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Organisational culture
An exploratory study comparing faculties perspectives within public and private universities in Malaysia
Sharimllah Devi Ramachandran
School of Language, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Georgetown, Malaysia

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Received July 2010 Revised October 2010 Accepted November 2010

Siong Choy Chong


Asian Institute of Finance, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and

Hishamuddin Ismail
Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose The main objective of this paper to study the organisational culture (OC) in private and public higher education institutions (HEIs) from the perspective of faculty members in order to provide empirical insights on the differences and consequently pave an avenue for cross-learning. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 594 faculty members (33.9 per cent from public HEIs and 52.8 per cent from private HEIs) using the competing values framework (CVF). Findings The factor analysis results reveal an important conrmation of the theoretical ndings in the literature with respect to the four OC types (i.e. clan, adhocracy, hierarchical, and market) that were originally developed for use in the corporate sector. The independent sample t-test results suggest that the faculty members perceive all the four OC types as being signicantly different between public and private HEIs. Practical implications This paper raises awareness and provides initial guidelines to both public and private HEIs in formulating strategies on how to deal properly with their OC from the perspective of their faculty members for the attainment of organisational goals and vision. Originality/value This article extends knowledge on OC differences between the public and private higher education an enabler for change management of sorts. Being among the rst of its kind, it further opens up new lines of future research possibilities. Keywords Organisational culture, Competing values framework, Academics, Malaysia, Private and public higher education institutions Paper type Research paper

Introduction The concept of organisational culture (OC) emerged in the early 1980s as a topic of major concern to administrators and researchers in higher education (Clark, 1972; Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Dill, 1982; Masland, 1985). Taking their cue from the corporate sector, educational researchers began to focus on understanding the structure and strength of existing cultures of higher education institutions (HEIs) in view of the obvious link between OC and the attainment of organisational goals and vision (Smart and St John, 1996). This is not difcult to understand, as HEIs are in many ways operating similarly to the corporate sector in an ever-changing yet uncertain

International Journal of Educational Management Vol. 25 No. 6, 2011 pp. 615-634 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0951-354X DOI 10.1108/09513541111159086

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environment characterised by government and higher education policy development, demographic shifts, market forces, economic restructuring, internationalisation, lifelong learning, the paradigm shift from teaching to learning, new technologies, and globalisation (Bates, 1997; Levine, 2000; Middlehurst and Woodeld, 2004). HEIs not only need to respond to these changes in order to remain competitive, but also need to anticipate future changes that will require yet more redesign in the institutions forms and practices. Hence, in this context, there is as much need for an investigation into OC in higher education as there is in the corporate sector. There are three major reasons that justify why a study on OC in HEIs, both public and private, is warranted. First, it is a well-known fact that HEIs all over the world play a signicant role in the development of any nations workforce and the economy in general, and Malaysia is no exception. Malaysian HEIs have transformed themselves since 1996, when private universities were established alongside public-owned tertiary institutions to provide more opportunities for Malaysians to pursue higher education inside the country. A search on the website of the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (see www.mohe.gov.my) reveals that as of 2010, they are 20 public universities, 27 polytechnics, and 59 community colleges. In addition, there are more than 50 private universities, university colleges, foreign university branch campuses, and over 400 private colleges currently in operation. Besides catering to the needs of Malaysians, many HEIs have gone global with the intention of recruiting international students. In this regard, the website also reports that there are about 80,700 international students from more than 150 countries pursuing various levels of education in Malaysia as of 31 December 2009. Further, HEIs play an ever more important role in contributing to the income of the nation. Muda (2007) reported that higher education sector contributed MYR 1.5bn to government income over the year 2007. Hence, in order to withstand the demands for higher education as well as globalisation and internationalisation, it is vital for HEIs to understand their OC and make changes to it as and when necessary. Second, while OC is identied as a primary component of functional decision making in universities, the cultural problem is in fact considered a major challenge in change management initiatives among the HEIs because many faculty members consider knowledge as proprietary and something that is not shared freely (Wind and Main, 1999). Given the nature of academia and the emphasis placed on conducting primary research, it is not surprising that some faculty members view knowledge as a possible source of differentiation, and thus defer sharing certain aspects of their knowledge. Unfortunately, however, when knowledge is viewed as a source of power it acts as a separator between the haves and the have-nots (Wiig, 1999) and in some cases, knowledge loss occurs. Thus, as Detert et al. (2000) rightfully remarked, an organisations prevailing culture can sabotage management efforts before they can even begin. DeLong and Fahey (2000) further report that, while most managers instinctively acknowledge the importance of culture, streamlining the relationship of their existing culture to management objectives is found to be a mammoth task. This is the next inspiration for this study, because for change management to take off, a conducive culture is required. Thus, an investigation on the type of OC in the HEIs concerned will create the platform for the planning and execution of organisation-wide change management efforts, including the adoption of innovative strategies and

practices such as knowledge management (Chong, 2006; Janz and Prasarnphanich, 2003; Ramachandran et al., 2008) and/or organisational learning (Mohd Fairuz et al., 2008), among others. Third, research evidence has indicated that public sector organisations are essentially different from private sector organisations on a number of dimensions including the diversity of their goals, access to resources, and the nature of organisational constraints (economic versus political) (Scott and Falcone, 1998). Public sector activities form a part of a broader government strategy of economic management and social development. Therefore, they are affected by established political ideologies and so are not in tune in an equivalent manner to the production of goods or the delivery of services in the private sector (Considine, 1990; Pollitt, 1990). It is possible that public sector activities cannot be easily equated with productive activities in the private sector because they involve high levels of inter-organisational coordination, research, communication, and negotiation and conict resolution (Considine, 1990). On the other hand, proponents of private HEIs contend they are likely to enhance the quality of education by increasing competition amongst educational providers (both public and private) (Jimenez and Tan, 1987; Patrinos, 1990). Balan (1990) and Patrinos (1990) reasoned that the major plus point of private HEIs has been responding more quickly or efciently to market demands. In that, they provide the type of education most in demand, and in other words, respond to the needs of the economy and society. Public HEIs, however, are slow to respond to the immediate demands of the market because these demands would presumably require a substantial reallocation of national resources (Wilkinson and Yussof, 2005). Mintzberg (1996) and Zammuto and Krakower (1991) contend that this is especially true in the HEIs, be they private or public, which have traditionally been considered as bureaucratic/hierarchical institutions and lack an orientation towards adhocracy and market cultures as they operate in complex political systems where different interests of stakeholders are in constant ux. This assertion by Mintzberg (1996) and Zammuto and Krakower (1991) forms another motivation for this study, i.e. to investigate whether it is indeed true that Malaysian HEIs are hierarchical in setting as the Western literature contends. It is further contended that graduates of private HEIs typically experience lower unemployment rates, and get better-paid jobs (Balan, 1990; Jimenez and Tan, 1987; Patrinos, 1990). Moreover, the recent issues of quality of courses offered by various HEIs, especially private HEIs, have also been a great concern to the nation (Morshidi et al., 2006). This is coupled with a drop in ranking in some top institutions in Malaysia (Times Higher Education Supplement, 2010). Both these issues pose image challenges regarding the quality of education for HEIs in Malaysia. Since HEIs are icons of the knowledge business (Goddard, 1998), it is only natural to examine further the differences in the characteristics of public and private HEIs (Perry and Rainey, 1988), with OC being at forefront of these differences. This contention forms another motivation for the comparative study between private and public HEIs which is scarce currently (Rubenstein-Montano, 2004). Hence, as Harman (1989) stresses, a systematic investigation of OC will help to explain academic culture and values which would be important in understanding how

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an academic organisation works and how it should be administered. Tierney (1998) further contends that an understanding of OC can minimise the likelihood and effect of cultural conict and help foster shared goals. Locke (2007) afrms that ignoring OC in managing institutional change may lead to negative consequences. Thus, it is critical to continuously assess the OC of the HEIs given the reasons outlined above and also to ascertain if a cultural change favourable to HEIs can be mandated so as to allow administrators, faculty members and staff to efciently coordinate their academic environment. The resulting OC will also be very important to the HEIs especially new ones in order for change management efforts to take place. The specic objectives of this paper are therefore: . to identify the dominant OC types in public and private HEIs; . to identify the dominant dimensions of the OC type prevalent in the HEIs; . to compare if OC types differ within private and public HEIs; and . to compare the OC types between the public and private HEIs. The next section presents the literature on OC and HEIs, followed by the description of methodology employed. The empirical results are reported and subsequently the ndings and their implications are discussed. The paper is then concluded with suggestions for future research. Literature review Organisational culture and competing values framework The term organisational culture made its rst appearance in the academic literature in an article in Administrative Science Quarterly by Pettigrew (Hofstede et al., 1990; Pettigrew, 1979). Although the terminology has been around in the corporate sector for some time, there is not yet a widely accepted denition of OC. Among the many denitions, Martin and Siehl (1983) dene OC as shared values, attitudes, beliefs, and customs of members of an organisation. This denition is consistent with Deshpande et al. (1993) who reviewed more than 100 studies in OC. They dened OC as a pattern of shared values and beliefs that help individuals understand organisation functions and provide them the norm for the behaviour in organisations. OReilly et al. (1991), on the other hand, viewed OC as observable norms and values that characterise an organisation. OC is seen to inuence aspects of its operations and its members to become more salient. Moreover, OReilly et al. (1991) advocated that OC dwells on perception and interaction with one another, approaches decisions, and solves problems. Another denition was established by Cameron and Quinn (1999, p. 15) where OC is reected by what is valued, the dominant leadership styles, the language and symbols, the procedures and routines, and the denitions of success that make an organisation unique. Apart from the denitions above, several researchers have attempted to classify OC. Some of the most notable include Hofstede (1980), Deal and Kennedy (1982) and Schein (1985). Hofstede (1980) stresses that there are national and regional cultural groupings that affect the behaviour of organisations. He contends that culture is examined in ve dimensions of national inuences: (1) power distance; (2) uncertainty avoidance;

(3) individualism versus collectivism; (4) masculinity versus femininity; and (5) long-term versus short-term orientation. Deal and Kennedys (1982) work on OC focuses on the measurement of organisations based on feedback and risk, where quick feedback means an instant response, and risk represents the degree of uncertainty in the organisations activities. They used several parameters to classify four OCs: (1) tough-guy macho culture; (2) work hard/play hard culture; (3) bet your company culture; and (4) process culture. Schein (1985) classies OC into three dimensions: (1) assumptions at the rst level; (2) values at the second level; and (3) artefacts at the third level. He explains that artefacts are the more solid or physical representation of culture, including the way employees dress, ofce layout, common language, jargon, technology used, and rituals and ceremonies. Artefacts are easy to detect and recognise but their interpretation remains difcult, subjective, and ambiguous. Artefacts comprise all the phenomena that one sees, hears, and feels when one encounters a new group with an unfamiliar culture (Schein, 1992). He further states that in order to understand the meaning of these artefacts, the second level of culture i.e. espoused values needs to be investigated. Espoused values are non-discussable assumptions supported by articulated sets of beliefs, norms, and operational rules of behaviour shared by the employees of a company. These are guidelines for behaviours and actions reecting the companys values, principles, ethics, and visions (Schein, 1999). Schein (1985) further stresses that values represent preferences for alternative outcomes as well as the means of achieving those outcomes. Next, basic assumptions are issues that have been taken for granted over the years and shared by the whole group. These assumptions are not debated and may be resistant to change (Schein, 1985). They often take result from the history of a company where founders and leaders used them to succeed, for example united we stand, divided we fall. Generally, assumptions are widely recognised as ingrained subconscious views of human nature and social relationships that are taken for granted. Given the denitions of OC above and the classication schemes provided, it is evident that much research on culture has focused on organisational values. Organisational values are seen to be the clearest visible representation of culture (Zammuto and Krakower, 1991). There is an emphasis on values (rather than assumptions or artefacts) as a measure of OC in recognition of the fact that values are both more accessible than assumptions and more reliable than artefacts (Howard, 1998, p. 233). It is values that are more accessible in quantitative research, because while artefacts can be considered organisation-specic, variations in values across

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organisations are based on varying emphases on the limited set of values prevalent within a larger society (Zammuto and Krakower, 1991, p. 85). Given such emphasis, this study adopts Cameron and Quinns (1999) operational denition as the theoretical underpinning of this study. In relation to the function of OCs, Denison (1990) explains OC in four distinct hypotheses: (1) the consistency hypothesis the notion that a common perception, communal beliefs, and values among the organisational members will enhance internal coordination and promote meaning and sense for the members; (2) the mission hypothesis the notion that a communal sense of purpose, direction, and strategy can synchronise and move organisational members toward collective goals; (3) the involvement/participation hypothesis the notion that involvement and participation will contribute to a sense of responsibility and ownership, and organisational commitment and loyalty; and (4) the adaptability hypothesis the notion that customs and beliefs that enhance an organisations ability to receive, construe, and translate information from the various sources into internal organisational and behavioural changes will promote its survival, growth, and ultimately its development. These hypotheses focus on different facets of culture but, more importantly, they stress different functions of culture. The rst two hypotheses encourages/promotes stability, while the second two allow for change and adaptability. The rst and third hypotheses see culture as focusing on internal organisational dynamics, while the second and fourth see culture as addressing the relationship of the organisation with the external environment (Denison, 1990). Thus, a company might exhibit an OC with either a high external orientation (high adaptability and strong sense of mission) or high internal orientation (high involvement and consistent work practice and regulation) and such. These hypotheses correspond closely to Cameron and Quinns (1999) categorisation of organisational focus and associated types of organisations, which are represented in the competing values framework (CVF). The CVF is chosen to be a measurement tool for OC in this study for several reasons. First, the CVF corresponds closely to Cameron and Quinns (1999) denition of OC, which is the operational denition of OC used in this study. It is also consistent with Denisons hypotheses of categorisation of organisation focus and types of organisations. More importantly, the CVF has wide implications for a variety of organisational issues, including leadership, decision-making, and strategic management (Goodman et al. 2001; Quinn and Kimberly, 1984; Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1981). As a matter of fact, it has recently received renewed attention from organisational development researchers and leadership development scholars (Belasen, 2007; Cameron and Quinn, 2006). Much of this attention has focused on the wide applicability of the CVF as a diagnostic and development tool for cultural variables (Garman, 2006; Igo and Skitmore, 2006), human resource development (Belasen and Frank, 2004; Panayotopoulou et al., 2003) and the relationships between leadership roles, personal growth, and organisational effectiveness (Belasen and Rufer, 2007). The CVF also provides researchers with a common metric for multi-level,

trans-organisational, and cross-cultural analyses of OC as a key inuence on the effectiveness of change management initiatives (Howard, 1998). Due to this, the CVF is argued to be a valid framework for examining OCs (Goodman et al., 2001; Harris and Mossholder, 1996; Howard, 1998). The four main quadrants classify the core values on which judgments about organisations are made (Cameron and Quinn, 1999), resulting in the construction of an OC prole. The four quadrants comprise distinct cultural types of CVF. These quadrant names were derived from the scholarly literature and identify how, over time, different organisational values have become associated with different forms of organisations, for example Webers (1947) hierarchy, Williamsons (1975) market, Ouchis (1981) clan, and Mintzbergs (1996) adhocracy. The clan culture emphasises exibility and internal focus. It can be contrasted with the market culture, which emphasises control and external focus. The adhocracy culture, which is characterised by exibility, can be contrasted with the hierarchical culture, which focuses on control and internal focus. There are also parallels among the cultures; the clan and hierarchy cultures share an internal focus, whereas the market and adhocracy cultures share an external focus. This study, for example, hypothesises that the HEIs need to be adaptable and exible, but also need to be stable and be controlled; there needs to be an emphasis on the value of human resources, but importance needs to be extended to efciency, planning, and goal setting as well. Several assumptions underlie the CVF. First, organisations are unlikely to reect only one culture; rather, one would expect to nd combinations of each cultural type, with some types more dominant than others. Howard (1998) contends that paradoxical combinations of values are often found in organisations. Second, as a typology based on the general characteristics of OCs, this framework does not aim to highlight the unique qualities of the organisations culture, but rather aims to group cultures into broad categories based on general characteristics shared by all social systems (Hofstede, 1980; Hofstede et al., 1990; Ouchi, 1981). Third, the underlying assumption of the CVF is the importance of balance. Too much exibility or spontaneity can be chaotic and similarly too much control can bring rigidity (Denison and Spreitzer, 1991). In summary, the results regarding the OC types adopted by HEIs will serve as a reference for the body of knowledge regarding OC differences between public and private HEIs, which is scant to date. More importantly, initial guidelines are provided to public and private HEIs in formulating strategies on how to deal properly with their OC for the attainment of organisational goals and vision. The next section presents the methodology employed in this study. Methodology Sampling The unit of analysis for this study is the HEIs, divided into two strata; public and private. Within each stratum, the whole population of academic staff were surveyed to ensure maximum return rate of the questionnaires. The academics were chosen because they are the ones who are faced with the pressure to produce results from educational reform efforts (Jones, 2003). The criteria for selecting the institutions above are, rst, the nature of the institution. College universities were chosen instead of universities or colleges because

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in Malaysia, these type of institutions are relatively new (established circa 2000), specialised in their discipline (eld-specic) and they offer degree programmes; thus, it will interesting to study their OC as compared to long established institutions which are mostly set in their ways. Moreover, these institutions are a on their way to becoming fully edged universities, which was evident in mid- to late 2007, when all the public HEIs chosen for this study was upgraded to full university status. However, since in essence they remain the same faculty-wise and in their physical and administrative structure, they were retained as unit of analysis. Prior to administering the questionnaires, permission was sought from the management of each HEI either via telephone or letters. However, only those institutions that responded fairly quickly or responded at all in some cases were selected to be included in the study. Coincidentally, there appeared a fair representation in terms of number of institutions responding to this study (three public and three private HEIs). All the faculty members of these HEIs were contacted and the nature of the study was explained in a cover letter accompanying the questionnaire. Of the 1,495 questionnaires administered, 594 were returned, yielding a response rate of 40.8 per cent. Overall, there was a return rate of 33.9 per cent for public HEIs and 52.8 per cent for private HEIs. It should be noted that the responses of 594 faculty members from the six HEIs were used as a basis to interpret the ndings of this study, and as such, the ndings could be constrained by the individual facultys perspective of the OC types of the newly established universities and university colleges, an area that future studies should address. Nevertheless, generalisation of the results can be made across the new HEIs surveyed since the response rates for both the public and private HEIs in isolation as well as in total is more than 30 per cent (Hussey and Hussey, 1997; Roscoe, 1975; Sekaran and Bougie, 2010). Questionnaire The Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) developed by Cameron and Quinn (1999) based on the CVF is adapted for this study. Six content dimensions serve as the basis for the OCAI: (1) the dominant characteristics of the organisation, or what the overall organisation is like; (2) the leadership style and approach that permeate the organisation; (3) the management of employees or the style that characterises how employee are treated and what the working environment is like; (4) the organisational glue or bonding that hold the organisation together; (5) the strategic emphases that dene what areas of emphasis drive the organisations strategy; and (6) the criteria of success that determine what gets rewarded and celebrated. These six content dimensions, consisting of four descriptive statements each, address the four quadrants of the CVF, namely the hierarchy, market, clan and adhocracy cultures. This section contains 24 items. It utilises a ve point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Prior to dissemination, the questionnaire was piloted on 20 faculty members to check for appropriateness, readability and comprehensiveness of the survey instrument in the Malaysian context (Rossi et al., 1993). As a result of the exercise, minor adjustments were made to content of the questionnaire. The comments ranged from the use of simpler lexical items to providing gifts as a token of appreciation for completing the questionnaire. A few questions were rephrased in simple English terms for easier comprehension. Besides face validity, construct validity was determined. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy is 0.853 (greater than 0.5) and the Barletts test of sphericity is signicant at 0.000, implying that the data set complies with the requirements for factor analysis to be conducted. The factor analyses results explained 56.49 per cent, 49.25 per cent, 56.47 per cent, 51.04 per cent, 50.18 per cent and 49.89 per cent of the respective segments of the OCAI. With eigenvalues greater than 1.00 and loadings greater than 0.40, all the items loaded in the respective segments. Additionally, the a coefcient is above 0.70, which signies that the constructs have high reliability. As such, the data is deemed t for further analysis. Results Table I shows the average mean and standard deviation scores for the four OC types in public and private HEIs. Overall, public and private HEIs exhibit moderate OC in view of the average total mean scores. Of the two types of HEI, the cultural setting is more pronounced in public than in private HEIs. Clan culture is found to score the highest mean, followed by hierarchical culture. This is followed by market and adhocracy cultures in public HEIs. On the other hand, the academics in private HEIs tend to rate hierarchical and market cultures as being more prevalent than the adhocracy and clan cultures. The cultures were then subjected to closer examination, with the six dimensions of the OC assessment instrument being analysed. The hierarchy culture (Table II) shows more dominance in the OC dimensions of the CVF in public and private HEIs. Specically, as can be seen in Table III, the clan culture portrayed had more dominance in the OC culture dimensions of the CVF in public HEIs. In contrast, in Table IV the presence of the market culture in private HEIs further conrms that private institutions, similar to any other private set-ups, are prot-oriented (Balan, 1990: Patrinos, 1990; Morshidi et al., 2006). A one-way ANOVA was then used to test for differences on OC among the three private and public universities. Table V shows that OC did not differ across the three private universities. Similarly, Table VI also shows that OC did not differ across the three public universities.
Public HEIs SD 0.422 0.451 0.449 0.419 0.435 Private HEIs SD 0.346 0.356 0.489 0.475 0.416

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OC type Clan culture Adhocracy culture Market culture Hierarchy culture Average

Mean 3.67 3.33 3.42 3.63 3.51

Rank 1 4 3 2

Mean 3.11 3.17 3.18 3.18 3.16

Rank 4 3 2 1 Table I. Mean and standard deviation scores for OC types in public and private HEIs

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Dimension Dominant characteristics Organisational leadership

Clan 3.28 (0.716) 3.44 (0.712) 3.48 (0.716) 3.54 (0.827) 3.42 (0.771) 3.51 (0.788)

Mean (SD) Adhocracy Market 3.18 (0.759) 3.33 (0.775) 3.13 (0.776) 3.34 (0.818) 3.35 (0.776) 3.22 (0.751) 3.35 (0.864) 3.28 (0.800) 3.18 (0.814) 3.33 (0.823) 3.36 (0.796) 3.46 (0.872)

Hierarchy 3.44 (0.838) 3.46 (0.821) 3.44 (0.792) 3.56 (0.809) 3.48 (0.822) 3.30 (0.886)

Dominant culture type Hierarchy Hierarchy Clan Clan Hierarchy Hierarchy Clan

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Management Organisational glue

Table II. Highest mean scores on the OC dimensions for public and private HEIs

Strategic emphases Criteria for Success

Dimension Dominant characteristics Organisational leadership Management Organisational glue Table III. Highest mean scores on the OC dimensions for public HEIs Strategic emphases Criteria for success

Clan 3.39 (0.792) 3.61 (0.777) 3.73 (0.721) 3.85 (0.804) 3.67 (0.807) 3.80 (0.839)

Mean (SD) Adhocracy Market 3.19 (0.833) 3.34 (0.860) 3.16 (0.831) 3.51 (0.868) 3.50 (0.841) 3.30 (0.855) 3.51 (0.858) 3.28 (0.830) 3.18 (0.848) 3.37 (0.895) 3.51 (0.800) 3.67 (0.848)

Hierarchy 3.64 (0.823) 3.57 (0.845) 3.58 (0.817) 3.79 (0.785) 3.77 (0.743) 3.43 (0.898)

Dominant culture type Hierarchy Clan Clan Clan Hierarchy Clan

Dimension Dominant characteristics Organisational leadership Management Organisational glue Table IV. Highest mean scores on the OC dimensions for private HEIs Strategic emphases Criteria for success

Clan 3.12 (0.554) 3.20 (0.534) 3.14 (0.547) 3.08 (0.624) 3.06 (0.546) 3.08 (0.447)

Mean (SD) Adhocracy Market 3.15 (0.639) 3.33 (0.634) 3.08 (0.687) 3.09 (0.668) 3.14 (0.614) 3.09 (0.545) 3.10 (0.814) 3.27 (0.755) 3.18 (0.764) 3.28 (0.706) 3.24 (0.746) 3.15 (0.815)

Hierarchy 3.15 (0.773) 3.31 (0.760) 3.23 (0.706) 3.23 (0.726) 3.05 (0.739) 3.12 (0.835)

Dominant culture type Adhocracy and clan Adhocracy Hierarchy Market Market Market

OC type Clan Adhocracy Market Hierarchy

df 2 240 242 2 240 242 2 240 242 2 240 242

Mean square 0.008 0.121 0.019 0.128 0.096 0.240 0.145 0.227

Mean 3.11 3.17 3.18 3.18

F 0.067 0.151 0.400 0.640

Sig. 0.935 0.860

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0.671 0.528 Table V. Differences between OC types in Private HEIs

OC type Clan Adhocracy Market Hierarchy

df 2 348 350 2 348 350 2 348 350 2 348 350

Mean square 2.024 0.168 1.003 0.200 2.922 0.186 1.468 0.169

Mean 3.67 3.33 3.42 3.63

F 12.081 5.023 15.705 8.697

Sig. 0.080 0.070 0.180 0.210 Table VI. Differences between OC Types in Public HEIs

Upon conrming that there was no signicant difference within the public and private HEIs, a comparison between them was done. The results in Table VII reveal that there is a statistically signicant difference in the mean for all the OC types between public and private HEIs, and the differences are highly signicant (p 0:000). Discussion and implications This study has achieved all the four objectives set forth. The CVF, which was originally developed to assess the OC of the corporate sector, is validated in this study. As with other studies, the ndings conrm that the framework is also applicable to the higher education setting as well. The results show that on an overall, the HEIs surveyed display a moderate culture. This is not unexpected as both types of institutions surveyed were relatively new, established circa 2000. The HEIs have responded to the environmental needs at the point of their establishments, i.e. to cater to the human resource needs of Malaysian industries, and therefore a moderate culture has been instilled within the academics of the universities. This is consistent with Cameron (1986) that a moderate culture is an

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OC type average Clan average Adhocracy average

IHL typea 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

n 351 243 351 243 351 243 351 243

Mean 3.67 3.11 3.33 3.17 3.42 3.18 3.63 3.18

t 17.050 5.414 6.058 12.158

df 592 592 592 592

Sig. (two-tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

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Table VII. Differences between OC types in public and private HEIs

Market average Hierarchy average

Notes: a1, public HEIs; 2, private HEIs

optimum culture for successful institutions, which in this case includes both public and private HEIs. This implies that the HEIs are in a good position to enhance their cultural practices for change management initiatives in response to the changes in the dynamic environment. Moreover Nemeth (1997) contends that organisations with a strong culture may unintentionally suppress the creativity and innovativeness of their employees through blind commitment to a set of ideas, making employees more prone to groupthink and unready to accept different ideas or new ways of thinking. This in turn will diminish intellectual diversity in the institutions. Thus, while strong culture may help the implementation of creative ideas, it may not help to breed them. Hence, strong cultures are only valuable if they project adaptive and learning qualities. Otherwise, they may become a liability during periods of change. This perspective offers one possible explanation why moderate culture prevails in the HEIs surveyed. The richer cultural setting among the public HEIs can be explained by the fact that many of the administrators and academics working in them transferred from other more established public HEIs which already had their culture set in many ways. Additionally, in general, leaders in public HEIs are trained by the Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKePT) established by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE). The AKePT educates and trains these leaders on policies implementation and administrative matters (National Higher Education Action Plan 2007-2010, 2007). This includes culture, leadership, and issues surrounding higher education. Private HEIs, on the other hand, independently operate with minimal intervention from MOHE, mostly conducting their own in-house training. Thus, this may account for public HEIs recording a higher mean score given the centralised and systematic training. Next, notwithstanding the higher mean scores in all the four OC types, it appears that even market and adhocracy cultures are more prevalent in the public than the private HEIs, and that the differences are highly signicant. Earlier conclusions that government organisations under-emphasised adhocracy and market cultures (Ferreira and Hill, 2008; Parker and Bradley, 2000; Wilkinson and Yussof, 2005) are therefore challenged. Interestingly, Tables III-V show mixed results. The public and private HEIs on the whole are hierarchical. They stress efcient and smooth-owing output in a stable and predictable manner. These HEIs portray structure and procedures, formal rules and policies to govern work (Cameron and Quinn, 1999). This is because, as education

institutions, it is necessary that they have and maintain a consistent standard parallel to the requirement of the Malaysian Qualications Framework (MQF). The MQF serves as the basis for quality assurance of higher education and as the indication point for the criteria and standards for national qualications in order to produce graduates of eminence. On their own, public HEIs portray dominance of the clan culture, which implies that academics in public HEIs work together for the completion of tasks such as consultation, administration, and research. Moreover, given that public HEIs are government organisations, loyalty/commitment to the respective HEI, an element of the clan culture, is seen as loyalty to the government. The ndings on clan culture type in public HEIs explain that academics collaborate with each other in terms of research and other scholarly activities. Similarly, private HEIs, taken singularly, conform to the market culture. The results are in line with Dahl and Lindblom (1953), who claim that private organisations are generally governed by market controls such as competition, consumer constraints, and shareholder interests. The results of this study are also comparable to a study performed by Ferreira and Hill (2008) in Portugal, in that they found that private HEIs tend to be more market oriented than public HEIs because the reduced size of the market (smaller number of students) pushes them to adopt a strategic goal of maintaining or expanding market share by a policy of aggressive marketing of courses. In reference to Table VII, the highly signicant score for market culture is not difcult to grasp, since it is observed that public HEIs are increasingly competing with each other as well as with private HEIs in order to attract the best students. Public HEIs, which traditionally depended on students to come to them, are now advertising and participating aggressively in education fairs. This is coupled with the conferral of a different status for public HEIs that met the prescribed standards and requirements by the MOHE, such as apex university, research university, and focus university. At the individual level, the Best Academic and other awards initiated have compelled academics to compete with each other. All in all, all these developments have forced university management to adopt a more dynamic and entrepreneurial approach with greater focus on innovation, growth, and development, and hence the higher score on adhocracy culture among public HEIs. Private HEIs, on the other hand, appear to emphasise market culture by means of the recruitment of students as well as other activities that generate income for these institutions, as is evident from the highest mean score rating (3.18) from among the OC types. However, the score is rather low. This comes as a surprise, as private HEIs are supposed to pay considerable attention to this culture since private organisations are generally governed by market controls such as competition, consumer constraints, and shareholder interests (Dahl and Lindblom, 1953; Ferreira and Hill, 2008). In the higher education sector, private HEIs are expected to respond more promptly to industry demands (Balan, 1990; Patrinos, 1990). One possible explanation is that the main responsibility of the respondents for this study i.e. academics is to teach. The ndings suggest that they may have fewer concerns over how well the institution is doing in student recruitment. This nding is supported by the lower rating given to adhocracy culture in private HEIs. By relating the rating on adhocracy culture to the academics, the nding seems to imply that the adhocracy culture permeates even to the level of academics in the public

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HEIs. This is justied by many initiatives by the MOHE in making public HEIs more visible in terms of the development of entrepreneurs among students and staff as well as the emphasis on commercialisation of the HEIs inventions. This suggests that the MOHE and the private HEIs have a role to play in promoting the adhocracy culture among their academic staff. Corroborating prior studies (Berrio, 2003; Smart and Hamm, 1993; Smart and St John, 1996), the highly signicant mean score for the clan culture among the public HEIs is also expected, given the fact that collaboration between academics of either within or cross faculties or even public HEIs in terms of research and other scholarly activities is more common than their counterparts in the private HEIs. As a matter of fact, the MOHE has been stressing on collaboration in performing scholarly activities. One of the examples noted is the inclusion on the Ministrys website of a directory of expertise of all the professors and academic staff throughout the public HEIs in the country (see www.mohe.gov.my). Such an initiative would have attracted many researchers in the same eld to work together on some research projects that have the potential to be funded by various government agencies. In contrast, the low score for clan culture in private HEIs is due to the priority given to activities that facilitate the maximisation of prots for the HEIs, such as teaching, which is largely an individual effort, over research and other activities that require collaboration and funding. One similarity between the public and private HEIs, although in different degrees, is the tendency to stress on hierarchical culture. Being educational institutions, these organisations are still orientated towards hierarchical culture because of their emphasis on rules, procedures, and stability (Parker and Bradley, 2000) in terms of providing efciency and exceptionally consistent products (graduates) and services, in order to stay relevant to market demands and to stay in line with the requirements of the Malaysian Qualications Agency (MQA). Conclusion and suggestions for future research This study has advanced knowledge as far as investigation into the OC types of both public and private HEIs is concerned. It is hoped that the ndings will help HEIs to undergo a self-check of the various OC types so that action can be taken to minimise any gaps. The results show that public and private HEIs can learn from each other regarding the different OC types. For example, public HEIs need to reduce their hierarchical culture and enhance the clan, adhocracy, and market cultures. Similarly, private HEIs need to develop clan, market, and adhocracy cultures, while maintaining the existing hierarchical culture. Cultural innovation is difcult as it entails introducing new elements and replacing old ones. In general, academics may not be open to this. Thus, a successful management of culture change includes convincing academics of the gains rather than the losses. Trice and Beyer (1993) provide some considerations to employ when starting on culture change. First, HEIs must capitalise on poor nancial/non-nancial performance (the universitys ranking, for example, in the Times Higher Education Supplement) to introduce change. Next, HEIs must also understand resistance to change by academics (driven by fear of loss of power, fear of risk, etc.). HEIs should not introduce change drastically but in a gradual manner; for the rst move some

detrimental features can be removed while others are maintained. This will allow academics to adjust to the change in a measured manner. Most importantly, HEIs must cultivate innovative leaders to steer the culture change. A signicant display of successfully promoting organisational change is that the leadership models the desired behaviour. In fact, the rst execution of change should be among organisational leaders and from this group to the general workforce so as to reinforce their commitment to the workforce that there will be no negative repercussions to change. The MOHE also needs to play a role in fostering a closer partnership between the two types of institutions so that the institutions are collectively competitive globally. Such a partnership is seen as important in improving the overall performance of the government in the aspect of highly skilled workers, increasing nancial capability, and reducing the prejudice society might have towards the government (Genevois, 2009). According to Morshidi et al. (2006), the one and only distinction between public and private HEIs lie in ownership. The ownership difference will be in distinct policies such as enrolment and human resource policies between public and private HEIs, but both would essentially operate using the same production function (i.e. operating function or business model). In both types of HEI, teaching and research must be made the core activities, with the main mission being to provide tertiary education to citizens. Research and operational funding must be extended to private HEIs as well. Incentives must be provided to private HEIs as they go about marketing themselves and their programmes. More importantly, entrepreneurial spirit must be nurtured among the founders of private HEIs and they must be orientated towards growth and innovation. In turn, this must be cascaded to all academics, particularly those in private HEIs. It is hoped that the recommendations provide insights to HEIs on how to nurture their OC types in the right balance in order to be more competitive in facing global challenges and meeting the expectations of stakeholders. The achievement of these missions and goals will make Malaysia an education hub in the region. The issues raised here warrant further research. It is worth highlighting that the survey is limited to only 594 faculty members from six HEIs of the many outlined in the Introduction section. As such, it may be difcult to generalise the ndings to other types of HEI in the country, a promising area that future research should address. Since this study is aimed at exploring the individual facultys perception of the OC types of their HEIs, it attempted to create a snapshot of an optimal OC so that a baseline description of OC types in the HEIs can be established. It did not purport to develop a comprehensive picture of OC differences between public and private HEIs. Thus, institutional variables such as size, institutional mission, selectivity of students, faculty characteristics, and so on, which could play important roles in dening institutional culture, were not considered in this study. Future studies should account for these variables. From the statistical perspective, the inclusion of more variables will allow multivariate techniques such as MANOVA to be employed rather than t-tests, which tend to inate errors and fail to take into consideration likely correlations between the individual factors. Having said that, it is also imperative to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between OC types and change management in order to capture the outcomes/benets of change management in HEIs. Finally, future studies that build upon these limitations and replicated in different cultural settings may yield interesting discoveries.

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About the authors Sharimllah Devi Ramachandran, PhD, is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages, Literacy and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Her research interests include knowledge management, organisational culture and management practices in the education eld. Her research has appeared in Regional English Language Centre Journal, Journal of Psychology, International Journal of Management in Education, International Journal of Innovation and Learning and VINE: The Journal of Information & Knowledge Management Systems. Sharimllah Devi Ramachandran is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: sharmyms@ yahoo.com Siong Choy Chong, PhD, is a General Manager of Quality and Accreditation at the Asian Institute of Finance. His research interests include knowledge management, human resource management and entrepreneurship. His research has appeared in Academy of Strategic and Organizational Leadership Journal, Journal of Managerial Psychology, International Journal of Entrepreneurship, Journal of Knowledge Management Practice, The Learning Organization and Journal of Information and Knowledge Management. Hishamuddin Ismail, PhD, is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Marketing Department at the Faculty of Business and Law at Multimedia University, Melaka Campus. His work has been published in Journal of Targeting, Marketing and Analysis, Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, Journal of Social Sciences, Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, World Journal of Business Management, International Journal of Business and Economics Perspectives, International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management and Indian Institute of Management Journal. In addition, he has presented many papers at international conferences. He received the Distinguished Research Award from he Allied Academy (April 2001); Best Paper from The European Applied Business Research Conference ( June 2003); and Best Research Paper Award from The International Academy of Business and Public Administration Discipline (April 2006).

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