The Purpose of the Research
This research seeks to find out the effect of organizational culture on employee performance and customer retention. Specifically, the investigation will be narrowed down to the UN organization where the researcher will examine the agency’s prevailing cultural values before assessing whether they have any significant impact not only on its workers but also on its client retention levels. Owing to the sensitive task of maintaining global tranquility and togetherness bestowed to this organization, examining the prevailing cultural values, for instance, uprightness, answerability, lucidity, and knowledge-sharing via the Intra-net will help to reveal their underlying impact of the UN employees’ performance and client retention.
In other words, the UN’s organizational culture entails the strict observance of fairness, unbiased geographic representation, and proficiency (Clarke, n.d). It enhances these organizational values through the establishment of effective and realistic strategies and administrative mechanisms that seek to foster its competitiveness. Hence, the topic under study is important since it will enhance the understanding of organizational culture factors unique to the UN in addition to revealing whether such elements influence the performance of the agency’s employees and/or whether they (factors) are effective in facilitating client retention. The topic will also shed light on what constitutes an organizational culture.
The topic is also important to me. Firstly, having secured an undergraduate degree in marketing, I have developed a passion for topics that touch on organizational behavior. As a result, I am interested in subjects that seek to find out the possibility of relationships between an organization’s behavioral elements and employee performance or client retention. The current research will be a revelation to me since it focuses on the impact that the UN’s organizational culture has on the mentioned aspects. Also, having secured an internship in an organization that did not have a well-founded institutional culture aroused my desire to pursue this subject, owing to the negative impact that such a workstation had on my performance. In addition to being less productive, I thought about quitting even before my internship period was over. Being less motivated by such an organization also affected my relationship with clients, a situation that might have interfered with their loyalty to the institution. Consequently, the current topic will be important to me because I will get the chance to determine the link between organizational culture, employee performance, and client retention.
The Role of My Skills and Access to Data in Solving the Problem
The Research Problem
Organizational culture is unique to virtually all institutions, including the UN. Scholars such as Clarke (n.d) have given diverse views concerning the topic of organizational culture values and their effect on aspects such as employee performance and client satisfaction. However, very few studies have been done to establish the link between organizational culture, employee performance, and client retention. The available studies only focus on organizational behavior and its relationship with workers’ satisfaction while neglecting the aspect of client retention (Nizam & Paschal, 2016). Owing to the apparent gap in the literature concerning this crucial link between organizations’ cultural values, employee performance, and client retention, institutions have experienced employee turnover and reduced productivity following the lack of clear mechanisms, which can enhance worker motivation and consequently organizational profitability. Being unaware of the relationship between the above variables has subjected organizations to unnecessary costs whereby they end up investing in strategies that only address one aspect such as employee retention while neglecting the bit on workers’ satisfaction and vice versa. As a result, their efforts have been futile, owing to the negligible impact realized on the overall organizational performance, despite it being the key goal of many institutions. Deploying the UN as the case study organization to carry out this research will help to seal this gap.
The Contribution of My Skills
The research skills I gained during my college years will play a crucial role in solving the above problem. For instance, in college, I gained considerable skills in doing Internet-based studies on various marketing subjects. This expertise is best suited to solving the current problem since it will be easier for me to assemble the appropriate materials from the Internet to address my topic. Also, I gained skills in selecting keywords that could help in narrowing down the number of articles appearing on the search page to those that best fit the topic at hand. As a result, I will deploy this expertise to establish an inclusion and exclusion criterion in a manner that only the appropriate current books or peer-reviewed articles published from 2013 to 2018 will be used in assembling the research.
Some of the studies include Sharma (2017), Clarke (n.d), and Nizam and Paschal (2016), just to name a few. For instance, Nizam and Paschal’s (2016) study will be significant in establishing what organizational culture entails. The authors reveal how organizational behavior has the potential of influencing business outcomes, for instance, profitability, job performance levels, and even administrative elements that shape decision-making processes within an institution (Nizam & Paschal, 2016). On the other hand, Sharma’s (2017) article will specify several values that define the culture of an organization, including fairness, growth prospects, and the institution’s standing. Sharma (2017) points to a situation whereby employees’ level of satisfaction may be gauged based on the extent to which an institution recognizes and/or deploys workers’ capabilities, principles, and experiences in particular work settings.
The skills I obtained during my internship period are well suited to solving the problem under study because I currently know some of the organizational culture issues to emphasize when gathering information from my selected organization, namely, the UN. I am privileged to have a friend who works at the organization. She will be fruitful when it comes to facilitating the means of accessing any data concerning the organization’s culture, including information on the current situation regarding employee performance and client retention. I will apply my data analysis skills to find out whether the organizational culture has been productive or counterproductive. Productivity will be noted in case the findings depict exemplary employee performance and high client retention. Otherwise, the culture will be regarded as retrogressive. This study will use the terms “retention” and “satisfaction” interchangeably based on Sharma’s (2017) findings that retaining employees or clients may involve satisfying them through an organizational culture that favors all parties involved in the workplace, including clients, stakeholders, and employers. This claim will be confirmed or disapproved later based on the findings obtained from the collected and analyzed data.
Developing the Topic
Various strategies may be deployed when one wishes to develop a research topic. Such methods include brainstorming, analogy, the use of mind-maps, and relevance trees among others. To identify the best method that was adopted to develop the current topic, it is crucial to examine each of the above methods to know what they entail. According to Seeber, de Vreede, Maier, and Weber (2017), brainstorming involves more than one person sharing views on a particular subject before pulling out the most viable elements to compose a researchable topic. Analogy involves developing a study on a given subject by extracting ideas or processes from another almost analogous discipline (Ketokivi, Mantere, & Cornelissen, 2017). Coulter (2016) presents mind mapping as a strategy that entails, “the placement of an image in the center of a map, with branches representing the main ideas connected to the central image” (p. 76). The relevance tree is presented in the form of a figure that can be deployed as a tool for developing researchable subjects from diverse theories extracted from a wide study area. Based on the above highlights, although the researcher engaged in brainstorming with two of his colleagues, the relevance tree was selected as the best method for helping to develop the current topic. Appendix 1 shows the relevance tree for the current subject. The technique was chosen because it allows the researcher to subdivide the wider subject of organizational culture into its constituents before examining how each element is contributing towards enhancing or eroding other areas, in this case, employee performance and client retention.
Paradigm and Method
Paradigm
Vosloo (2014) identifies positivism and post-modernism as two paradigms that form an extension of qualitative and quantitative studies. Post-modernism is further divided into interpretivism and critical conjectures. However, many studies adopt positivism, interpretivism, or a combination of both. Hence, it is crucial to highlight five questions that need to be answered before specifying the paradigm to adopt between positivism and interpretivism.
What is the nature of reality?
This question is founded on the ontological assumption concerning reality. While positivism presents reality as objective and invariable (singular), meaning that it is influenced by people’s judgment or attitude, interpretivism regards reality as a subjective concept that varies based on one’s thoughts and decisions.
What constitutes valid knowledge?
The above question addresses the epistemological assumption regarding knowledge. Positivism regards the researcher as autonomous relative to the subject being studied. On the other hand, interpretivism allows the scholar to influence the outcome of the topic under investigation.
What is the role of values?
The above question expounds on the axiological supposition concerning values. While positivism presents research as uninfluenced and adding negligible value to the existing literature, interpretivism assumes that any study conducted is valuable and partial.
What is the language of research?
This question is founded on the rhetorical assumption concerning the research language. Positivism presumes that studies utilize an official language consisting of some recommended descriptions that capture both the impersonal tone and the required quantitative words (Ryan, 2015). On the other hand, interpretivism believes that research deploys a casual tone whose conclusions vary based on the researcher’s voice and descriptive expressions.
What is the process of the research?
This question addresses the methodological postulation. According to Urus (2013), while positivism is an inferential (deductive) research strategy whereby elements are segregated before the commencement of the process, interpretivism is a persuasive (inductive) study plan whereby factors that influence a particular occurrence are examined in line with the existing theories.
Urus (2013) presents another element, soft-positivism, which gives researchers the leeway to incorporate aspects related to interpretivism and positivism. Hence, from the above highlights, it is imperative to identify the paradigm that best fits the current study. Since the topic entails establishing a link between several variables discussed earlier in the paper, one may conclude that the current study deploys interpretivism as the research paradigm. However, soft-positivism best suits the topic under study because it gives room for the scholar to borrow from interpretivism and positivism. Here, the researcher will be free to establish existing organizational culture values within the UN organization in line with interpretive concepts. He or she will also benefit from positivism since he or she will further utilize quantitative information to establish the link between the above principles and employees’ level of performance and client retention.
Method
Researchers have a wide range of methodologies to select from when conducting their studies. However, the choice of method depends on the nature of the topic under investigation. Some of the commonly used methodologies include surveys, triangulation, and case studies (Tibben, 2015). However, the above methods may be narrowed down to qualitative or quantitative approaches. As Tibben (2015) reveals, qualitative studies rely on descriptive facts based on the available literature. On the other hand, quantitative methodologies deploy numerical data, which may be expressed in terms of percentages or graphs to find out any relationships between variables. Tibben (2015) expounds on the concept of triangulation as a method that gives scholars the room to gather data using more than one means, for instance, case studies, qualitative, or quantitative methods. Ridder (2017) explains more about case studies whereby researchers investigate a particular subject using various data collection approaches. According to Bansal et al. (2017), surveys offer a means of collecting qualitative or quantitative data through questionnaires, which may be filled online or as hard copies.
Hence, based on the above highlights on some of the available research methodologies, it is imperative to determine the method that can effectively be applied to gather data for the current study. However, the researcher needs to appreciate Sharma’s (2017) observation that organizational culture is a broad subject that emphasizes the prevailing principles, presuppositions, morals, and the manner of employee-employee or employee-employer interactions that distinguish one group or institution from another. Since the current paper seeks to examine the link between some specified variables and the organizational culture of the UN, the researcher may first be forced to examine the available literature to establish the background information concerning general organizational culture values before going further to determine any possible relationship between such elements, employees’ performance, and client retention levels. This process implies the application of the qualitative data collection approach. Also, since the researcher also needs to gather data concerning the organizational culture of the UN organization, using this institution paves the way for a case study since the anticipated outcomes will reveal how various elements, namely, employee performance and client retention, have been shaped by the prevailing behavior at the agency.
Moreover, a questionnaire will be deployed to collect descriptive and numerical data concerning the current number of employees, the number of workers who may have quit the organization, and the current approximate number of clients. It will also capture information concerning the number of new customers who may have been attracted by the organization’s culture, the number of those who may have abandoned it, the reasons for improved or reduced employee performance, and the grounds for the observed increment (if any) in the number of or clients among others. Consequently, the diversity of methods that will be used to collect data for analysis to respond to the topic at hand can only be accommodated under the triangulation methodology. As earlier mentioned, triangulation gives the scholar the room to gather data concerning a particular subject using a variety of means. Hence, the method is the most suitable one for the current study.
References
Bansal, H., Eldridge, J., Haider, A., Knowles, R., Murray, M., Sehmer, L., & Turner, D. (2017). Shorter interviews, longer surveys. International Journal of Market Research, 59(2), 221-238.
Clarke, E. (n.d). Organizational culture, system evolution, and the United Nations of the 21st century. Insider’s View, 127-133. Web.
Coulter, J. (2016). Mind mapping as a tool to improve audit education. Journal of Business & Educational Leadership, 6(1), 76-81.
Ketokivi, M., Mantere, S., & Cornelissen, J. (2017). Reasoning by analogy and the progress of theory. Academy of Management Review, 42(4), 637-658.
Nizam, I., & Paschal, A. (2016). Effects of organizational culture on employees performance: Case of Singapore telecommunication.International Journal of Accounting & Business Management, 4(1). Web.
Ridder, H. (2017). The theory contribution of case study research designs. Business Research, 10(2), 281-305.
Ryan, P. (2015). Positivism: Paradigm or culture? Policy Studies, 36(4), 417-433.
Seeber, I., de Vreede, G., Maier, R., & Weber, B. (2017). Beyond brainstorming: Exploring convergence in teams. Journal of Management Information Systems, 34(4), 939-969.
Sharma, P. (2017). Organizational culture as a predictor of job satisfaction: The role of age and gender. Management: Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, 22(1), 35-48.
Tibben, W. (2015). Theory building for ICT4D: Systemizing case study research using theory triangulation. Information Technology for Development, 21(4), 628-652.
Urus, S. (2013). Living with enterprise resource planning (ERP): An investigation of end user problems and coping mechanisms. Web.
Vosloo, J. (2014).Chapter 5: Research design and methodology. Web.
Appendix
The development of the topic, “The Effect of Organizational Culture on Employee Performance and Customer Retention,” followed a brainstorming session between my two colleagues and me after I had shared with them the desire to do research in the field of organizational culture. One of my colleagues, a CEO in a well-established company, expressed her views on some of the possible areas I could consider. Precisely, based on her experience, she shared some of the organizational culture elements, for instance, employee motivation and recognition, which had contributed towards the productivity of her organization. Notably, she pointed out how her motivated employees handled clients with the dignity they deserved, hence retaining the current ones while at the same time attracting new ones. Based on her views, I compared my company’s status of employee performance and hers and realized that probably some organizational culture values could have contributed to the decreased productivity in the company where I was doing my internship. It then occurred to me that I could delve more into the topic of organizational culture and its impact on employee performance and client retention. Regarding the choice of the case study organization, namely, the UN, my other colleague who works there suggested that I could use it in my research, promising to supply any information I needed concerning the company’s organizational culture.