An assessement of organaizational culture and Performance of Oromia bureaus
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Ababa Univerisity
Abstract
Public sector reform programs implemented across Afhca, including the World Bank 's
"first " and 'second" generation reforms, are based on the assumption that all public
organizations are inefficient. This study with the particular pwpose of assessing the
organizational cliiture and peljormance of Oromia bureaus, however, argues that this
assumption is problematic and has had significant implications for organizational
change policy. By failing to recognize that not all public organizations peljorm poorly
and to consider the specific situations of organizations, policy makers may ignore any
potential lessons that could have been learnt /i'om the experiences of organizations that
have managed to peljorm ~ffectively under the same social, political, economic and
organizational environments, and public-sector change policies that could have been
tailored to specific organizations. The study survey 10 Oromia bureaus classified as the
good and poor performers using descriptive survey research method and both
quantitative and qualitative data gathered /i'om 223 respondents and 10 interviewees
through questionnaire and interview respectively. Based on these data, the study
analyzed the characteristics of poor and good peljorming bureaus using both descriptive
and inferential statistics in identifying the organizational culture and peljormance
differential of the two types of organizations. In these processes, the study found that
good and poor performing bureaus in Oromia were significantly different in respect of
the current core organizational culture type, recruitment practices, employee
recognitions and sanctions, remuneration, leaders' consistency in exhibiting behaviors
required of employees, employees' commitment to the organization and cooperative team
working. To the extent that the characteristics of an organization determine the
organization's culture and peljormance, the findings results suggest that different
organizations- even those in the same region and/or in the same sector often have
different culture(s) and peljormance which is may be partly allributed to differences in
the core organizational culture type, employees recruitment procedures, recognition and
sanction as well as incentive systems, leaders ' behavioral nOrms and actions, and to
differences in the employees commitment and cooperative team working. And, creating
effective public sector organization requires taking situations in the specific
organizations into consideration andfocusing on those internal and external variables, in
which the two groups of organizations differed, rather than one-size:fits-all approaches
or solutions.
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Keywords
Culture