Organizational Culture

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Organizational Culture PRTesting the
Competing Values Model (CVM) and Employee
Communication Strategies (ECS) Model in Korea

• Yunna Rhee(Assistant Professor), Beach
  Moon(Doctoral Student)
• Division of Communication Hankuk University of
  Foreign Studies

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Introduction
1. Culture PR

• Culture has long been considered a key factor
  that can influence public relations practice
  (Sriramesh, Grunig, Buffington, 1992
  Sriramesh, 2007).
• However, the concept of culture has not yet been
  integrated into the public relations body of
  knowledge (Sriramesh, 2007).
• Existing public relations research related to
  culture mostly focus on national or societal
  level cultures rather than organizational level
  cultures (Hung, 2004 Rhee, 2002 Sriramesh,
  Moghan, Wei, 2007 Srhiramesh, Kim, Takasaki,
  1999 Taylor, 2000).

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Introduction
2. Lack of empirical studies on
organizational culture in PR

• Many scholars attempted to examine the impact of
  organizational culture on various outcome
  variables such as employee satisfaction, employee
  turnover, and organizational effectiveness
  (Sriramesh White, 1992 Sriramesh, Grunig,
  Buffington, 1992 Smircich, 1983).
• However, little empirical research can be found
  in public relations that deals with
  organizational culture (Sriramesh, Grunig,
  Dozier, 1996 Cameron McCollum, 1993 Everett,
  1990) and its influence on PR processes or
  outcomes.

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Introduction
3. Purpose of this research

• In this research, particular interest is in
  examining how organizational cultures influence
  employee relations.

• To identify and explore a valid and reliable
  measure of organizational culture and employee
  communication that can be used in public
  relations research.
• To examine the relationship between
  organizational culture and employee communication
  strategies.

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Literature Review
1. Organizational Culture

• Organizational Culture "shared key values and
  beliefs" generating a sense of identity,
  commitment, social system stability, and meanings
  that guide behavior (Smircich,1983).
• Some treat culture as something that an
  organization is and others see culture as
  something an organization has (Kwan Walker,
  2004).
• In this study, we take the has perspective
• (a) to develop a measurement tool that could be
  used in various public relations research
  situations.
• (b) to explore organizational cultures
  associations with other public relations
  variables, namely employee communication
  strategies.

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Literature Review

• Organizational Culture
• Competing values model (CVM)

• Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier (2002) conceptualized
  organizational culture as a construct that is
  comprised of two dimensionsparticipative and
  authoritarian.
• The dichotomous division may fall short of
  capturing the variations of internal cultures of
  organizations.
• In order to capture the diverse nature of
  organizational culture, it would be useful to
  consider Quinn and Rohrbaughs (1983) Competing
  Values Model (CVM).

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Literature Review

• Organizational Culture
• Competing values model (CVM)

Figure 1. Competing Values Model Source Kwan, P.
Walker, A. (2004). Validating the competing
values model as a representation of
organizational culture through inter-institutional
comparisons, Organizational Analysis, 12(1), p.
24.
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Literature Review
2. Employee Communication Strategies
(ECS)

• Employee communication specialized
  sub-discipline of communication that examines how
  people communicate in organizations(Grunig,
  Grunig, Dozier, 2002)
• Employee communication is a multidimensional
  construct and employees can express varying
  degrees of satisfaction about definite aspects of
  communication (Smidts, Pruyn, van Riel, 2001).
• The two dimensions (a) the content or the
  message that is relayed through communication.
  (b) the communication climate or the manor with
  which one transfers information to the receiver.

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Literature Review
2. Employee Communication Strategies (ECS)

• In this study, we focus on examining the extent
  of positive communication in organizations
  dealing with both content climate
• We define symmetrical employee communication
  strategies as communication content and climate
  used by an organization that opts to develop and
  maintain positive relationships with its
  employees.

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Research Questions

• RQ1. How well does the four-factor measurement
  model of organizational culture fit the data
  reported by employees in participating
  organizations?
• RQ2. How well does the four-factor measurement
  model of employee communication strategies fit
  the data reported by employees in participating
  organizations?
• RQ3. What kinds of relationships can be found
  between organizational culture (group,
  developmental, hierarchical, rational) and
  employee communication strategies (information
  adequacy, information flow, interaction
  supportiveness)?

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Method

• Survey wording and pretest
• In this study, we placed all of the
  constructs at one level. Each item in two
  constructs was worded to encourage respondents to
  assume the shared perspective(Table 1 2).
• Measurement
• (a) Organizational Culture Hon and J. Grunig
  (1999).
• (b) Employee Communication Strategies Yeung
  et al.(1991), Quinn (1998) Robertson (2005)
  Smidts, Pruyn, van Riel (2001).
• Sampling
• A variety of organizations in terms of their
  functional type and industrial categories (a
  purposive sampling method). Data were collected
  throughout 19 organizations participated(October
  2007 N481(78 response rate)).
• Data Analysis
• Cronbach's alphas, exploratory factor
  analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis
  (CFA), multiple regression analysis (MRA)

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Results and Discussion
1. Reliability and Validity of Variables

• The reliability coefficients Of CVM and ECS range
  from 0.797 to 0. 919, showing acceptable levels
  of reliability.
• The validity of CVM and ECS was assessed in
  several ways. (a) Convergent validity(Standardized
  loadings are mostly above .6 and are significant
  at plt.05) was obtained. (b) Discriminant
  validity(Anderson and Gerbing's standard, 1988)
  was obtained.
• In other words, both CVM and ECS were found to be
  a valid and reliable measurement tool for
  organizational culture and employee
  communication.

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Results and Discussion
2. Relationship between CVM and ESC

• Group culture and developmental culture are
  positively associated with information adequacy
  (ß0.280, plt0.05 ß0.152, plt0.05 respectively).
• Strong relationships were also identified
  between developmental culture and information
  flow (ß0.296, plt0.05) and between group culture
  and information flow (ß0.282, plt0.05).
• Group culture (ß0.329) and developmental culture
  (ß0.225) were positively associated with
  interaction supportiveness whereas hierarchy
  culture and rational culture had non- significant
  relationships.

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Discussions and Conclusions
1. Theoretical Implication

• The results of the study provided empirical
  support for scholars argument that
  organizational cultures affect how an
  organization practices public relations
  (Sriramesh, Grunig, Buffington, 1992).
• By adopting the CVM approach, the study provided
  a concrete way to discuss organizational culture
  and its relations to public relations practices.
• It also provides a starting point toward the
  development of a valid and reliable measurement
  for employee communication.

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Discussions and Conclusions
2. Practical Implication

• Public relations practitioners may find the CVM
  construct useful in assessing their
  organizational cultures, and may use it to plan
  for appropriate communication strategies to
  either adjust to the existing culture or to
  foster different cultures.
• ECS measurements developed in this study can be
  used as a tool for internal communication
  planning or evaluations.
• In other words, public relations practitioners
  can provide expertise in management of
  communication as it relates to other key
  organizational variables.

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Limitations Future Research

• Social desirability bias may exist in the
  responses. This would be in part because of the
  sensitive nature of the research topicemployee
  communication, particularly for lower-level
  employees.
• Culture is a complex concept that cannot be
  easily grasped through quantitative method only.
• In future research, conducting in-depth
  interviews with employees from different types of
  organizations should be considered to identify
  new information about other dimensions of
  organizational culture.