CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Of The Study

The work culture of an organization is born of the organization’s strategic intent and values. the employee and management are a key factors in creating a productive work environment. Before deciding a job a prospective employee usually looks into the work culture of an organization with a view to better align him into it.

An organization wants to obtain the commitment of their employees, management would like its employee to identify within the values, norms, and artifacts of the organization, hence the need for organizational culture. Management needs to explain and imbibe its culture to its employee, this enables the employee to get familiar with its organizational system.

During the process of explanation, the employee learns about the organizational culture and decides whether he can cope with it or not. This means each organization is a learning environment. It is the proper understanding of the organizational culture that the performance of employee will increase and affect the overall organizational performance for subsequent attainment of organizational goals.

As groups evolve over time, they face two basic challenges integrating individuals into effective whole adapting effectively to the external environment in other to survive. As the group finds a solution to this problem over time, they engage in a kind of collective learning that creates a set shared assumption and belief we call ‘culture’ MORGAN (1997) describe culture as ‘an active living phenomenon through which people jointly creates and recreates the world in which they live’. For MORGAN the three basic questions for culture analysts are;

• What are shared frames of reference that make organization possible?
• Where do they come from?
• How are they created, communicated, and sustained

There are many ways to visualize the concept of organizational culture, these are best seen through models, one popular conceptualization.

The culture of the organization should be developed to support continuous improvement, improve employee style of performing their job and thus develop quality awareness.

To operate successfully across cultures, it is important to be able to recognize cultural differences and be adaptable (Deter, Schreder, and Muriel 200). Organizational culture finds expression through the thought, intentions actions, and interpretation of members of the organizations (Hallett 2003).

Academic interest in corporate culture is evidence by the level of attention it has received over the last few decades. The relationship between corporate culture and performance has been the subject of research in several fields including strategic management, organizational behavior, and industrial organization.

Despite the intensive studies of corporate culture in the last few decades, there is no widely accepted causal relationship between corporate culture and performance. The empirical evidence emerging from various studies about the effect of corporate culture on performance have so far yielded mixed result have posed the question of whether corporate culture improves or worsen employee performance is still worthy of further research such as the one being carried out in this study.

In addition, despite the existence of these studies very little attention has been given to the banking industry, this means that the impact of corporate culture on employee performance in the banking industry in Cameroon has not yet received adequate research attention, thus, this research attempt to fill the gap by studying the situation of Cameroon banking industry and providing empirical evidence on the effect of corporate culture on employee performance based on individual bank-level data.

1.2 Problem Statement And Justification Of Study.

This has to do with the problem stated and letter examine. The relevance of the study will also be exposed with respect to the organization. This will help us to justify why there is a need for such a study.

Blunt and Jones (1992) and George and Jones (1996) argued that all organizations function with a specific culture. It is therefore imperative that management and organizational practitioners have to develop an understanding of their cultural setting, if their organization are to perform effectively, organizational practitioners continue to face a lot of management problems that have their roots in the culture of the society and the organization, in particular, this to a greater extend retard growth and slow down high performance relating to Cameroon organization to their specific culture setting provided the main motivation for study.  The main focus will be how to relate organization more closely with their cultural setting in order to enhance optional performance.

Ahiauzu (1986)comments that “it is becoming widely accepted among social scientists, especially managers and organizational theorist that the pattern of management and employee behavior in the workplace largely” culture-bound” Ahiauzu argue further that there is in did a growing body of literature concerning questions of cultural influence on organizational behavior and performance that of it is of poor quality, with a prescription base on western experience and fantasies.

Thus there exist the problem of the dead of research focusing exclusively on culture on organizational performance, as such little is known about the nature and uniqueness of the Cameroonian “culture” and its impact on organizational performance. In view of this limitation, an attempt was made in this study to provide answers to the following research questions.

1. Does organizational culture have any effect on employee performance in the banking industry in Cameroon?
2. How does corporate culture have a variable influence on the job performance of employees?
3. How does organization culture intact with order factor (organizational structure, organizational change, organizational behavior, and development¬?

One of the significant structures anthropology and sociology can add to the body of existing knowledge in organization theory and management is to come up with findings that can be used to tackle problems arising from workstations. One way of doing this is to examine critically how the culture of a particular society affects work behavior in general and how this in turn determines organization performance. The logical question that may be asking is ¬¬¬¬¬” To what extent is culture determined of organizational performance ¬¬¬¬¬? The significance of this study is anchored in the answer to these and some relating questions.

To begin with Aldrich and Margen 1988, Holsteda 1991 and Zakaria 1997 among others have argued that organizations do not exist in a vacuum but in a specific culture. These scholars and researchers have however argued that much of the research into organization neglect and fail to investigate the important relationship between culture and organization.

Presently, there is a considerable body of literature on the relationship between culture and organizational performance, Nordic journal Africa student 2003 among others. These studies however produced outcomes in different cultural contexts, and can therefore be applied in Cameroon.

In the light of this observation, it is envisaged that the result of this study will fill some gaps and at the same time mark the modest contribution to knowledge. As this is a descriptive study. It is also envisaged that it can be used to define another area of research for future investigation.

1.3 Objective Of The Study

1.3.1 Main Objective

The primary objective of this study is to assess the impact of corporate culture on employee performance.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

In line with the primary objective, the secondary objective is as follow

1. To identify the corporate culture in the Cameroon banking industry.
2. To examine how organizational culture affects employee performance.
3. To make a contribution regarding corporate culture and employee job performance.
4. To identify the problems associate with organizational culture.
5. To carry out an empirical study on the relationship between corporate culture and employee performance.

1.4 Research Questions

This research study is poised towards answers to the following questions because it will help us to carry out the research in an orderly manner.

1. Does corporate culture has any effect on employee job performance?
2. In what way does corporate culture impact employee job performance?

1.5 Research Hypotheses     

In order to answer the research questions and achieve the objective of the study, the following hypotheses are advanced and will be tested in the course of this study.

Hypotheses 1

HO: There is no positive relationship between corporate culture and employee job performance in the Cameroonian banking industry.

H1: There is a positive relationship between corporate culture and employee job performance in Cameroon banking industry.

Hypotheses 2

Ho: There is no positive relationship between corporate culture and organizational productivity in the Cameroon banking industry.

H1: There is a positive relationship between corporate culture and organizational productivity in the Cameroon banking industry.