Understanding organisational culture in the construction industry

Since the early 1980s, researchers and practitioners in the organisational and management fields have presumed a link between organisational, or corporate, culture and organisational performance. Whilst many believe this exists, other authors have been critical of the validity of such studies. Part of this doubt stems from a reliance on measures of organisational performance that are based purely on financial measures of business growth.

Using the construction industry as the subject of his research, Vaughan Coffey traces the development of the literature on organisational culture and business effectiveness and investigates the culture-performance link using a new and highly objective measure of company performance and an evaluation of organisational culture, which is largely behaviourally-based. Providing a theoretical contribution to the field, this work shows that various cultural traits appear to be closely linked to objectively measured organisational effectiveness.

This book will be valuable to professionals and researchers in the fields of management and public policy. It indicates directions for construction companies to develop and change, and in doing so strengthen their chances of remaining strong when opportunities for work might deplete and only the most successful companies will be able to survive.

Author Notes

Vaughan Coffey is Lecturer in Construction and Project Management in the School of Urban Development at Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and was formerly a senior manager in the Construction and Development Division of the Hong Kong Housing Department, with special interests in organisational culture, construction quality issues and performance monitoring.

List of figures	p. ix
List of tables	p. xi
Foreword	p. xiii
1 An introduction to organisations, culture, performance and construction	p. 1
Chapter introduction	p. 1
Background to the research	p. 1
Research objectives, problems and hypotheses	p. 9
Research questions	p. 10
Justification for the research	p. 11
Research methodology	p. 15
Limitations of scope of the research and key assumptions	p. 15
Chapter summary	p. 16
2 Organisations, culture and climate	p. 17
Chapter introduction	p. 17
What is an organisation?	p. 17
What is organisational culture?	p. 26
Chapter summary	p. 38
3 Organisational culture studies	p. 39
Chapter introduction	p. 39
The development of organisational culture research	p. 39
Cultural anthropology	p. 40
The changing paradigms of organisational culture research	p. 42
Analysing organisational culture	p. 46
Survey instruments	p. 49
Chapter summary	p. 53
4 Measuring organisational performance and effectiveness	p. 54
Chapter introduction	p. 54
Organisational performance	p. 54
Organisational effectiveness	p. 55
Research studies in organisational effectiveness	p. 57
Organisational effectiveness models	p. 59
Total Quality Management	p. 62
Business excellence models and awards	p. 64
Other useful tools briefly described	p. 69
Chapter summary	p. 77
5 Organisational culture and effectiveness: investigating the link between them	p. 78
Chapter introduction	p. 78
Early studies: the 'Budding Stage' (1920s to 1 970s)	p. 78
More recent studies: the 'Promulgation Stage' (1980s)	p. 81
The 'Testing stage' (1980s to the present)	p. 84
Organisational culture: performance link studies (1990 to 2003)	p. 85
Investigation of the link between organisational culture and organisational effectiveness in the context of this book	p. 86
The Denison Organisational Culture Survey (DOCS) model	p. 91
Strategic performance measures in the construction industry	p. 97
Research into organisational culture in the construction industry	p. 100
Chapter summary	p. 104
6 Research on the relationship between organisational culture and performance in Hong Kong construction companies	p. 105
Chapter introduction	p. 105
Part I p. 105
Research questions	p. 105
Research methodology	p. 108
Part II	p. 117
Research instrument	p. 117
Primary data sources	p. 123
Limitations of the methodology	p. 134
Part III p. 136
Data analysis methodology/administration	p. 136
Basic data analysis methodologies used	p. 137
Chapter summary	p. 141
7 The Hong Kong experiment: presentation of demographic data, overall results and some descriptive and qualitative analysis	p. 144
Chapter introduction	p. 144
Subjects	p. 144
Detailed results	p. 145
Statistical analysis	p. 151
Qualitative data	p. 157
Chapter summary	p. 161
8 Detailed statistical analysis of the DOCS and PASS data in relation to the major research questions	p. 162
Chapter introduction	p. 162
Quantitative data: patterns of data for each research question or hypothesis	p. 162
Chapter summary	p. 174
9 Four Hong Kong construction mini-case studies	p. 176
Chapter introduction	p. 176
The mini-case studies	p. 176
Chapter summary	p. 205
10 Conclusions and future research directions	p. 206
Chapter introduction	p. 206
Qualitative data	p. 206
Major research findings from the analysis of results	p. 208
Conclusions about each major research question	p. 209
Implications for theory	p. 213
Implications for the Hong Kong housing department and for companies engaged in public housing construction in Hong Kong	p. 214
Implications for further research	p. 215
The last word	p. 217
Appendix A Summary of the organisational culture instruments in the derivation of the OCP	p. 219
Appendix B Organizational Culture Survey (back-translated for use in Hong Kong)	p. 220
References	p. 225
Index	p. 253

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Table of Contents