Song Lianke Yang Dongtao Yang Hao

 

The fourth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the communist party of China put forward building socialist harmonious societies and the sixth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the communist party of China pointed out creating harmonious culture is an important task for building socialist harmonious society. Building harmonious society needs all companies create harmonious culture, because company is basic society unit.

Why companies need advocated harmonious culture during economic transition period? For researching into this question, authors analyzed the background of advocating harmonious culture and discussed the meaning and characteristic of harmonious culture. Authors found that harmonious culture has much similar characteristic of clan culture which is one culture type in competing values framework (Quinn and Rohrbaugh，1981；Cameron and Quinn，1998 ). Authors compared the influence of different corporate culture on employees for finding the reasons of creating harmonious culture. This paper measured the influence of corporate culture on employees by organizational commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intention, contextual performance and task performance.

This study sent two versions of questionnaire, one is paper version and the other is computer version. 498 questionnaires were returned and 422 questionnaires were valid, representing a response rate of 84.74%. The results showed that this scale possessed high reliability and validity. So this scale could be used to measure the influence of corporate culture on employees.

This paper got two important results. Firstly, this study found corporate culture can be divided into clan culture, hierarchy culture and external-orient culture under Chinese context. We can learn companies of China better by this way. Authors analyzed the reasons from traditional culture and transition economy. Secondly, the results indicated that clan culture influenced organizational commitment, job satisfaction and contextual performance positively and influenced turnover intention negatively; hierarchy culture influenced job satisfaction positively; external-orient culture influenced organizational commitment and job satisfaction positively; all cultures didn’t influenced task performance significantly. This paper studied the reason to create harmonious culture in companies by comparing the influence of corporate culture on employees via structural equation model. Clan culture which is similar with harmonious culture has profound foundation and fit transforming economy and influence employees’ attitude, behavior and performance positively. Chinese companies should create harmonious culture during economic transition period.

 

Key words: corporate culture; harmonious culture; clan culture; hierarchy culture; external-orient culture

 

The fourth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the communist party of China put forward building socialist harmonious societies and the sixth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the communist party of China pointed out creating harmonious culture is an important task for building socialist harmonious society. Building harmonious society needs all companies create harmonious culture, because company is basic society unit. Why companies need advocated harmonious culture during economic transition period? This paper wanted to answer this question. Authors designed a study to know how different cultures influence employees and whether these results support to advocate harmonious culture.

 

Martin (1992) suggested to analysis organizational culture based on three perspectives: the integration perspective, the differentiation perspective, and the fragmentation perspective. The integration perspective present culture is conceived as harmonious and homogeneous and organizations are characterized by consensus, consistency and clarity. This perspective is the most widely employed in organizational culture study. The differentiation perspective show the various ways in which subcultures interrelate in a complex dynamic. Organizations are more appropriately characterized as made up of subcultures that co-exist sometimes in harmony, sometimes in conflict and sometimes in indifference to each other. The fragmentation perspective argues for a focus on ambiguity and a recognition that organizational culture consist of multiple and competing interpretations that do not coalesce into a clear picture. Martin attempted to articulate an analytic framework that provides a way of successfully “reading” the literature on organizational culture (Mumby, 1994). This study analyzed corporate culture by integration perspective and believed a certain culture must be built by every effort from every level. So we focused on the result what was built by company’s effort and didn’t discuss the process how company set up culture.

Grouping corporate culture makes researchers understand it more distinctly. So many scholars developed model to analyze corporate culture. Cooke and Lafferty (1983) classified corporate culture into constructive culture, passive-defensive culture and aggressive-defensive. Wallach (1983) defined innovative culture, supportive culture and bureaucratic culture. Kotter and Heskett (1992) grouped culture into strong culture, strategically appropriate culture and adaptive culture. Bass and Avolio (1993) argued transformational leadership culture and transactional leadership culture. Hood (1998) recognized culture as hierarchist culture, fatalist culture, individualist culture and egalitarian culture. Goffee and Jones (1998) divided culture into networked culture, mercenary culture, fragmented culture and communal culture.

The competing values framework (CVF) is metatheory that was originally developed to explain differences in the values underlying various organizational effectiveness models (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1981). Quinn and Kimberly (1984) have extended the framework to examine organizational culture (Dension and Spreitzer, 1991). Built up two dimensions (internal focus and integration vs. external focus and differentiation, flexibility and discretion vs. stability and control), Quinn and his associates (Quinn, 1998; Quinn and Hall, 1983; Quinn and Kimberly, 1984; Quinn and McGrath, 1984) have developed a typology of four organizational cultures: clan, adhocracy, hierarchy and market. One dimension differentiates effectiveness criteria that emphasize flexibility, discretion, and dynamism from criteria that emphasize stability, order, and control. The second dimension differentiates effectiveness criteria that emphasize an internal orientation, integration, and unity from criteria that emphasize an external orientation, differentiation, and rivalry (Cameron and Quinn, 1998).

 

 

Flexibility and Discretion

 

 

 

Internal Focus and Integration                                    External focus and Differentiation

 

 

 

 

Stability and Control

 

Sources：Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on The Competing Values Framework, Addison Wesley. 1998，P32.

 

The clan culture in the upper left quadrant in Figure 1 which emphasizes flexibility and maintains a primary focus on the internal organization. Leader likes facilitator, mentor and parent. Cohesion, morale and development of human resource are effectiveness criteria.

The adhocracy culture in the upper right quadrant in Figure 1 which emphasizes flexibility and maintains a primary focus on the external environment. Leader likes innovator, entrepreneur and visionary. Cutting-edge, output, creativity and growth are effectiveness criteria.

The market culture in the lower right quadrant in Figure 1 which emphasizes stability and maintains a primary focus on the external environment. Leader likes hard-driver, competitor and producer. Market share, goal achievement and beating competitors are criteria.

The hierarchy culture in the lower left quadrant in Figure 1 which emphasizes stability and maintains a primary focus on the internal organization. Leader likes coordinator, monitor and organizer. Efficiency, timeliness smooth and functioning are criteria.

With the development of society, harmony becomes the theme of this age. The fourth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the communist party of China put forward building socialist harmonious societies. A harmonious socialist society should be a society including democracies and laws, fair and justice, faith and kindness, full vitality, stabilization and order, in which human-being gets along with nature. Its target is to develop harmoniously among nature, society and human-being. The content of socialist harmonious society to be constructed logically includes socialist economist harmony, political harmony and cultural harmony. The sixth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the communist party of China pointed out creating harmonious culture is an important task for building socialist harmonious society.

Culture of harmony provides important intellectual support for the unity and progress of all Chinese (Hu Jintao, 2007). What attributes should belong to harmonious culture? Some scholars had focused on this question. Lianke (2006) indicated that many attributes belong to harmonious culture are found in clan culture, such as trust, attachment, cohesiveness, membership, participation and cooperation. Clan culture is the most similar to harmonious culture in CVF. So we can study harmonious culture based on some theories of clan culture which can advance this study field.

How do different cultures influence companies? Culture always influences company by influencing employees. So we studied this question by evaluating the influence of different cultures on employees. Authors measured the influence from employees’ attitude and performance.

This paper chose organizational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intention to measure employees’ attitude. Scholars usually used and tested these variables in their study. We predicted that the influence of different corporate cultures on employees’ attitude is different in the following ways:

Hypothesis 1: Different corporate cultures influence organizational commitment differently.

Hypothesis 2: Different corporate cultures influence job satisfaction differently.

Hypothesis 3: Different corporate cultures influence turnover intention differently.

This paper chose contextual performance and task performance to measure employees’ performance. Scholars usually used and tested these variables in their study. We predicted that the influence of different corporate cultures on employees’ performance is different in the following ways:

Hypothesis 4: Different corporate cultures influence contextual performance differently.

Hypothesis 5: Different corporate cultures influence task performance differently.

If different corporate cultures influence employees’ attitude and performance differently, companies should build a appropriate culture to support its development. We wanted to know whether clan culture which is similar to harmonious culture is beneficial to Chinese companies.

 

This study sent two versions of questionnaire, one is paper version and the other is computer version. 498 questionnaires were returned and 422 questionnaires were valid, representing a response rate of 84.74%. Most of the respondents (70.38%) were male. 351 of respondents (83.18%) were younger than 40 and 301 of respondents (71.33%) have worked more than 5 years.

 

	Gender	n	Age	n	Length of Working (Years)	n
Male	297	18-29	168	Under 1	7
	Female	125	30-39	183	1-2	50
			40-49	55	3-4	64
			50-59	14	5-10	108
			Over 59	2	Over 10	193
Total		422		422		422

 

Corporate culture was measured by a 24-item instrument developed by Cameron and Quinn (1998). Organizational commitment was measured by an 18-item scale developed by Meyer (1993). Job satisfaction was measured by a 3-itme used by Zhang mian (2001). Turnover intention was measure by 3-item designed by Landau (1986). Contextual performance was measured by an 16-item developed by Borman and Motowidlo (1993). Task performance was measured by a 5-item scale developed by Podsakoff and Mackenzie (1989). All scales were test many times by other scholars and used widely in study field.

Respondents rated one item on a five-point continuum ranging from “strongly dislike” (1) to “strongly like” (5).

 

Sample was classified as sample Ⅰ (n=211) and sample Ⅱ (n=211). sample Ⅰ was used to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and sample Ⅱ was used to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). All questionnaires were used to test hypotheses.

At first, we tested corporate culture scale by EFA with sample Ⅰ. The results as following:

 

Item	F1	F2	F3
The organization is a very personal place. It is like an extended family. People seem to share a lot of themselves.	0.782
The leadership in the organization is generally considered to exemplify mentoring, facilitating, or nurturing.	0.753
The management style in the organization is characterized by teamwork, consensus, and participation.	0.737
The organization emphasizes human development. High trust, openness, and participation persist.	0.700
The glue that holds the organization together is loyalty and mutual trust. Commitment to this organization runs high.	0.619
The organization defines success on the basis of the development of human resources, teamwork, employee commitment, and concern for people.	0.498
The organization defines success on the basis of having the most unique or newest products. It is a product leader and innovator.		0.780
The glue that holds the organization together is commitment to innovation and development. There is an emphasis on being on the cutting edge.		0.724
The organization defines success on the basis of winning in the marketplace and outpacing the competition. Competitive market leadership is key.		0.724
The management style in the organization is characterized by individual risk-taking, innovation, freedom, and uniqueness.		0.661
The organization emphasizes acquiring new resources and creating new challenges. Trying new things and prospecting for opportunities are valued.		0.645
The organization emphasizes competitive actions and achievement. Hitting stretch targets and winning in the marketplace are dominant.		0.609
The glue that holds the organization together is the emphasis on achievement and goal accomplishment. Aggressiveness and winning are common themes.		0.508
The glue that holds the organization together is formal rules and policies. Maintaining a smooth-running organization is important.			0.706
The organization emphasizes permanence and stability. Efficiency, control and smooth operations are important.			0.669
The organization defines success on the basis of efficiency. Dependable delivery, smooth scheduling, and low-cost production are critical.			0.650
The organization is a very controlled and structured place. Formal procedures generally govern what people do.			0.630
The management style in the organization is characterized by security of employment, conformity, predictability, and stability in relationships.			0.468
Cronbach’s alpha	0.863	0.863	0.759

^a 1=strongly dislike, 5=strongly like.

^b Principal components analysis with varimax rotation.

 

First factor included 6 items which belong to clan culture, so we called it as clan culture. Second factor included 7 items which from adhocracy culture and market culture, so we called as external-orient culture. Third factor included 5 items which belong to hierarchy culture, so we called it as hierarchy culture. we tested the results by CFA with sample Ⅱ. The results as following:

 

χ2	df	RMSEA	GFI	CFI	NNFI
399.06	132.00	0.100	0.82	0.96	0.96

 

All results showed that corporate culture in Chinese context can be group into three types: clan culture, external-orient culture and hierarchy culture.

The rest of questionnaire needed to be tested by EFA and CFA. We used sample Ⅰ to EFA and sample Ⅱ to CFA. Results as following:

 

Variable	KMO	Bartlett’ Test
		Chi-Square	df	P
Organizational Commitment	0.800	665.499	45	0.000
Job Satisfaction	0.679	131.306	3	0.000
Turnover Intention	0.620	160.540	3	0.000
Contextual Performance	0.913	1490.938	91	0.000
Task Performance	0.680	137.066	3	0.000

 

	χ2	df	RMSEA	GFI	CFI	NNFI	Cronbach
Organizational Commitment	103.76	34.00	0.096	0.91	0.94	0.92	0.779
Job Satisfaction	33.72	24	0.043	0.97	0.99	0.98	0.730
Turnover Intention	33.72	24	0.043	0.97	0.99	0.98	0.731
Contextual Performance	240.69	76	0.096	0.87	0.97	0.96	0.916
Task Performance	33.72	24	0.043	0.97	0.99	0.98	0.737

 

The results of EFA and CFA showed that all variables can be measured by this questionnaire. In a word, validity and reliability of scales which were used in this study are accepted. Namely, we can measure variables by those items.

Table 6 presented correlations and descriptive statistics for the variables for both samples.

 

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1 clan culture	3.951	0.777
2 external-orient culture	3.739	0.733	0.696**
3 hierarchy culture	4.034	0.632	0.678**	0.649**
4 Organizational Commitment	3.570	0.562	0.495**	0.522**	0.411**
5 Job Satisfaction	3.731	0.764	0.490**	0.481**	0.322**	0.570**
6 Turnover Intention	2.417	0.843	-0.412**	-0.312**	-0.296**	-0.388**	-0.538**
7 Contextual Performance	4.081	0.599	0.507**	0.443**	0.392**	0.312**	0.331**	-0.332**
8 Task Performance	4.116	0.715	0.331**	0.274**	0.264**	0.175**	0.200**	-0.272**	0.646**

Note：^** p<0.01；^*  p<0.05。

 

Model 1 indicated every corporate culture influence every variable of attitude and performance. We found one item belong to organizational commitment was iffy (t=0.866) When we tested model 1 by Lisrel 8.7. Model 1 changed to model 2 by deleting this item. There were 8 paths considered to be deleted in model 2: clan culture influenced on task performance (t=1.984); external-orient culture influenced on turnover intention (t=0.186); external-orient culture influenced on contextual performance (t=1.017); external-orient culture influenced on task performance (t=1.095); hierarchy culture influenced on organizational commitment (t=-0.669); hierarchy culture influenced on turnover intention (t=0.485); hierarchy culture influenced on contextual performance (t=0.721); hierarchy culture influenced on task performance (t=0.740). Every corporate culture didn’t influence on task performance significantly, hypothesis 5 was rejected. Model 2 changed to model 3 by deleting 8 paths and task performance. Table 7 indicated that model 3 was the best one.

 

Model	χ2	df	χ2/df	RMSEA	CFI	GFI	NNFI	PNFI
1	3497.647	1196	2.924	0.0704	0.952	0.744	0.949	0.871
2	3229.055	1147	2.815	0.0674	0.956	0.759	0.953	0.874
3	2924.201	1018	2.872	0.0685	0.956	0.766	0.953	0.880

 

Authors analyzed model 3 by Lisrel 8.7. Clan culture and external-orient culture related to organizational commitment positively; clan culture and external-orient culture related to job satisfaction positively; hierarchy culture related to job satisfaction negatively; clan culture related to turnover intention negatively; clan culture related to contextual performance positively. Hypotheses from 1 to 4 were supported by these results.

 

 

This study made two contributions in study field of corporate culture.

Firstly, corporate culture in China should be classified as clan culture, external-orient culture and hierarchy culture. This result was different from the competing values framework. Throughout much of China’s long history, two rival approaches to life competed for dominance. One was Confucianism, with its emphasis on reason, traditional morality, and social philosophy. The other was Daosim, with its emphasis on intuition, mystical identification with nature, and endless transformation. In fact, all focused on internal problems and neglected external environment. One dimension of CVF reflects the conflicting demands created by the internal organization and the external environment. We found this dimension distinguished types of culture. The other dimension of CVF reflects the competing demands of flexibility and stability. This dimension could classify two cultures which both focused on internal organization, but it couldn’t group any cultures which focused on external environment. Traditional culture stressed on inside more than outside. External-orient culture is unsubstantial and can’t be divided into sub-culture. The result was different from overseas study.

Secondly, different cultures influenced on employees’ attitude and performance differently. Clan culture was beneficial to employees by organizational commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intention, and contextual performance. External-orient culture only influenced on employees’ organizational commitment and job satisfaction positively. Hierarchy culture made against employees’ job satisfaction. The results showed clan culture was the best culture to organization’s development. Clan culture is similar to harmonious culture. Namely, harmonious culture is beneficial to organizations’ healthy and development. The results supported why China advocate harmonious culture currently.

 

Clan culture is similar to harmonious culture, but clan culture isn’t equal to harmonious culture. They possess much same characteristics, but they are two conceptions. We can study harmonious culture based on some theories of clan culture. At the same time, doesn’t forget they are different conceptions. We can’t use theories of clan culture to harmonious culture directly. Remember, only use for reference.

In the future, we need analyze the difference from clan culture and harmonious culture which help us understand how to use theories of clan culture. Above all, we should study harmonious culture wholly and deeply.

 

Corporate culture of China can be classified as clan culture, external-orient culture and hierarchy culture. Three types of this study is more appropriate in China than four types of CVF, because our traditional culture focused on internal organization more than external environment.

Harmonious culture is beneficial to Chinese organization, because clan culture which is similar to it influences on human positively. Although clan culture isn’t equal to harmonious culture, some theories can be used for reference.