Organizational Culture and Performance: A Case Study of Kenya Pipeline Company

Abstract Organizational culture is an idea in the field of Organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization. The study is aimed at investigating the relationship between organizational culture and performance and how the staff responds to stimulus because of their alignment to organizational values and nonns. The objectives and hypothesis of the study vigorously focuses on the causes and implications of organizational culture and how it can be used positively to bolster performance in an organization. The research design used was investigative survey which uses quantitative methods to come up with descriptive inferences and conclusions. The study population was Kenya Pipeline Company and the unit of research study was selected using deliberate or non probability sampling the data was collected by use of questionnaires then analyzed firstly by quantifying the responses depending on similmity and later represented in percentage form. The findings showed that there are three most prefeJTed forms of organizational culture as compared to the ten forms of culture in the organization. The prefeJTed fom1 of organizational culture was the academy culture with 20%, followed by club culture with I 6%, baseball team culture with 13.2%. The findings revealed that organizational culture has a major impact on employee perfonnance. According to Spreitzer, I 995. There has been a great deal of anecdotal V evidence and some empirical evidence regarding the performance effects of organizational culture. culture. The findings revealed that employees experience many challenges in relation to organizational culture which have hindered their performance. In most cases work challenges as showed in table 3 arise as due to lack of training and development, biased empowering and working conditions The conclusions are drawn verifying the factors influencing employees' perfmmance in relation to organizational culture at Kenya Pipeline Company. This is done in line with the study objectives which include; establishing the forms of organizational culture, assessing the effects of organizational culture on employee perfonnance and finding out the challenges of organizational culture. The recommendation for the study is that organizations should design organizational culture policies that are up-to-date and those that are flexible enough to accommodate any new change in the business environment and management should revise the empowe1ment policy twice a year so as to reduce on the challenges employees are facing due to de-jobbing and restructuring.