VALIDATION OF DENISONS MODEL

OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND

EFFECTIVENESS IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

Nazir A. Nazir and Mushtaq A. Lone

Taking cue from the recent surge in organisational culture and effectiveness studies mainly in Western
countries, the present study investigated the link between these two constructs using Denisons Organisational
Culture Survey (DOCS) in the Indian context. The results, besides finding a strong support for the DOCS
model, indicated that of the four cultural traits studied involvement, adaptability, mission, and consistency,
mission was found to be a single most cultural trait responsible for a number of bottom-line performance
indicators. The implications of and limitations to the study are also discussed.

Key Words: Organisational Culture, Effectiveness, Denisons Organisational Culture Model

INTRODUCTION The paper begins with a perceived/historical

overview of culture performance link followed by

O
RGANISATIONAL culture has emerged as one
empirical studies/evidences. Then, the research design
of the crucial and popular concepts in the field
followed in the study has been highlighted which includes
of organisational behaviour and human resource
sample respondents and organisations, selection of
management in the recent past (Nazir, 2005 and
questionnaire. Next section spots the findings of the study
Ogbanna et al. 2000). This surge in the popularity of the
supported by the extant literature.
construct is attributed in part to the link between
organisational culture and firm effectiveness (Wilderom,
Glunk and Maslowisk, 2000). With the studies however, Culture-performance Link: A Historical Overview
largely confined to US (see for example, Denison and
Like many other organisational studies, the root of culture-
Mishra 1995, Petty, Bradles, Lowery, Champan and
performance link can be traced back to Hawthorne Studies
Connel, 1995, and Rousseau, 1990) and in Europe (Calori
(Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939 1945) that unearthed
and Sarnin, 1991, Wilderom and Vanden Berg, 1998) the
the presence of informal social system and shared
researchers utilized wide variety of cultural as well as
assumptions and beliefs amongst the workers, thus
performance indicators in various organisational settings
revealed the presence of organisational culture even
and industries to assess the link between these two
though not termed so during the investigation (Baba,
constructs. Taking cue from earlier researchers who
1996). However, Silverzweig and Allen (1976) made a
argued that the field of organisation studies will not flourish
systematic effort in ascertaining a link between culture
without more solid evidence on the culture-performance
and performance through a series of case studies. Of the
link (Smircich, 1983) and that scant attention has been
eight firms studied, they found that the performance of
paid by the scholars to this admittedly daunting task
six firms increased substantially after they incorporated
(Wilderom et al. 2000), the present study aimed at testing
some changes in their cultures. Almost around the same
the link between organisational culture and effectiveness
time, researchers became curious in probing the
in some of the manufacturing firms in India.
50 Nazir and Lone
worldwide phenomenal success of Japanese firms (see
for example, Ouchi and Jaeger, 1978, Ouchi and Johnson,
1978, and Pascale and Athos, 1981).
For example, Ouchi and Jaeger (1978) found that
workers commitment and unitary vision coupled with
certain humanistic values like concern for employee
wellbeing and emphasis on consensual decision making
were prime contributors in Japanese high performance.
Pascale and Athos (1981) with their experience in
Japanese and American firms also found that high
productivity in Japanese firms was due to their concern
for strong human relations.
Peters and Waterman (1982) further stamped the
above causal association between culture and
performance. They argued in their landmark book In
Search of Excellence that superior firm performance is
possible only when a company moves away from a pure
technical and rationalist approach towards a more
adaptive and humanistic approach. In the same vein,
Deal and Kennedy (1982) reported that shared values
act as informal systems that guide the organisational
members as to what is expected of them hence positively
impacting organisational performance.
By the end of 1980s however, scholars seriously
started questioning the causal link between culture and
firm performance as proposed above. Saffold (1988)
for instance, recognising the likely effect of culture on
performance concluded that simple model for relating
culture to performance no longer fits with the
knowledge scholars have developed about the role culture
plays in organisational analysis: a more sophisticated
understanding of the tie between organisational culture
and organisational outcomes must be developed
(pp.546). Thus, 1990s gave rise to plethora of research
studies where researchers made great strides in testing
the relationship between culture and performance.
However, these researchers showed genuine caution in
testifying such a link. The following section is devoted
to briefly highlight some of these studies.
Culture Performance Link: Empirical Evidences
Researchers like Denison (1990) argue that the
performance of an organisation is related to the degree
to which culture values are strongly held or widely and
commonly shared. Similarly, Ogbonna (2000, 1993)
argue that widely held and strongly shared values help
management in minimizing the undesired consequences
on certain strategic alternatives by predicting the
employee reactions. Gordon and DiTomaso (1992) also
VISIONThe Journal of Business Perspective Vol. 12 No. 1 JanuaryMarch 2008
found that a strong culture as measured by the
consistency of perceptions of company values is
predictive of short-term future company performance
(pp.794). Some argue that the compatibility between
individual values and organisational culture values, that
is, value congruency enhances employee commitment
(Nazir, 2005), reduces labor turnover (Sheridan, 1992)
and fosters job satisfaction (OReilly et al., 1991).
However, Soerson (2002) in large publicly traded
firms concluded culture performance link is environment
sensitive. He found that strong cultures were yielding
when firms operated in rather stable environments.
Contrary to this, weak culture proved advantageous for
firms in fluctuating environments. In a similar vein,
Gordon and DiTomso (1992) argued that culture will
contribute to firm performance if it adapts to the changing
environments. Some theorists recommended that cultural
strength is an advantage in highly competitive
environments where such conditions are recognised by
firms in advance (see for example, Burt et al., 1994).
Kotter and Heskett (1992) on a sample of 207 companies
engaged in 22 areas of manufacturing in USA concluded
that in order to produce good financial results, firms
with strong cultures need not only to be environment
conscious but also need to anticipate future needs in
advance. Germendia (2004: 1021) noted that a strong
culture may even be detrimental to success if the
consistency it involves leads to slavish adherence to
routine and conformist attitudes. Researchers like
Ogbonna (2000) reported that culture must not only be
strong (widely shared) for superior performance, but it
must have unique qualities and traits which cannot be
imitated.
Amidst the above inconclusive and confusing
research findings; a number of scholars have developed
integrative frameworks of organisational culture (Allaire
and Firsirotu, 1984, Martin, 1992, and Schein, 1990)
with however, little consensus on the general theory of
organisational culture (Fey and Denison, 2000). Besides,
despite the controversy over the measurement of
organisational culture and lack of agreement on the
appropriate measures of effectiveness, researchers
argued, better understanding of the link between
organisational culture and effectiveness as of paramount
importance to the development of organisation studies
(Fey and Denison, 2000, and Wilderom et al, 2000).
Based on the above contention and extant literature,
this study tested the link between these constructs using
organisational culture model developed by Denison and
his colleagues (Denison, 1984, 1990, 1996, Denison and
 Validation of Denisons Model of Organisational Culture and Effectiveness in the Indian context
Mishra, 1995, and Denison and Young, 1999). The model
is based on four cultural traits: involvement, consistency,
adaptability and mission of effective organisations. These
cultural traits have been further expanded by Denison
and Neale (1996) and Denison and Young (1999) to
include three sub-dimensions for each trait for a total of
12 dimensions. Further, effectiveness was measured on
sales growth, market share, profitability, new product
development, quality of products, employee satisfaction
and overall organisational performance (the details of
the instruments used are given in the next section).
Hypotheses
As indicated above, research has shown a positive and
significant relationship between organisational culture
and organisational effectiveness measures. Moreover,
research also showed that different cultural traits were
related to different organisational effectiveness measures.
For example, Denison and Mishra (1995) found that the
stability traits of mission and consistency were related
to profitability. Likewise they found that innovation was
best predicted by the flexibility traits of involvement and
adaptability, and the external orientation traits of
adaptability and mission were the best predictors of sales
growth. In view of this, we propose the following two
hypothesis for the study:
Hypothesis 1: There exists a positive correlation
between organisational cultural traits of
involvement, consistency, adaptability,
mission and organisational performance/
effectiveness.
Hypothesis 2: Different cultural traits will have different
impact on various criteria of effectiveness.
Research Design and Methodology
The Study Sample
A stratified random sample of 480 employees
representing various levels of the organisation was
selected for collecting data from two each, cement, textile
and steel manufacturing firms operating in the state of
Jammu and Kashmir (India). Of the 480 questionnaires
administered to them personally, a total of 226
questionnaires were returned out of which only 212 were
usable for data analysis. The majority of the respondents
were male (95 per cent), the average age was 40.85
years, the average length of service was nearly six and
half years. Majority of the respondents were educated
with 8 per cent of them as post graduates and 70 per
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51
cent of the respondents were having bachelors degree
or 10+2 degrees and around 22 per cent of the
respondents were either matriculates or below which
necessitated the brief description of the questionnaire
from the second author. The employee strength for four
of the firms was between 200 to 300 employees and the
other two firms had between 500 to 1000 employees.
Also all the six firms were in operation for more than
fifteen years.
The Study Instrument Used
The growth in interest in the concept of corporate culture
in late 1970s and 1980s led to the development of
different self-report questionnaires to measure it with
most of the early studies relying almost extensively on
qualitative methods (Glick, 1985). However, the culture
studies took curious turn particularly in the 1980s as
authors included studies that pursued a more
conventional agenda of comparisons and generalizations,
exemplified by a series of more recent articles that have
used either quantitative methods exclusively or some
combination of quantitative and qualitative methods (see
for example, Chatman, 1991, Cook and Rousseau, 1988,
Denison and Mishra, 1995, Gordon and DiTomaso,
1992, and Hofstede, 1998, OReilly et al., 1991). These
scholars argue that culture measurement is crucial to
understanding the relationship between factors of interest,
making valid comparisons and investigations between
and across firm cultures possible.
Following cue from the above research, the present
study used a quantitative approach to examining the link
between organisational culture and effectiveness using
Denison Organisational Culture Survey (DOCS). The
survey uses 60 items focusing on four cultural traits
viz., Involvement, Consistency, Adaptability and Mission.
Each trait is measured with three sub-dimensions and
each sub-dimension is measured by five questions on a
Likert type scale ranging from 1-5 (strongly disagree to
strongly agree). The survey assesses the organisational
effectiveness using seven subjective measures of
effectiveness like sales growth, market share,
profitability, new product development, quality of
products, employee satisfaction and overall organisational
performance, using five point Likert scale ranging from
1 (low performer) to 5 (high performer). Employees
are asked to compare their firms with others in the
industry on these seven measures of effectiveness.
The extant literature is full of evidences using
52 Nazir and Lone

subjective measures of performance (see for example, Further, almost all the correlations between sub-dimensions
Delaney and Huselid, 1996, Denison and Mishra, 1995, of these cultural traits and various measures of
and Denison et al., 2004) and inferring a moderate to effectiveness are also significant as revealed by Table 4.
strong association between subjective and objective
The results of this study are supported by many
measures of performance (see for example, Dollinger
other studies including those of Kotter and Heskett 1992,
and Golden, 1992, Guest, 2003, and Powell, 1992).
Gordon and DiTamaso, 1992, Cameron and Whetten,
Besides, this research was constrained to using the
1983, Pennings, 1976, Coffey, 2003 and Denison et al.,
subjective measures of effectiveness considering the
2006). Denison and Fey (2003) for example, tested the
psyche of the firm owners for not willing to share the
model on 179 firms in Russia. The study in general found
financial information and the non-availability of any
good support for the model of organisational culture
centrally monitoring financial agency in the state.
and effectiveness with 27 out of 28 correlations between
organisational culture traits and effectiveness measures
Results and Discussion being significant. In a study of 150 executives of six
The descriptive statistics of organisational culture and private organisations in India, Srivastava (2001) found
effectiveness dimensions is shown below in Table 1 and that organisations which had strong culture showed a
2 respectively. As mentioned earlier, both the constructs considerable increase in sales, reserves and surplus and
used five-point scales resulting in mid-point three. The profit after tax compared to those that had weak culture.
mean score of all the four traits of organisational culture Kapoor and Tripathi (2000) in a study on a sample of
is above the mid-point of three, with reasonable 200 middle level executives of 10 public sector
dispersions of central tendency as revealed in Table 1. organisations in India also found that participative
Again, measures of effectiveness are by and large above organisational culture was related to organisational
the mid-point with the exception of market share and commitment. In one another study, Denison and Mishra
employee satisfaction. However, the overall performance (1995) on a sample of 764 organisations also provide
mean is above the mid-point margin as revealed in Table evidence for the existence of relationship between
2. cultural traits and the measures of performance like:
return on assets and sales growth.
Table 3 highlights the correlations between the four
cultural traits and the measures of effectiveness. Results
Table 2: Descriptive Statistics of Organisational
contained in table 3 confirm our hypothesis that cultural
Effectiveness Measures
traits of involvement, consistency, adaptability and mission
are significantly related to measures of effectiveness. Measures Mean Standard Deviation
Sales Growth 3.01 1.75
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Organisational Culture Market Share 2.82 1.78
Traits
Profitability 3.08 1.64
Dimension Mean Standard Deviation
Quality of Products 3.57 .41
Involvement 3.66 0.561
New Product Development 3.07 1.48
Consistency 3.46 0.564
Employee Satisfaction 2.95 1.28
Adaptability 3.45 0.445
Overall Organisational
Mission 3.44 0.499 Performance 3.62 1.24

Table 3: Correlations Between Four Cultural Traits and Seven Measures of Effectiveness for Whole Data.
Sales Market Profitability Quality of New Product Employee Overall
Growth Share Products Development SatisfactionOrganisational
Performance
Involvement 0.251 0.190 0 .300 0.239 0.378 0.456 0.460
Consistency 0.269 0.296 0.308 0.230 0.358 0.467 0.436
Adaptability 0.287 0.257 0.383 0.246 0.341 0.499 0.445
Mission 0.339 0.312 0.373 0.270 0.303 0.486 0.494
All correlations are significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
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 Validation of Denisons Model of Organisational Culture and Effectiveness in the Indian context 53

Table 4: Correlations Between 1-2 Sub-dimensions of Culture and Measures of Effectiveness for Whole Data
Sales Market Profitability Quality New Product Employee Overall
Growth Share of Products Development Satisfaction Organisational
Performance
Empowerment 0.232** 0.192** 0.243** 0.201** 0.353** 0.392** 0.379**
Team Orientation 0.204** 0.132 0.244** 0.237** 0.318** 0.322** 0.331**
0.003 0.055 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Capability Development 0.210** 0.165* 0.282** 0.175* 0.301** 0.452** 0.464**
0.002 0.016 0.000 0.011 0.000 0.000 0.000
Core Values 0.285** 0.352** 0.337** 0.227** 0.354** 0.438** 0.430**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000
Agreement 0.158* 0.219** 0.183** 0.172* 0.350** 0.384** 0.336**
0.022 0.001 0.008 0.012 0.000 0.000 0.000
Integration/Coordination 0.271** 0.197** 0.288** 0.249** 0.255** 0.424** 0.414**
0.000 0.004 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Creating Change 0.355** 0.230** 0.386** 0.285** 0.327** 0.461** 0.407**
0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Customer Focus 0.079 0.074 0.107 0.101 0.168* 0.315** 0.223**
0.252 0.286 0.121 0.141 0.014 0.000 0.001
Organisational Learning 0.257** 0.309** 0.421** 0.204** 0.316** 0.405** 0.426**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.003 0.000 0.000 0.000
Strategy 0.283** 0.248** 0.291** 0.261** 0.309** 0.458** 0.465**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Goals/ Objectives 0.315** 0.278** 0.326** 0.201** 0.246** 0.390** 0.399**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.003 0.000 0.000 0.000
Vision 0.263** 0.267** 0.332** 0.217** 0.206** 0.378** 0.380**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.003 0.000 0.000
* p<0.05, ** p<0.01.

Besides, providing further support to hypothesis1,
the regression analysis presented in Table 5 confirm that
different aspects of culture are linked to different elements
of effectiveness measures (Hypothesis 2). As could be
noted from the said table, mission tends to be one of the
most important cultural traits that account for 5 out of
the 10 significant relationships predicting effectiveness
with a beta of .691 significant at .002 on overall
performances. The results contained in the table also
suggest that mission, as a single cultural trait is highly
associated with effectiveness followed by involvement
and adaptability.
Building on Denison (1995), Fisher (1997) found
mission to be a single most cultural trait responsible for
a number of bottom-line performance indicators in a
company followed by the trait of involvement, then
VISIONThe Journal of Business Perspective Vol. 12 No. 1 JanuaryMarch 2008
adaptability and consistency. Results also indicate
involvement as the most important dimension of culture
for firms whose focus was employee satisfaction and
overall performance with the beta of .598 and .480,
respectively significant at .05 level on these dimensions.
Involving organisational members through empowering
them and harnessing their capabilities has been found to
be one of the features of effective organisations by many
other researchers as well (see for example, Bleck, 1964,
and Lawler, 1996). Researchers also argued that
employees of such organisations exhibit high level of
commitment and feel a strong sense of ownership
(Katzenberg, 1993 and Spreitzer, 1995), besides, allowing
them to rely on informal, voluntary and implicit control
system, rather than formal, explicit and bureaucratic
control system (Denison et al, 2006).
54 Nazir and Lone

Table 5: Regressions of Effectiveness Variables

Independent Dependent Variables
Variables Sales Market Profitability Quality of New Product Employee Overall
Growth Share Products Development Satisfaction Organisational
Performance
Involvement
t 0.119 -0.419 0.215 0.247 0.360 0.598* 0.480*
b 0.37 -1.30 0.74 0.95 1.75 2.29 2.37
t (0.714) (0.194) (0.463) (0.346) 0.(082) (0.023) (0.019)
p
Consistency
b 0.049 0.756* -0.158 -0.023 0.217 0.116 0.008
t 0.14 2.03 -0.48 -0.08 0.73 0.49 0.04
p (0.892) (0.0440) (0.637) (0.941) (0.461) (0.622) (0.971)
Adaptability
y 0.272 -0.012 0.880* 0.254 0.440 0.657* 0.313
b 0.65 -0.03 2.30 0.74 1.28 2.41 1.17
t (.519) (0.974) (0.023) (0.471) (0.203) (0.018) (0.254)
p
Mission
b 0.898* 0.833* 0.640* 0.447 0.034 0.486* 0.691***
t 2.54 2.32 1.99 1.54 0.12 2.12 3.06
p (0.012) (0.021) (0.048) (0.123) (0.908) (0.035) (.002)
F 7.071 6.906 10.511 4.715 10.155 22.411 20.846
.**** .**** .**** .**** .**** 0**** .****
(.000) (0.000) (.000) (.001) (.000) (.000) (.000)
R 2 (%) 12.0 11.8 16.9 08.3 16.4 30.2 28.7
DF 211.0 211.0 211.0 211.0 211.0 211.0 211.0
Note: *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.005, ****p<0.001.

Results also indicate that adaptability with a beta
of .880 and .657 and mission with a beta of .480 and
.486 (all significant at .05) are the two important cultural
traits of firms primarily concerned with profitability
and employee satisfaction. Similarly, consistency and
mission were found important cultural traits of firms
focusing on market share (beta=0.756, p<.05) and
(beta=0.833, p<.05) respectively. Saffold (1988) argued
that consistent and well integrated structures result in
organisational effectiveness. Some other scholars also
found consistency as an important contributor to
organisational effectiveness (Schein, 1992, Treachy and
Wiersma, 1995).
In summary, all the cultural traits were found
positively related to various measures of organisational
effectiveness. Also, different cultural traits taken as
VISIONThe Journal of Business Perspective Vol. 12 No. 1 JanuaryMarch 2008
independent variables affected different measures of
effectiveness with mission accounting for 5 out of the
total 10 significant relationships predicting effectiveness.
The results on the whole suggest that sufficient evidence
is found to argue that there exists a link between cultural
traits and organisational effectiveness measures.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
The study has on the whole found a strong empirical
support for the link between culture and effectiveness
measures using Denisons Organisational Culture Model.
However, as an independent variable, mission in particular
has resulted in majority of the significant relationships
predicting effectiveness on sales growth (beta = 0.898,
p<0.05), market share (beta = 0.833, p<0.05),
profitability (beta = 0.640), employee satisfaction (beta
 Validation of Denisons Model of Organisational Culture and Effectiveness in the Indian context
= 0.486, p<0.05) and overall performance (beta = 0.691,
p<0.005). The three other independent variables like
involvement, consistency and adaptability could predict
only 5 of the 10 significant relationships.
These results have some implications for improving
effectiveness in organisations. In this regard mission is
found to be the most important cultural trait that todays
organisations need to focus upon. Drucker (1974)
emphasised that the prime task of strategic management
is thinking through the overall mission of a business by
asking a question, What is our Business? According
to him, the very setting up of the firm objectives, the
development of strategies, and the making of todays
decisions for tomorrows results entirely depends upon
this key question. Some argued that mission is the
fundamental unit of culture and a lackadaisical approach
to addressing it is bound to impede the quality
improvement efforts of the management (Fisher and
Alford, 2000). Moreover, mission which highlights the
raison detre of a company, its values or guiding standards
and major goals or objectives of business, in effect
provides the framework or the context within which
strategies are formulated (Hill and Jones, 2005). In this
context, the dominant coalition of the organisation has a
key role to play in clearly articulating and communicating
the firms mission to the cohorts of the organisation for
better results and meaningful participation. And as
reported in literature, socialisation practices and mentor
programmes could play an important role in augmenting
awareness amongst the organisational members about
the very existence and culture of the organisation
(Caldwell and OReilly, 1990, and Nazir, 2005).
As results indicated, involvement as a cultural trait
is key determinant of effectiveness for firms focusing
on employee satisfaction and overall performance. In
the often quoted knowledge economy, the success of
organisation lies on how well the employees are
empowered to take decisions through building their
capabilities and harnessing their skills. Research asserts
that participation in decision making inculcates a sense
of ownership amongst the employees and a belief that
they have some input in decisions that will affect their
work (Denison et al, 2005). This is not expected to
only enhance the employee morale and motivation, but
will also allow organisations to move away from the
traditional, bureaucratic and formal control system to a
more informal and voluntary system. These offshoots
of involvement are a great boon to the organisations in
the changing business environment. Thus the
management of the organisations is expected to make
VISIONThe Journal of Business Perspective Vol. 12 No. 1 JanuaryMarch 2008
55
all out efforts in arranging the comprehensive training
and development programmes for its staff in order to
empower them and make them fit to meet the global
challenges of competitiveness, speed and innovations
reflected in new product development and overall
organisational performance.
Adaptability was found responsible for predicting
the most important measures of effectiveness including
profitability (beta = 0.880, p<0.05) and new product
development (beta = 0.598, p<0.05). Researchers like
Soerson (2002) argue that culture performance link is
environment sensitive. In a similar vein, Gordon and
DiTomso (1992) also assert that culture will contribute
to the firm performance if it adapts to the changing
environments. Ogbonna (2000) while testing the
mediating effect of leadership on culture performance
link claimed that externally oriented organisational culture
may outweigh the benefits otherwise drawn from an
internally oriented organisational culture. He further stated
that inflexible and bureaucratised cultures reduce short-
term profitability, impede long-term growth and may
even pose threat to the very survival of the organisation.
Contrary to this, some (see for example, Kotter, 1996,
and Senege, 1990) argue that adaptable organisations
by virtue of continuously improving their ability and by
creating a system of norms and beliefs that support the
organisations capacity to receive, interpret and translate
signals from its environment into internal systems are
sufficiently equipped to meet the customer demands
through product development and innovation. A practical
implication of this finding is that management should
not merely support the generation of widely held values
amongst the organisational members (for example, Kotter
and Heskett, 1992, and Nazir, 2005, 1999) but should
rather focus on how well the culture is geared towards
the external contingencies, with a reasonable effort at
striking a profitable balance between internal and external
integration.
Further to this end, leaders whose distinguishing
function from managers and administrators is the concern
for culture (Schein, 1997), should be both culturally as
well as emotionally intelligent to perceive and understand
the impact of change on both individual and organisational
life. Thus, in order to helping their organisations manage
change effectively, they should be aware and well
prepared to managing their own feelings of anxiety and
uncertainty caused by perceiving and adapting to the
pressures of change (Kofman and Senge, 1993, and
Schein, 1993). Besides, they should be aware of the
emotional reactions of their members and be ready and
56 Nazir and Lone
competent to help them to cope with it (Cherniss, 2001).
Researchers like Hunton et al (1998) assert that
organisations wishing to thrive through change must
make the choice to promote and allow employee
expressions of emotional intelligence. This is how these
leaders widely called as emotionally intelligent leaders
are believed to generate positive feelings among their
followers thus significantly enhancing their collective
performance (Johnson, 2002).
The findings of the study on the whole support
the previous research link between culture and
effectiveness together with establishing a robustness
and reliability of the use of DOCS instrument in different
cultural settings such as India. However, more research
is needed to gauge the link between these constructs
and use of DOCS adopting longitudinal design which
is expected to provide a more interesting insight into
the direction of associations and further test the validity
and reliability of the instrument. In addition, such
studies assume a paramount importance in the Indian
context given a rather scant attention paid by scholars
on this otherwise a very heated and debatable issue
and the phenomenal interest the multinational companies
have shown in India in the recent past. Finally, the
study suffers from some limitations including a small
size of sample respondents and firms, thus limiting the
generalizibility of the findings; confining to a rather
controversial quantitative approach which is blamed
for ignoring the unconscious elements of culture; and
the use of subjective measures of effectiveness only.
However, within these limitations, the study makes a
sound empirical addition to the already exiting literature
on culture and effectiveness link and confirms that such
a link is not country specific.
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Nazir A. Nazir (na_nazir2000@yahoo.co.uk) is Head, Department of Business and Economics, Mazoon College, Sultanate of Oman,
Muscat. He was also the Associate Editor of the journal titled, The Business Review during 2000-2002. He is associated with a number of
professional bodies. Nazirs areas of interest are Strategic Human Resource Management, Organisational Culture and Leadership.
Mushtaq A. Lone (lonemushi@yahoo.co.in) is Teaching Assistant at University of Kashmir, Srinagar. A Ph.D. from University of
Kashmir, Mushtaqs area of interest is Human Resource Management, Organisational Culture and Effectiveness and Labor Relations.

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