following phases. In the first place, an. attempt is made to determine the nature of organizational culture, the context in which organizational culture functions, and the transformation and establishment of an effective organizational culture. as well as to describe the characteristics and advantages of an effective organizational culture. Secondly the aspects of organizational culture are discussed on the basis of a theoretical model that has been developed from literature. In so doing, every aspect of organizational culture is spell out, the role and place of each aspect of the culture is explained, as is the contribution of every aspect of organizational culture to the efficacy of such a culture. In the third place, the degree to which aspects of the organizational culture are emphasized in schools has been empirically determined by means of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Fourthly, research results have indicated that the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of organizational culture are emphasized at good schools while this happens to a lesser degree at average and poor schools. It becomes clear that certain basic aspects are present in the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of the organizational culture of schools. The successful functioning of these aspects Is essential for the establishment of an efficient organizational culture In schools. Finally these primary aspects of organizational culture form the basis for the development of management strategies which can be used to establish an effective culture of organization in schools. Special mention is made of general points of departure and guidelines for developing action plans and putting them to effect. The actual plans of action are not addressed, as schools should develop their own plans according to their unique composition, requirements and environment. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003

Research on the development of management strategies for the establishment of an effective organizational culture in schools was conducted in the following phases. In the first place, an. attempt is made to determine the nature of organizational culture, the context in which organizational culture functions, and the transformation and establishment of an effective organizational culture. as well as to describe the characteristics and advantages of an effective organizational culture. Secondly the aspects of organizational culture are discussed on the basis of a theoretical model that has been developed from literature. In so doing, every aspect of organizational culture is spell out, the role and place of each aspect of the culture is explained, as is the contribution of every aspect of organizational culture to the efficacy of such a culture. In the third place, the degree to which aspects of the organizational culture are emphasized in schools has been empirically determined by means of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Fourthly, research results have indicated that the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of organizational culture are emphasized at good schools while this happens to a lesser degree at average and poor schools. It becomes clear that certain basic aspects are present in the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of the organizational culture of schools. The successful functioning of these aspects Is essential for the establishment of an efficient organizational culture In schools. Finally these primary aspects of organizational culture form the basis for the development of management strategies which can be used to establish an effective culture of organization in schools. Special mention is made of general points of departure and guidelines for developing action plans and putting them to effect. The actual plans of action are not addressed, as schools should develop their own plans according to their unique composition, requirements and environment. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003

The purpose of this thesis is to develop an understanding of the change in values, seen through company culture, experienced by a family business when the leadership transfers from the founding family to an external CEO. In a family business, strongly rooted family values are reflected by the very nature of the organization they have created. If a family member is the successor of a healthy and grow-ing family business, the successor should by default share most of the incumbent‟s personal values and as such be able to keep the organization on its current track. However, it is not possible to completely evade the possibility of mis-matching values, and this issue lingers and is even more pressing when the company is faced with an external leader. By conducting a qualitative multiple case study with semi-structured interviews on two Swedish family businesses, and then performing a case analysis through pattern matching, we attempted to answer if the family business‟ values, in the sense of organizational culture, change in relation to the change to external leadership, seen from an employees‟ perspec-tive. We also sought to answer why the organizational culture changes or not in relation to the change to external leadership, and what role the personal values of the leader play. From our analysis, we could conclude that the organizational values do change, even if only slightly, and that the reason for this is the fact that the external CEOs does not have iden-tical personal values to the founding families/owner. The pattern was found that recruiting an external leader enhances the value of efficiency in a company, and that the leader‟s per-sonal values reduces the resistance to change, influence the organizational culture and sub-sequently makes it change, given that the leader is an accepted part of the company‟s power structure. It would be beneficial to, in future research, connect our study one step further back in the causality chain and look at how previous experiences of the external CEO in-fluences the organizational culture.

This study sets out to explore the critical factors of knowledge management (KM) that impact on the organizational performance of Chinese enterprises. It attempts to investigate the relationships among KM factors including KM strategy, KM enablers (Organizational culture, Organization structure, People, and Technology), KM processes, and organizational performance. The conceptual framework of knowledge management guiding this research is developed from prior research (Alavi, 1997; Davenport, 1999; Lam, 2000; Leonard-Barton, 1995; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Ramireza nd Dickenson, 2006; Zack, 1999). Previous KM research in the Chinese context has focused on the use of object-perspective measures such as number of created ideas or patents. There appears to be a relative neglect of the relationships between those KM factors. This research focused on exploring the relationships between those KM factors and investigating how they impact on organizational performance in the context of an emerging economy - China. This research adopted the mixed-methods (Creswell, 2003) methodological approach, which involved the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in addressing the research questions raised in this study. The results of this research suggest that organizational culture variables are found to be essential for knowledge creation. In particular, trust is a significant predictor of all knowledge creation processes. The findings of this study confirm that enterprises will be able to obtain strategic benefits of KM through effective knowledge creation processes. The research findings also imply that companies should align their knowledge strategies along with knowledge creation processes. The key to understanding KM in the Chinese context is recognizing the networking nature of the Chinese society which operates on the basis of "Guanxi". In Chinese enterprises, the socialization and externalization elements are remarkably similar to the Japanese situation that Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) described, as the Chinese are highly networked, hold tacit knowledge within these networks and are prepared to make this knowledge explicit only within the context of these pre-existing relationships. The departmental focus of Chinese enterprises mean that the combination of tacit knowledge is not straightforward, while learning-by-doing is important to sustain their development. The research also indicates that internalization is also problematic in Chinese enterprises because of individuals' fear of admitting mistakes. The implication of the findings for knowledge management and research is discussed.

Šio baigiamojo darbo tikslas – pateikti sprendimus organizacinės kultūros gerinimui Šilalės rajono įmonėse. Pirmoje darbo dalyje aprašoma užsienio ir Lietuvių mokslininkų teiginiai apie organizacinės kultūros sampratą, sudedamąsias dalis lemiančias organizacinės kultūros skirtumus bei jų analizavimo priemones. Analitinėje darbo dalyje išanalizuoti Šilalės rajono organizacijų tyrimo rezultatai. Siekiant ištirti šių įmonių organizacinę kultūrą, pasitelktas kiekybinis tyrimas – anketinė apklausa. Tyrimo rezultate buvo nustatytos šios organizacinės kultūros problemos: darbuotojus netenkina fizinė darbo aplinka, neinvestuojama į draugišką bendravimą, komandinį darbą, darbuotojų saviraiškos sistemą, vyrauja per didelė darbo kontrolė; taikomos netinkamos motyvacinės priemonės. Trečioje darbo dalyje pateikti sprendimai ir jų įgyvendinimo priemonės, nustatytoms organizacinės kultūros problemoms spręsti. / The goal of this diploma is to paper propose solutions for the organisational culture improvement of the organizations in Šilalė’s district. The first part of the thesis describes statements by the foreign and Lithuanian authors on the concept of the organisational culture, its constituents determining differences in the organisational culture and tools for their analysis. The analytical part of the thesis deals with the results derived from the investigations of the of the organizations in Šilalė’s district. To investigate organisational culture of the companies, a quantitative method i.e. questionnaires has been employed. The investigation revealed the below problems of the organisational culture: employees are not satisfied with working environment; lack of investments into friendly communication; teamwork and employees’ self-expression; too high level of control over the operations; application of wrong motivation tools. The third part of the thesis offers possible solutions for the detected organisational culture problems and tools for their implementation.

This research inestigates and examines the relationship between innovation success, internal organizational factors, local cultural factors and external environmental factors in the Malaysian ICT industry. From the responses of 122 local and multinational companies operating in Malaysia, the independent variables having positive relationships with innovation success are external ecconomic environmental factors and leadership organizational factors, while independent variables having negative relationships with innovation success are collectivism local cultures and external social environmental factors. The findings also indicate that these factors do not influence the innovation on an individual basis, but they are working in unison.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.B.A. (Rhodes Investec Business School)) - Rhodes University, 2009. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA)