vietnam national university, HANOI school of business Pham Thi Phuong Hieu An organizational culture assessment of viettrans haiphong master of business administration thesis Hanoi - 2007 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vietnam national university, HANOI school of business Pham Thi Phuong Hieu An organizational culture assessment of viettrans haiphong Major: Business Administration Code: 60 34 05 Master of business administration thesis Supervisors: 1.VU HUY THONG 2. Ha Nguyen, MBA Hanoi – 2007 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF FIGURES. vi LIST OF TABLES.
Statement of the Problem. Objectives and Aims. Scope of work. Data sources and Processing.
Outline of thesis. 10 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.3 Reasons for a Culture Assessment .4 Effects on Organizational Performance .6 Changing Organizational Culture.7 Summary of Literature Review .3 Instrument Design and Structure .4 Data Collection Methods .1 Overview of Viettrans Haiphong .2 Current Situation of Organizational culture in Viettrans Haiphong. 42 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.2 Fist category: Mission .3 Second category: Adaptability .4 Third category: The Involvement .5 Forth category: Consistency .3 Identify concern areas .4 Coordination and Integration.5 The Company appearance. 73 APPENDIX 1 : Corporate culture survey of Viettrans Haiphong.
76 APPENDIX 2: Survey results. 81 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Levels of Organizational Culture [Adapted from Schein 1980; Schein 1985] .2: Three levels of Culture [Schein 1992, p.3: Research based model [Denison 2003, www.1: Organizational structure of Viettrans Haiphong [Viettrans Haiphong] .2: Total response rate of the survey .3: Year of service.4: Strategic direction and Intent .5: Goals and objectives .15: Coordination and Integration. 61 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Four traits in Denison Model [Denison 2003, www.1: Viettrans Haiphong’s business results in 3 years [Viettrans Haiphong] .1: Action plan for implementing recommendations. 69 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Statement of the Problem Viettrans Haiphong has been part of Vietnam national foreign trade forwarding and warehousing corporation for 37 years. Due to its quite long time existence, recent increased desire to change; need for sales growth and development when it has just equitized at the end of 2006 and reinforces its operation to grasp the chance from the event of joining WTO; and lacks of assessing the organization’s culture in the past, an assessment is needed. Objectives and Aims This research is implemented to obtain the two purposes: evaluating the current organizational culture at Viettrans – Haiphong and assessing if a change in culture is needed. Finding out all the problems in Viettrans Haiphong’s organizational culture, the researcher has some aims including: provide recommendation for decision-making during strategic planning and establish measures for benchmarking and evaluating changes in The Company over time.
Research question The researcher will go to find the answer for two questions: ―What is the current situation of Viettrans Haiphong’s culture? Should Viettrans Haiphong adjust or change its current culture for development?‖ 4. Scope of work This research studies organizational culture of Viettrans Haiphong in July, 2007 in Viettrans Haiphong. Data sources and Processing 8 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The data is collected from two sources: Primary (information is conducted directly from interview and survey to find out the opinion of Board of Directors, managers and employees on the current organizational culture of Viettrans Haiphong) and Secondary (study documents related to Labour regulations, Polices and others reports of The Company; documents and previous studies about organizational culture and others). Data is process by excel, charts to summary and finally is analyzed for findings.
Methods The method will be based on researching real case study of Viettrans Haiphong and use questionnaire that is built based on theory of Denison Culture Model and Interview will also be used when necessary. Significance Normally, the beliefs and values actually displayed of The Company is not consistent with what The Company wish and try to achieve. Thus, this research will help The Company to be able to determine the gap between its current culture and the culture it needs to succeed and help The Company in building criteria or measures to evaluate its culture now and future as well by a culture assessment with a well-designed survey for its employees. Limitations The limitations of this research are the time when implementing.
It can only cover the survey on members of Viettrans Haiphong in 2007, it will lack the opinion of people who has work for Viettrans Haiphong from its start up to help research have an more completed picture about organizational culture of 9 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Viettrans Haiphong. Besides, during the time implementing the survey, some employees are absence, so it make the response is not adequate. Expected results Firstly, the research want to understanding the current culture of Viettrans Haiphong, then find out the effect of this culture on The Company’s operation and whether it need a necessary improvement or change. Lastly, from the findings, the researcher will recommend measures to evaluate The Company’s culture overtime.
Outline of thesis The thesis includes three chapters: Chapter 1 – Literature review: This section will summarize the theories related to organizational culture. It will give the readers an overview of organizational culture and culture assessment from clearly definition to the benefits of them to the operation of an organization, and the effect on organizational performance and also the need for changing organizational culture. Chapter 2 – Methodology: This chapter describes the methodology of procedures used in order to assess the culture at Viettrans Haiphong including the study population, design and structure of the instrument, data collection methods, survey response rate, and methods of data analysis. Chapter 3 - Results: After analyzing the current situation of Viettrans Haiphong, the survey’s results and the data collected from secondary source, the thesis will point out the results about the current problems in Viettrans Haiphong culture in four aspects: Mission, Consistency, Adaptability and Consistency.
10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Chapter 4 - Recommendations: Continue to the analyzed findings from chapter 2, this section will suggest some solutions and some measures to evaluate Viettrans Haiphong’s culture over time. The researcher hopes that, all the recommendations will be useful and effective for not only Viettrans Haiphong but also for other companies which want to evaluate their cultures for development. 11 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Introduction Viettrans Haiphong has existed for 37 years. Because of this long time existence and the change of internal and external environment, the study on assessing the current culture at Viettrans - Haiphong is needed.
It increased the desire to change and growth, especially at that time when the Company has implemented equalization, and created a benchmark for future assessments. The literature review part will define what culture is, reasons for a cultural assessment, what effect culture has on an organization’s performance, trust and cultural change.2 Corporate Culture Many books and articles have been written about ―corporate culture‖. Certainly, those authors have debated many concepts and definitions or approach for over a decade. From 1952, Kroeber & Kluckhohn in their classic review of culture (1952) report 156 different definitions, which they arrange under six different generic headings, until now, still many experts continues to write and debate about it.
Although experts have different beliefs and concepts of the exact meaning of corporate culture, all appear to agree that culture is an important success factor for the overall performance of an organization. In this study, the researcher will give some definitions that have been used and commonly mentioned and seemed to be familiar, although not fully agreed upon, to gain a basic and better understanding of its definition. The purpose of this study is not to find what is the right or wrong definition but rather to focus 12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com on how it is important to the overall organization’s effectiveness and for organization’s long-term success. Schein (1985), one of the foremost experts in the area, identifies the Levels of Organizational Culture in 1985, as shown in Figure 1.1: Levels of Organizational Culture [Adapted from Schein 1980; Schein 1985] According to Schein, the fundamental assumptions constitute the core and most important aspect of organizational culture; thus, in his 1992 classic book: "Organizational Culture and Leadership‖, he offered the following formal definition of organizational culture: A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the 13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems (Schein 1992, p.
In this part, he is saying that organizations have to work with, and adapt to changes in, the external environment and that they have to work together as a group in doing so. His definition is saying that culture is learned through solving problems together and that the ways of solving problems that are found to work become shared perceptions and ways, not only of working, but of thinking and feeling, about how to solve problems in future. At that time, Schein (1992) gives notes that culture can be analyzed at three different levels including artifacts, espoused values and basic underlying assumptions. The three levels differ in their ability to be observed and deciphered, and in the importance they hold in influencing the real behaviours in an organisation.
The levels of culture that Schein says can be analysed are shown in Figure 1.2: 14 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.2: Three levels of Culture [Schein 1992, p. Artifacts are defined as ―visible organizational structures and processes‖. They are at the surface like sees, hears, feels (logo, organization’s song or music…)which can be easily discerned, but are hard to understand, difficult to decipher with the symbols that are ambiguous.; they are visible products like language, technology, products, creations, style (for example: clothing, manners of address, myths, stories)s. Beneath artifacts are "espoused values" which are conscious strategies, goals and philosophies.
Basic Assumptions and Values (BAUs). The core, or essence, of culture is represented by the basic underlying assumptions and values, which are difficult to discern because they exist at a largely unconscious level. They are ―unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings‖. Yet they provide the key to understanding why things happen in a particular way.
These basic assumptions form around deeper dimensions of human existence such as the nature of humans, human relationships and activity, reality and truth. This includes assumptions that are not directly observable, consequently hard to analyze and change. (Schein, 1992) Similar to Schein, Daniel Denison [1990] defines organizational culture as ―underlying beliefs, values, and assumptions held by members of the organization, and the practices and behaviors that exemplify and reinforce them.‖ 15 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Denison has conducted several studies examining the impact of organizational culture on performance and has identified four organizational culture traits that impact performance: The mission hypothesis: the idea that a shared sense of purpose, direction, and strategy can coordinate and galvanize organizational members toward collective goals. The adaptability hypothesis: the idea that norms and beliefs that enhance an organization’s ability to receive, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into internal organizational and behavioral changes will promote its survival, growth, and development.
The involvement/participation hypothesis: the idea that involvement and participation will contribute to a sense of responsibility and ownership and, hence, organizational commitment and loyalty.