25-08-2017, 09:32 PM
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
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OUTLINE OF PROJECT
The organisational culture project coordinated by Dr Lisa Bradley and Dr Rachel
Parker involved a first stage of interviews with senior public sector managers, a
second stage survey of over 900 employees from Queensland and nearly 200 from
Victoria, and a third stage of interviews with a cross section of employees from
Queensland. This report presents the findings of that research. The project involved a
total of 15 organisational units in the two states.
Models of Culture
The survey was based on a Competing Values Framework (CVF) of organisational
culture. The CVF explores the competing demands within organisations between their
internal and external environments on the one hand and between control and
flexibility on the other. These conflicting demands constitute the two axes of the
competing values model. Organisations with an internal focus emphasise integration,
information management and communication whereas organisations with an external
focus emphasise growth, resource acquisition and interaction with the external
environment.
Job satisfaction
In addition to questions on organisational culture, the questionnaire also included
items on job satisfaction. Respondents were asked to rate their level of job satisfaction
from 1 (indicating not at all satisfied) to 7 (indicating very satisfied).
Strategic objectives
On the basis of interview responses, we identified seven major strategic objectives for
public sector organisations. Senior management indicated that their organisations had
derived strategies to manage the competing demands of multiple stakeholders, meet
commercial objectives, satisfy political objectives, act in the public or community
interest, provide independent policy advice, carry out research and information
gathering and set professional or industry standards. These objectives were discussed
in more specific ways relevant to each particular department. For the purposes of the
survey, these specific objectives were translated into the seven more general strategic
objectives. Survey respondents were asked to rate the importance of these objectives
within their organisation on a scale from 1 (not at all important) to 7 (very important).
RESULTS
The typical culture type in the Queensland public sector
As shown in Table 1, the typical organisational unit in the Queensland public sector
has an internal process culture which focuses on internal issues within the
organisation and has an orientation towards control rather than flexibility. The survey
results indicate that within Queensland public sector organisations, information
management and communication are utilised in order to achieve stability and control.