Abstract
This study is an attempt to evaluate cultural ethos using OCTAPACE profile which shows how much each ethos is valued and believed by managerial and non managerial employees of power sector organizations. A sample of 432 staff members including technical, quality control and managerial staff was administered the OCTAPACE questionnaire. This instrument containing 40 items gives the profile of the organization’s ethos in eight values. These values are Openness, Confrontation, Trust, Authenticity, Pro-action, Autonomy, Collaboration and Experimentation. Using statistical tests, major findings confirmed that Confrontation and Authenticity are valued lower as compared to other ethos such as Proaction and Experimentation, which are valued higher among the employees. From correlation analysis, it is observed that the highest positive correlation is between Autonomy and Experimentation whereas the lowest negative correlation is between Confrontation and Collaboration. Results of Mann Whitney U test concluded that the perception of managerial and non managerial employees towards their organization culture is uniform irrespective of their work profile in the organization.
Introduction
In India, the electricity sector is primarily controlled by the Government of India’s public sector undertakings th (PSUs). India is the world’s 6 largest energy consumer, accounting for 3.4% of the global energy consumption. The demand for energy has grown at an average of 3.6% per annum over the past 30 years due to India’s economic rise. As per the report of Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), out of the total Rs 31.3 lakh crore investments made in the power sector across India, Gujarat attracted over Rs 5.3 lakh crore from public and private sources. During the period between 2004- 05 and 2012-13, Gujarat attracted over 17% of the total new investments made in the power sector, which is the highest among states. On one hand, the power sector is emerging as a fastest growing sector to fulfil the power shortage, while, on the other hand, the power sector has been facing a number of challenges on account of inadequate conventional fuel supplies, growing gap between fuels’ supply and demand, costs of imported fuels, project financing and rupee devaluation, transmission/open access constraints, unviable distribution segments due to power pricing, high cost of land acquisition, lack of experience in awarding global contracts and delay in granting statutory approvals. Apart from these technical and explicit challenges, the employees of power sector organizations are facing numerous embedded issues such as high attrition of technical experts, increasing stress level and low morale among human resources. To face the ensuing challenges of the business environment, it becomes necessary to bring about changes by all those involved in managing the economic, social and political institutions at various levels by being effective and efficient in their roles (Pestonjee et. al., 1999). The Indian power sector is going through a period of evolution and the future is likely to see considerable changes in meeting the demand against inadequate supply and the roles of various players in the industry. The power sector scenario in India is expected to evolve into a more developed stage. In order to ensure that such organizations run efficiently and effectively with minimum obstacles, organizations’ culture needs to act as a catalyst. The role of organizational culture in organizational performance is gaining significant consideration across India especially in the present volatile and highly competitive environment of the power sector. Practitioners and researchers have realized that organizational culture influences employee performance (Lee & Yu, 2004) and organizational performance significantly (Saeed & Hassan, 2000, Hsu et al., 2009) including financial performance of the company (Jafri, 2012)
Despite a lot of research done on organizational culture, there has been no universal agreed upon definition for the construct. Most of the definitions provided for the construct indicated that it is a shared system of values, beliefs, and attitudes that are common among the organizational individuals and influence their judgments (Mckinnon et al., 2003). Culture shapes employees’ attitudes, values, motivation, and performance (Lather et. al.,2010). Culture has been seen as the lens through which employees see organizational expectations and obligations. Culture serves as one of the most effective managerial control mechanisms in organizations, since performance standards are enforced by the employees rather than by top bureaucratic rules and regulations (Krawleski et al., 1996). Schein (1992) was of the view that culture isa pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learns as it solves 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 correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.
Organizational culture has been the focus of exploration for researchers since a long time. Various dimensions of organizational culture such as communication, training and development, rewards and recognition, risk taking, creativity and innovation, team and people orientation, result orientation, etc. have been explored in relation to several different organizational outcomes. However, no studies have been undertaken to explore organizational culture of the power sector in Gujarat. The present study attempts to probe into the dynamics of organizational culture in the power sector organizations of Gujarat by focusing on values, ethos and beliefs through the OCTAPACE framework. The objectives of the study are:
– To evaluate the eight ethos of the OCTAPACE profile in power sector organizations.
– To compare the cultural profile between managerial and non-managerial employees of organizations.
