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Organsational culture has received increased focus in today’s business environment. It has merged as significant determinant of organsational performance. Organization culture indicates a company’s way of getting things done or shared organizations characteristics that shape the employees behaviors. While research shows that organizational culture is a key factor that influence organizational performance, the influence among the UK firms is still unclear. This is despite the UK firms having employees with diverse cultural background. The general aim of this study therefore was analyze the role of organsational culture among selected UK oavoidance, power distance, masculinity, and individualism on the organsational performance. The study utilized a descriptive research design. The target population consisted on 5 UK firms operating in various sectors. The target respondents comprised of the managing directors and departmental heads in all the firms. The study utilized both primary and secondary data. Primary data collection was done using structured questionnaires from the managing directors of the firms and the departmental heads in all the selected firms. Secondary data capturing the Returns on Assets (ROA) was collected from annual financial statements of the companies. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). This involved both descriptive and inferential analysis methods. Descriptive methods included means, standard deviation and percentages. Inferential analysis involved correlation and regression analysis. Correlation analysis was done to determine the connection between the different organization culture dimensions and the organsational performance. Regression analysis was done to find out the influence of cultural dimensions on the performance of the firms. From the analysis, the study established that the level of cultural dimension among the selected firms was found to be almost similar. On average, masculinity had the lowest mean of 3.17 while power distance had the highest mean of 3.79. Individualism had a mean of 3.28, and uncertainty avoidance had a mean of 3.47. From the correlation analysis, uncertainty avoidance had positive relationship with organsational performance while all the other dimensions had negative relationship with the organsational performance. From the regression analysis, the R Square value obtained was 0.215 which can be interpreted to mean that the organsational culture explain about 21.5% of the organsational performance. The other percentage, about 78.5 can be explained by other factors.

Chapter presents the introduction of the research study. It discusses the study background, the research problem and the research objectives. It also discusses the significance of the study, the scope as well as the imitations faced during the research process.

Organizations are currently operating in highly dynamic environment characterized by high globalization. As a result, the organizations have members from different backgrounds and with diversified cultural backgrounds. If this diversity is well managed, the firm enjoys a lot of economic benefits but in the absence of an effective leadership to manage the diversity causes operational challenges to the firm and leads to poor performance (Kenny, 2013). It is worth noting, with poor management, as diversity increases, the origination’s leaders may loss control and suffer losses. Therefore, establishment of an effective organsational culture has become one of the key ways of enhancing performance among firms globally (Ojo, 2010). Such a culture acts as a strong bond that binds the members of an organsational and leads them towards and the achievement of a mutual goal, the achievement if organizational performance.

Organizational culture refers to the values and beliefs that shape behavior in a given firm or organization (Ahmad, 2012). This is an approach that has been use for a considerable amount of time in the corporate sector and has become more significant in the current business era. An organization is composed of people with varied attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Such diversities can either be beneficial or problematic to the firm. It is thus crucial to ensure that cultural diversity in a firm is well managed in order to contribute to the achievement of the performance goals. Measuring culture is very difficult due to its abstract core.

Organizational culture offers firm a key means of controlling employees’ behavior. It is worth noting that firms operate from a particular socio-cultural environment that determine the way the employees think, feel, and act. Organizational culture is a very strong force that influences an employee’s work life. According to Pinho, Rodrigues, and Dibb (2014), it is a force that binds the company together, therefore, organizational managers and their employees do not operate in a value-free environment, and they are directed and governed by the organizational culture. If well managed, organizational culture and help to enhance employee’s commitment to the organizational goals and their contribution to the performance of the business. In support of this, Awadh and Alyahya (2013) posits that the organizational culture has strong effect on all people involved. While the cultural norms are almost invisible, the organsational culture is among the key areas a firm focuses on if it anticipate to achieve improve profitability and performance. When a firm establishes a common organizational culture, it gets the ability to foster values, beliefs and attitudes which increase employee engagement towards the business goals. Also, the organizational culture helps to increase effectiveness in the firm as to create well competitive advantage (Valmohammadi & Roshanzamir, 2015).

However, it is worth noting that the influence of culture depends on how it is managed. Therefore, the organizational culture can either be a bond that binds the employees together and makes them committed to the firm’s goals or a force that drives sets them apart and reduce their focus towards to the organizational goals. The organizational culture of a firm relies on the prevailing environment, the organizational goals, beliefs and the prevailing styles. For the culture to be effective, the employees should be like-minded, and should hold similar ethical values. Therefore, for an organization to achieve its goals, the organization should ensure their goals are well aligned with their management system (Javed & Javed, 2013).

Organization culture can contribute to the performance of a firm in various ways, that is improving harmonization and control, helping to align the employees’ goals with those of the firm, and increasing employee’s motivation which in turn leads to increased efforts (Milne, 2007). With regard to coordination and control, an effective corporate culture increases interaction and engagement among the employees which in turn promotes information sharing among them (Jacobs et al., 2013). It is through such engagement that key ideas that can help to improve the performance of the firm are shared. For instance, if a firm promotes a culture that promotes error management, it leads to increased communication about errors and error management coordination. This in turn helps to improve the performance of the firm (Van Dyck et al., 2005). In absence of such an effective control system, little would be done to manage errors which would in turn reduce operational efficiency and leads to poor performance.

Another contribution of effective organizational culture is that it promotes innovation. This is achieved when the business manages its culture in a manner that complement its traditional employee motivation strategies (Guiso et al., 2015). Corporate culture is closely linked to business strategy. Currently, firms are striving to promote innovation as a means of achieving competitive advantage as opposed to price. This innovation is well achieved through an effective management of organizational culture. This is because, in doing so, different ideas from different employees are incorporated in the strategy. Another benefit of organizational culture is that it increases employee commitment towards the goals of the firm by strengthening the bond between the employees and the business. For instance, an effective culture can influence the priorities of the employees and encourage them to ensure the consumers are protected besides only seeking operational effectiveness (Jacobs et al., 2013).

An effective corporate culture helps to reduce staff turnover. Effective culture increases employees’ motivation and makes them develop positive attitudes towards the business. This reduces turnover and increases productivity. When the productivity of the employees is increased, the financial health of the business is increased as well as the efficiency and effectiveness (Mohr, Young, & Burgess, 2012). Corporate culture is also closely linked to competitive advantage and sustained financial performance. This is because, culture cannot be duplicate it would be the case with products, services, business strategies. This is because, a culture is made from behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values, and the environment prevailing in the organization and hence hard to imitate. Management of these aspects enables the firm to record superior performance. According to Mohr, Young and Burgess (2012), organizations with strong and effective culture record better performance as compared to the ones with weak cultures. This is because, a strong culture enables a firm to emphasize on all key stakeholders and create an environment that promotes employee morale, commitment towards the business goals and increased productivity.

In today’s businesses environment businesses are striving to keep up the high dynamism in the market and to achieve competitive environment. One of the areas of focus is the enhancement of organsational culture as it has emerged that a good culture can enable a firm to achieve its business goals. According to Idris et al (2015), in an organization, poor organizational culture and lack of effective cultural integration have negative effect on organsational performance and leads to reduced shareholders returns.

While organization culture has become a key factor that contributes to firm performance, the management of this culture in a manner that contributes to firm performance still remains a challenge to majority of firms. This is partly attributed to economic globalization which is a key feature todays’ corporate environment. Due to globalization, organizations have members for different backgrounds with varied cultural backgrounds. This diversity has proven hard for some firms to manage. According to Eaton and Kilby (2015), while a about 72% of corporate leaders acknowledge the significance of organizational culture in contributing to performance, only about 25% of them manage to manage the culture in an effective mean promote performance. This in most cases leads to poor business performance and loss of productivity.

In the UK, majority of firms have employees with diverse cultural background and cultural management has been one of the key areas of focus for the firms. The business managers has been seeking effective strategies to establish effective culture to enhance business performance. However, while organsational culture has been a key feature among the UK firms, not much is known about the impact of organsational culture among the UK firms. Therefore, there are research gaps that this study sought to fill by determining how firms in the UK manage organsational culture as a means of improving organsational performance. Besides contribution to the body of research, the study also sought to create key insights that the management of the firms can utilize to make effective policies on how organsational culture can been enhanced to boost performance.

Today, firms are struggling to survive in highly dynamic environments. Businesses are therefore seeking creative, innovative and competitive ways in order to survive and record good performance. Organizational culture has become one of the key factors that influence firm performance. Firms in the UK have not been a preserve as cultural diversity continues being a key factor in the running of the businesses. Due to the significance of this cultural diversity, there has been a great deal of attention on the role of organizational culture among firms. However, the role of organizational culture among the UK firms has not received much research focus. The study thus sought to analyze the various cultural dimensions and the way they influence organizational performance of selected firms in the UK.

Specifying the research question is one of the key criteria of essential of determining the research methods to utilize. The overarching research question the study sought to answer was: What is the influence of organizational culture on the organizational performance of selected UK firms? To answer this question, the study will analyze the influence of four Hofstede's dimensions of organizational culture on the performance selected UK firms. These include power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity.

The study will create key insights that will enable the UK firms to understand how organization culture influence performance. This will help the firms in designing effective culture management system that leads to increased employees outcomes. The study will also benefit the employees of the firms studied. It will help them understand the significance of embracing and appreciating cultural diversity among them in a manner that foster coordination among them. This would help to increase their productivity and the productivity of the firms. In addition to policy making, the study will have significant contribution to the body of research and add to the existing literature on organizational culture. It will therefore be a key reference source for other researchers with interest in the same area and other related areas. Finally, the study will suggest research gaps that other researchers can build on. It will thus form a key foundation for further research on the same areas and other related areas.

The study will be limited to the UK firms. Specifically, the study will focus on the role of the four Hofstede's culture dimensions on organizational performance. The study will be limited to five organizations in the UK. The organizations are Tesco PLC, Mark and Spencer PLC, Next PLC, Legal and General PLC and GlaxoSmithKline. The study focused on a 10 year duration, 2009-2018. The participants of interest were the managing directors and the departmental heads of the organizations.

An assumption refers to a realistic expectation of the research process (Ellis & Levy,

2009). In this study, the primary assumption was that the respondents had key and sufficient knowledge on the issue and were that they were in a better position to give reliable data. It was assumed that the employees and the managers who had work in the organizations for a period of more than one year had relevant knowledge and experience on how organsational culture can contribute to organsational performance. Finally, it was assumed that respondents would give accurate and reliable data free from bias since participation in the study was voluntary.

Limitations are the conditions and shortcomings faced during the research process (Connelly, 2013). In this study the key limitations faced was unwillingness of the employees to give data particularly data pertaining to the performance of the business. This is because, the respondents had fear of victimization by the management. To counter this, the respondents were assured that confidentiality will be upheld and their identity as well as the data they give will be kept confidential. The other limitation faced was lack of flexibility among the employees to allocate enough time to participate in the study due to their busy schedules. To counter, this, the respondents were given the questionnaires and given 5 days to fill them at their convenient time. Although this lengthened the data collection time, it helped to improve the response rate. The other limitation faced was the potential for bias by the respondents. To counter this, the researcher urged them to as truthful and accurate as possible since their identity and that of the data they give would not be disclosed.

In this section, the purpose was to review literature on organizational culture and its role on organizational performance. It discusses the organizational culture concept and reviews previous research studies on the organization culture and firm performance.

Culture was defined by classical authors as a complex whole comprising of knowledge, morals, customs, beliefs, and other capabilities that an individual acquire by belonging to a given society. In an organization, culture impact on the manner the employees think and act (Schein, 2011). If well managed, this culture can help to boost the performance of the firm. According to Nelson and Quick (2011), organization culture increases employees commitment and involvement and makes them more dedicated to the tasks, and helps to strengthen organizational values.

Organization culture can be classified into three aspects that is direction, intensity, and integration. Culture direction indicates the types of acting, thinking, and feeling of being embraced and chosen by an organization to understand the specified goals. Culture intensity indicates the degree of organizational members’ recognition and implementation of one specific system above others. Culture integration on the other hand shows the degree to which different departments within an organization share a common culture. According to Shiu and Yu (2010), the culture of a firm influences the formal and informal expectations of individuals who are part of a firm, the type of people who will adapt the firm and impact the manner in which people interact with one another within the organization.

Organizational culture offers a framework that enables managers to implement motivational tools that influence the manner. However, it is not an easy task to create a culture that promotes individual motivation as a lot of time is needed to understand the factors that inspire individual employees. In today’s business era, this challenge has become even more pronounced and complex since employees orient their interest to other things apart from financial incentive. Moreover, through an effective organsational culture, the firm is able to increase cohesion among its members and steers them towards the achievement of the organsational goals. In support of this, Zlate (2004), argue that firms with effective and strong cultures are able to enhance their productivity by engaging with all members in the matters of the operation in an intense manner (Baird, Hu, & Reeve, 2011). This enables the firm to incorporate different ideas from different members and manage them in a manner that contribute to increased performance. Organization managers have now acknowledged that employees are key resources and if they are brought on board and given a platform to partake I the matters of the business, they are able bring forward their beliefs and values which in turn increases their commitment to the firm. This also increase cohesion among organsational members.

Extensive research studies have been conducted on organizational culture and the effect on organizational performance. Abdul, Sambasivan and Johari (2003) in a study on organizational culture and employee commitment and performance among Malaysian firms identified that an effective corporate culture increases employees’ commitment towards the business goals which in turn helps to increase the general productivity of the firm.

Yilmaz (2012) conducted a study on the infelunec of organizational culture on firm effectiveness in emerging economies. The puprose here was to examine the characteristics of organization culture in selected firms, the level of firm performance and how organization culture impacts on firm performance over time. Data for this study was collected from manufacturing companies in Turkey. To properly measure the performance, the researcher looked at the sales and profitability of the organizations and return on assets as well as the returns on equity. The author used a survey to find out the views of the employees of the organization as well. From the analysis, the study found out organization culture has significant correlation with the business performance. The study however established that for an effective culture that can be considered successful to be achieved, it is vital for the firms to give the employees the right environment and training in order for them to adapt to the culture. Among the key areas identified that increase productivity is that, effective organizational culture had strong influence on employee performance and increases motivational levels. It is worth noting that motivation level and cultural alignments are very important for any organization, and if firms do not align their cultures well, achievement of business goals becomes hard. While the study was informative, contextual gas emerge as it focused on Turkish firms and the findings cannot be generalized to the UK firms and hence the rationale for this study.

Peteraf (2013) conducted a study on the infleunce of organsiational culture as one of the cornerstones of competitive advantage among organsiations. In this study, the purpose was to overcome the limitations of previous studies which mostly focused on the role culture on the individual employees’ outcomes. Data for this study was gathered from a sample of 32 organizations where sales data and returns on investments and equity were analyzed. The purpose was to determine how they were influenced by the organsational culture. Form the analysis, the results showed no significant or positive relationship between organization culture and financial performance. From this study, contextual gaps emerge on the need to focus on the UK firms.

Rousseau (2011) conducted a study on the relationship between organsational culture and performance of various. Specifically, the study sought to determine how the different cultural dimensions of firms impact on the returns on equity and return on assets as well as the sales volumes over time. From the analysis, it emerged that organsational culture was positively related to all the aspects of the performance of the firms.

Kotter (2012) conducted one of the most extensive studies on the organizations culture and the impact on the performance of organizations in different countries in different sectors. Data for this study was collected from over 207 organizations over five years period. In this study, the author used various measures of culture and how organizational culture impacted on the long term profitability. From the analysis, the study established strong correlation between organizational culture and organsational performance. The subsequent observations also showed that organizations with strong cultures had better performance than those organizations that had weak and ill-suited cultures. This study emphasized on the need for firm’s management to ensure that the firm’s culture is well aligned to promote the achievements of the business goals. In this study, contextual gaps emerge to focus on the UK firms as the findings of this study cannot be generalized to the firms in the UK.

Marcoulides and Heckn (2013) analyzed the relationship between organizational culture and organsational performance using secondary data collected from 26 organizations. The research looked at the impact of organizational culture measured by the year to year sales growth figures and the market share. In addition to the secondary data, primary data was collected form the employees through interviews to determine how easier it was for them to adapt to the organization culture. From the analysis, it was established that organsational culture contributed a lot to the organizational performance of the organizations. The study concluded that effective organsational culture increased employee happiness, motivation, and commitment towards the achievement of the organsational goals. This helped to reduce employee turnover. In this regard, it was clear that the firms that had strong cultures retained their employees longer than those with weak and ineffective cultures. In this study, contextual gaps emerge since the study did not focus on the UK firms. Therefore, the result cannot be generalized to the firms in the UK.

Ogbonna and Harris (2011) conducted a study on the role of organizational culture in promoting organizational performance. Data collection was done form 1000 units from the Financial Analysis Made easy database of registered British companies. To measure performance they used variables such as customer satisfaction, sales growth, market share, competitive advantage and sales volume. For organizational culture they used measures such as competitive culture, innovative culture, bureaucratic culture and community culture. From the analysis, the findings showed that all four measures of organizational culture were associated in some way with corporate performance. More specifically, innovative and competitive cultures had a direct effect on performance and accounted for approximately 25 percent of the variation in organizational performance. Both competitive and innovative cultures were externally oriented in line with the assumption that organizational culture must be adaptable to external environment for a sustained competitive advantage. Generally, it was established that organsational culture had significant effect on the organsational performance of the firms. In this study, while key insights were created on the role of organsational culture in enhancing organizational performance, empirical gaps emerge on the need to analyze the influence of Hofstde’s culture dimensions which are key indicators of organsational performance.

Stewart (2010) conducted a study on the norms and values of organizational culture that highly effect the performance of the organizations. The study noted that the better the employees are in line with the culture of the organization the better the performance and the higher the retention of the best performing employees. The study concluded that if culture is strongly implemented and employees follow all the values, the profitability level becomes high.

In a related study, Abu-Jarad (2010) analyzed the influence of organizational culture on sales growth and return on assets and equity. From the analysis, it was noted that organizational culture impact the behavior, learning and development of employees which in turn contributes to improved performance of the organizations.

Hartnell, Ou, and Kinicki (2011) conducted a study on how organizational culture can be used to improve the organizational effectiveness. From the analysis, the study established that the presence of a strong culture can influence workers and enhance their attitudes, can motivate them and make them feel part of a larger family. This is only possible with the collective values and beliefs. The study concluded that a strong organizational culture has a major influence on the performance of organizations. As the concept of organizational culture is spread out amongst the members of organization, it unites them and ensure they have a mutual focus on the organizational performance. The study also established that is vital for the organizations to ensure that the various sub cultures that exist in a firm are well harmonized to come up with a single unifying culture. This increases a sense of belonging among the employees, makes them feel appreciated which in turn increases their productivity.

Linnenluecke, Russell, and Griffiths (2009) conducted a study on the infleuence of organisational culture on corporate sustainability. The puurpose was to determine how various sub cultures in an rganisation are managed to enhance organisational performance. Form the analysis, the study concluded that if the subcultures are well managed, they can contribute to the overall organizational performance. If the employees relate and coordinate well, they are able to share ideas different ideas which in turn improves innovation. This contributes to the organizational performance. In this study, contextual gaps emerged on the need for focus on the UK firms. Empirical gaps also emerged on the need to focus on various dimensions of organizational culture.

In another study Cameron and Quinn (2005), explored how organizational culture can be diagnosed to contribute to organizational performance. The purpose here was to determine the impact of organization market culture on the performance of the firms. The study concluded that an organization can create harmony between external factors and internal culture which can help to improve. In this study, contextual gaps emerge as the study id not focus on the UK froms. Also, the study did not anlyse the variosu dimensions of rgasiational culture and the imact on performance.

In another study Baird (2011) explored the relationship between organizational culture and operational performance and overall performance of the organizations. The purpose was to determine how organizational culture can lead to better total quality management and better performance. Based on the analysis, the study established that the presence of an organization culture can improve employees’ morale and improve their attitude and make them feel valued. This increases their productivity and their contribution to the organization performance. The study concluded that effective organizational culture creates new fundamental improvements in the behavior of the employees which in turn increases the performance of the firm indirectly.

Engelen, Brettel and Wiest (2012) analysed the impact of natioanl and cororate culture on business performance focusing on how organization culture can lead to better product development and improved business performance. Based on the findings, a conclusion was made that organizational culture has a significant impact on the performance of the organizations. Specifically, the study established that existence of effective culture helped to improve productivity and production levels due to better problem solving capabilities. In this study, empirical gaps on the need to focus on the culture dimensions that influence firms’ performance. Contextual gaps also emerge on the need to focus on the UK firms.

In another study, Denison (2013) analyzed the role of organizational culture on the organsational performance. The study put forth a model on which the culture on an organization should be based. The model consisted of four main parts. The first part stated that organizations should empower their people, build teams in the organizations and build human capability at all levels of the organization. The second part focused on consistency which looked at the fact that for a culture to be strong in an organization, it has to be consistent, well-coordinated and integrated. This can lead to a powerful and consistent culture and stability in the organization. In this regard, for better and strong culture in the firm, it is very important that rules and regulations to be followed by the employees. The strategies, dealings, and intentions must be inspired upon the employees with the aim of reasonable advantage of enhancing the organization performance. The third part of the model was adaptability which states that organizations that are well integrated are often the hardest to adept to change. Internal integration and external adaption can be against each other Adaptable organizations are driven by their customers, take risks, learn from their mistakes, and have the capability and experience at creating change. They are continuously changing the system so that they are improving the organizations’ collective abilities to provide value for their customers. And the last part was mission Successful organizations have a clear sense of purpose and direction that defines organizational goals and strategic objectives and expresses a vision of how the organization will look in the future .When an organization’s underlying mission changes, changes also occur in other aspects of the organization’s culture.

This section discusses the methods and procedures that were used to undertake the study. It discusses the research design, the target population, sample size determination and sampling procedures, and data sources, data collection tools and data collection procedures, reliability and validity analysis, data analysis, and ethical considerations.

A research design refers to a plan that is used to undertake the study. It describes the methods used to collect data and the analysts methods used. It is an essential element in every research process that helps to strengthen the study and to make the study easy (Marczyk, eMatteo & Festinger, 2005). It helps to define the research process, from the definition of the research question to the analysis to answer the research question. This study utilized a descriptive research design. This research design is suitable when the purpose of the study was to determine and analyze the relationship between variables without manipulating the variables. In this study, the descriptive research design will be used to determine the relationship between the organization culture and firm performance.

There are different research methods ta are used to conduct studies based on the nature of the study. These include, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. In this study, quantitative method was used. This research emphasize on objective measurements and statistical, and numerical analysis of the data collected. It is the most suitable method if the purpose is to determine the relationship between variables. In this study, this method will be used to gather data that will be analyzed to determine the relationship between the independent and the dependent variable.

A target population refers to a whole group of people or terms having common traits that the researcher is interested in studying. In this study, the target population comprises of five UK firms that is Mark and Spencer PLC, Tesco PLC, Next PLC, GlaxoSmithKline and Legal and General PLC. The target analysis units are the employees and the management of the companies. The employees were selected based on the duration they had worked in the companies. In this regard, only the employees who had worked in the companies for 5 years and above were selected. This criteria was also applied to sample the management respondents. The respondents were identified from the employee database provided by the human resource managers. These database provided full information on all employees in the organization regarding names, positions, job titles, and positions. It was important for this study to maintain confidentiality related to personal information and anonymity of all participants.

Purposive sampling method was used to select the managing director and nine departmental heads in each company as the respondents. The rationale for choosing the managing director and the departmental heads is that, being in charge of the firms and having worked in the firms for a duration of more than two years, they were well acquainted with the organization culture and had sufficient knowledge on the role of organsational culture in enhancing performance. Therefore, ten respondents were selected from each company to make a total of 50 respondents. The sample time period used in this study of above mentioned firms was ten years, 2009-2018.

The study used both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires form the employees of the selected companies. The rationale for choosing the questionnaire is that it offers an economical means of collecting vast data from many respondents. This was vital as the main purpose of this study was to gain a rich descriptive insight into how organizational culture influences organizational performance. The questionnaires was divided into different sections. The first section captured data on the respondents and the organizations. The organsational culture was measured on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The second section collected data on organsational culture and the performance of the selected companies. Secondary data captured the financial performance of the companies in terms of the returns on assets. This was collected from the annual financial statements of the companies.

The study sought to determine the influence of organsational culture on the performance of selected firms in the UK. The organsational cultures the independent variable. This will be measured using Hofstede’s framework which consist of five dimensions, that is power distance (PDI), individualism (IDV), masculinity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance (UAI), and long-term orientation (LTO). The dimensions of organsational culture were measured using a five point likert scale. The dependent variable was the financial performance of the companies. This was measured in terms of returns on Assets (ROA).

First, data form the questionnaires was coded and inspected to ensure completeness. Analysis was then done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). This was done using quantitative methods. Analysis involved both descriptive and inferential methods. Descriptive statistics included mean, standard deviation, and percentages. Inferential analysis on the other hand was done using regression analysis. The purpose here was to determine the relationship between the organsational culture and the performance of the selected companies. The regression analysis model used is shown as below;

Y = β₀ + β₁X1 + β₂X2 + β3X3 + β4X4 + ε

Where:

Y = The financial performance (ROA)

β₀ = It is the intercept explaining the level of performance.

β₁, β₂, β3, and β4= The model coefficients

ε = is the error term

X1= Adaptability

X2=Consistency

X3= Involvement

X4= Mission

The researcher strived for the highest ethical standards when undertaking the study. The researcher complied with research ethics when undertaking the study. As part of ethical considerations, the researcher sought a research permit form all the relevant bodies that authorizes research studies in the UK. Secondary, the researcher sought permission from the 5 companies included in the studies to allow for the research process to be undertaken there. Participation in the research was voluntary without any forms of incentives. When participation is voluntary, chances of data accuracy are high as the respondents give the data willingly. Therefore, once permission was granted by the companies, the researcher explained to the respondents the purpose of the study and the roles they were to play in order for them to make informed decision on whether to participate or not. During the research process, the researcher ensured the respondents are protected from all forms of harm, maintained privacy and confidentiality of the data, and ensured that the data interpretations were made without bias.

The analysis here sought to obtain a general description of the respondents. The purpose here was to determine the gender of the respondents, their age, education attainment, and the duration they have been serving in their respective firms. This would helped to determine whether the respondents had enough experience to give reliable data. The findings are presented in the table below;

Table 1 shows that 73% of the respondents were males and only 27% were females. The results indicate that the majority of the respondents in the selected firms were males. In regards to age, the majority of the respondents (47.20%) were 36 – 45 years, 20.70% were between 25 – 35 years, 16.30% were aged between 46-55 years, 9.30% were above 55 years, while 6.50% were below 25 years. The findings indicates that the majority of the respondents were middle aged. Regarding the education level of the respondents, the majority of them (65.20%) had attained bachelor’s degrees. Those with master degrees accounted for 22.7% while 12.10% had attained college education. The findings implies that generally, the respondents had acquired high education. Regarding the length of service, the findings shows that the majority of the respondents (69.20%) had worked in their respective companies for over 10 years. Those who had worked in their companies for 5-10 years were 17.20% while those who had worked in their organizations for less than 5 years accounted for 13.6%. Generally, the findings implies that since the majority of the respondents had worked in their companies for a considerable duration, they were well experienced and versed with the operations of the companies. Therefore, they were well placed to give reliable data.

The purpose of the analysis here was to determine the cultural dimensions among the selected UK firms. From the analysis, the level of cultural dimension among the selected firms was found to be similar. On average, masculinity had the lowest mean of 3.17 while power distance had the highest mean of 3.79. Individualism had a mean of 3.28, and uncertainty avoidance had a mean of 3.47. The findings are presented as follows;

Generally, the organizations in all the organizations promoted the creation of a conducive working environment. All the employees were satisfied working for the organizations and felt that their organizations were like home. This has helped to create unity among the employees and to increase employee commitment towards the organsational goals.

The purpose of analysis here was to determine the influence between organsational culture and the performance of selected firms in the UK. First correlation analysis was done to analyze the relationship between the different culture dimensions and the organsational performance. The analysis results are shown as follows;

The analysis results shows that all the culture dimensions had significant relationship with the performance of the selected UK firms. Focusing on the different culture dimensions, uncertainty avoidance had positive relationship with organsational performance while all the other dimensions had negative relationship with the organsational performance. This negative relationship can be attributed to the diversity that has emerged in corporate culture due to due globalization. As a result, various traditional culture dimensions are no longer relevant in the current business environment. For instance, most firms have adopted open management system and have minimized the gap between the owners and the managers and power distance is not practiced to a large extent in the today’s corporate environment. Similarly, individualism is no longer as companies are largely embracing team work and masculinity is also no longer relevant.

The research findings are in agreement with the past research results by Gimenez (2000) and Ezirim et al.(2010) who established that firm culture influences the financial performance of a firm. The findings are also consistent with the findings of Sadri and Less (2001) and Bhaskaran and Sukumaran (2008) who concluded that individualism and high power distance have negative relationship with the firm performance.

Regression Analysis was conducted to determine the overall influence of organsational culture on the financial performance of the selected firms. The analysis findings are presented in the table below;

From the model summary statistics, R value obtained was 0.51 which shows a string positive relationship between the organsational culture and organsational performance. The R Square value obtained was 0.215 which can be interpreted to mean that the organsational culture explain about 21.5% of the organsational performance. The other percentage, about 78.5 can be explained by other factors.

The P-value obtained was 0.000 which indicates that the model is significant. This is because the P value was less than 0.05. This implies that the model can be used to explain the influence of organsational culture on the organsational performance among the selected UK firms.

Based on the regression analysis findings, masculinity, individualism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance were all statistically significant. This is because, in all the cases, the p values were less than 0.05. This implies that they were significant determinants of organsational performance in the selected UK firms.

The purpose of the study was to determine how organsational culture influence organization performance among selected UK firms. From the analysis, a conclusion is made that the influence of the different culture dimension was similar among the UK firms. The study concluded that uncertainty avoidance had positive relationship with organsational performance while power distance, masculinity, and individualism all were all negatively correlated with the organizational performance. A conclusion was drawn that in the current business environment characterized by economic diversification, various cultural dimensions such as power distance, masculinity, and individualism are no longer relevant. Such cultures can jeopardize the performance of the firms. It is therefore important for firms to manage its culture in a manner the promote organsational performance.

The study has established that organizational culture contributes to organsational performance. More specifically, the study established that all the Hofstede culture dimensions influence or8ganisational performance. Uncertainty avoidance had positive significant influence on the performance of the firms. The firm are thus recommended to promote uncertainty avoiding culture in order to ensure the organizational members are comfortable. This will in turn inspire the employees to perform well and become committed to the organizational goals. Regarding power distance, the study established that reduce power distance leads to improved organizational performance. The firms are thus encouraged to promote this culture and ensure that the employees can freely access and interact with their senior to address organizational issues. Power distance makes the employees comfortable and motivated to pursue the organsational goals. In regards to individualism dimension, the study established that reduced individualism contributes to high organizational performance. The firms are thus recommended to promote collectivist culture as this promotes engagement and ideas sharing. This in turn fosters innovation and promote to organizational performance. Finally, in regards to masculinity, the study found out that reduced masculinity among the firms contribute to increased firm performance. Gender roles are not common among the firms and the contribution of all genders is equally appreciated among the firms. The firms are thus recommended to promote this cultural dimension in order to promote good performance.

At the first step before the start of the dissertation the researcher was presented with the task of selecting the topic of the research. In this effort the researcher went through many topics which captured the interest of the researcher. These topics belonged to different fields related with the business sector form accounting to human resource. Finally the researcher settled on the topic of how organizational culture influenced the performance of the organizations in the United Kingdom. The main reason for the selection of this topic was that it peaked the interest of the researcher. And also it could deliver effective and conclusive results. The researcher only had the time period of three months in which to conduct the entire research.    

The researcher first decided on a topic the impact of Organization culture and its conflicts on the success of Project Management. The researcher than organized a meeting with his Supervisor, initially it was a fine topic for the researcher. When author did some research on this topic it was very wide-ranging topic and that time the researcher realized that the time allotted was to do such type of research. The researcher faced some complications during this topic and then again a meet was arranged the supervisor (Scott Lichtenstein) as he was very cooperative. When the researcher and the supervisor discussed on the topic and the researcher shared his views, the supervisor actually understood that there was a flaw in the direction the work is going then both went to the Module Leader (Peter Samuels), The module leader actually helped the researcher out in this scenario, the time was too short and the proposal had just been completed then, Peter Samuels gave the researcher a one week extension because he was on three weeks holidays. Then some changes were made in the research topic. The researcher started working on new topic which was, “Impact of Organizational culture on organizational performance”. 

When the researcher started to work on methodology as Peter and Scott gave the researcher some instructions to work on secondary research and the researcher worked on the dissertation according to their instructions. In the research methodology the researcher used secondary data of the firms and it was decided to get the data from five firms of the UK. As the researcher got the data from the different databases. The researcher decide to use quantitative research method in the methodology for the purpose of this research. For empirical analysis, it was very important to get the data first and create some hypotheses which proves the relationship between the variables. In this process, the researcher faced very tough time. The researcher is very thank full to library staff, colleague and access of some software which university provided us to use them for data collection.

For collection of data, the researcher used some software which has been provided by University. The researcher used a software FAME which helped the research out in order to get the data of the companies regarding the independent variables of the research. Second software that the researcher used for getting the data of elected companies was Thomson Reuters Eikon 4 which helped the researcher out in order to get the data of last ten years, firms of the UK. 

When the researcher had got a hold of all the required data from mentioned software then the researcher started to analyzed the data by using SPSS software, with the help of SPSS the researcher got the result after running tests such as descriptive statistics, correlation and regression. In the whole process, the researchers asked his friend to help me out for getting these result. Initially, it was very hard for the researcher to use SPSS because for the researcher it was the researcher’s initial experience using the SPSS software. With the help of Peter’s Lecture and the researcher’s friend the researcher was able to obtain some results using SPSS.

During this dissertation, the researcher personally learnt a lot in this Module. Throughout this research the researcher learnt some important procedures of the research which enhanced his knowledge and overcome many problems that were not faced before by the researcher .This Module helped the researcher in polishing his research skills which improved his research practice. The researcher learnt some new software which actually helped him to understand how to get the data of companies and how to get some result on well balanced panel data. My time-management skills have also been improved by the end of the Research Report. This is because there was specific deadline and I had adopt some principle related to time management in order to be submit my work on time

Abdul Rashid, Z., Sambasivan, M. and Johari, J., 2003. The influence of corporate culture and organisational commitment on performance. Journal of management development, 22(8), pp.708-728.

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Jacobs, R., Mannion, R., Davies, H.T., Harrison, S., Konteh, F. and Walshe, K., 2013. The relationship between organizational culture and performance in acute hospitals. Social science & medicine, 76, pp.115-125.

Javed, L. and Javed, N., 2013. An empirical study on the factors that affect employee motivation and their relationship with job performance. International Journal of Management Sciences, 1(4), pp.114-124.

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Kenny, G.2012. Diversification: Best practices of the leading companies. Journal of Business Strategy, 33(1), 12-20.

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Effective organizational culture has numerous benefits to the firm. It offers a firm a key means of controlling employees’ behavior. According to Pinho, Rodrigues, and Dibb (2014), it is a force that binds the company together, therefore, organizational managers and their employees do not operate in a value-free environment, and they are directed and governed by the organizational culture. If well managed, organizational culture and help to enhance employee’s commitment to the organizational goals and their contribution to the performance of the business.

Organization culture improves harmonization and control and helps to align the employees’ goals with those of the firm, and increasing employee’s motivation which in turn leads to increased efforts (Milne, 2007). Such culture increases interaction and engagement among the employees which in turn promotes information sharing among them (Jacobs et al., 2013). It is through such engagement that key ideas that can help to improve the performance of the firm are shared. For instance, if a firm promotes a culture that promotes error management, it leads to increased communication about errors and error management coordination. This in turn helps to improve the performance of the firm (Van Dyck et al., 2005). In absence of such an effective control system, little would be done to manage errors which would in turn reduce operational efficiency and leads to poor performance.

An effective corporate culture helps to reduce staff turnover. It increases employees’ motivation and makes them develop positive attitudes towards the business. This reduces turnover and increases productivity. When the productivity of the employees is increased, the financial health of the business is increased as well as the efficiency and effectiveness (Mohr, Young, & Burgess, 2012). Corporate culture is also closely linked to competitive advantage and sustained financial performance. This is because, culture cannot be duplicate it would be the case with products, services, business strategies. This is because, a culture is made from behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values, and the environment prevailing in the organization and hence hard to imitate. Management of these aspects enables the firm to record superior performance.

Yilmaz (2012) conducted a study on the infelunec of organizational culture on firm effectiveness in emerging economies. The puprose here was to examine the characteristics of organization culture in selected firms, the level of firm performance and how organization culture impacts on firm performance over time. From the analysis, the study found out organization culture has significant correlation with the business performance. The study however established that for an effective culture that can be considered successful to be achieved, it is vital for the firms to give the employees the right environment and training in order for them to adapt to the culture.

Peteraf (2013) conducted a study on the infleunce of organsiational culture as one of the cornerstones of competitive advantage among organsiations. In this study, the purpose was to overcome the limitations of previous studies which mostly focused on the role culture on the individual employees’ outcomes. Data for this study was gathered from a sample of 32 organizations where sales data and returns on investments and equity were analyzed. The purpose was to determine how they were influenced by the organsational culture. Form the analysis, the results showed no significant or positive relationship between organization culture and financial performance.

Rousseau (2011) conducted a study on the relationship between organsational culture and performance of various. Specifically, the study sought to determine how the different cultural dimensions of firms impact on the returns on equity and return on assets as well as the sales volumes over time. From the analysis, it emerged that organsational culture was positively related to all the aspects of the performance of the firms.

Kotter (2012) conducted one of the most extensive studies on the organizations culture and the impact on the performance of organizations in different countries in different sectors. Data for this study was collected from over 207 organizations over five years period. In this study, the author used various measures of culture and how organizational culture impacted on the long term profitability. From the analysis, the study established strong correlation between organizational culture and organsational performance. The subsequent observations also showed that organizations with strong cultures had better performance than those organizations that had weak and ill-suited cultures.

The study will employ a quantitative methodology and a descriptive research design. The target population will comprise of five selected UK firms that is Mark and Spencer PLC, Tesco PLC, Next PLC, GlaxoSmithKline and Legal and General PLC. The target analysis units are the managing directors and departmental heads in all the firms. The respondents were identified from the employee database provided by the human resource managers. These database provided full information on all employees in the organization regarding names, positions, job titles, and positions. Purposive sampling method was used to select the managing director and nine departmental heads in each company as the respondents. Both primary and secondary data will be used. Primary data will be collected using structured questionnaires form the employees of the selected companies. Secondary data will be collected from the annual financial statements of the companies. The organsational culture will be the independent variable. This will be measured using Hofstede’s framework which consist of five dimensions, that is power distance (PDI), individualism (IDV), masculinity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance (UAI), and long-term orientation (LTO). The dependent variable will be the financial performance of the companies. This was measured in terms of returns on Assets (ROA). Data will be analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). This will be done using quantitative methods. It will involve both descriptive and inferential methods. Descriptive statistics will included mean, standard deviation, and percentages. Inferential analysis on the other hand will be done using regression analysis.

Abdul Rashid, Z., Sambasivan, M. and Johari, J., 2003. The influence of corporate culture and organizational commitment on performance. Journal of management development, 22(8), pp.708-728.

Jacobs, R., Mannion, R., Davies, H.T., Harrison, S., Konteh, F. and Walshe, K., 2013. The relationship between organizational culture and performance in acute hospitals. Social science & medicine, 76, pp.115-125.

Kenny, G.2012. Diversification: Best practices of the leading companies. Journal of Business Strategy, 33(1), 12-20.

Kotter, P. &. (2012). Corporate culture and performance. New York, NY: Macmillan .

Milne, P., 2007. Motivation, incentives and organizational culture. Journal of knowledge management, 11(6), pp.28-38.

Mohr, D.C., Young, G.J. and Burgess, Jr, J.F., 2012. Employee turnover and operational performance: the moderating effect of group‐oriented organizational culture. Human Resource Management Journal, 22(2), pp.216-233.

Nongo, E., & Ikyanyon, D.2012. The influence of corporate culture on employee commitment to the organization. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(22), pp 21-28.

Ojo, O., 2010. Organisational culture and corporate performance: Empirical evidence from Nigeria. Journal of Business System, Governance and Ethics, 5(2), pp.1-12.

Rousseau, D. (2011). Quantitative assessment of organizational culture. Group and OrganizationsStudies, 15(4), pp. 48-460.

Yilmaz, C. and Ergun, E., 2008. Organizational culture and firm effectiveness: An examination of relative effects of culture traits and the balanced culture hypothesis in an emerging economy. Journal of world business, 43(3), pp.290-306.

Task numberTask descriptionStart DateEnd DateDuration (days)

1Project meeting date09/06/201910/06/20191

2Literature Review10/06/201915/06/20195

3Gather Information15/06/201920/06/20195

4Project proposal (Rough Draft)25/06/201930/06/20195

5Project Proposal Submission30/06/201903/07/20193

6Project Starting date04/07/201925/09/201983

7Read previous Articals07/07/201920/07/201913

8Introduction20/07/201930/07/201910

9Literature review30/07/201910/08/201911

10Data collection 10/08/201915/08/20195

11Methodology15/08/201920/08/20195

12Analysis20/08/201927/08/20197

13Discussion27/08/201901/09/20195

14Review first five chapter01/09/201905/09/20194

15Conclusion05/09/201910/09/20195

16Reflective Account10/09/201915/09/20195

17Appendix 15/09/201918/09/20193

18Referances 18/09/201920/09/20192

19Submission 20/09/201925/09/20195