Key Research Objectives and Questions

Define the Role Of Organisational Culture In Employee Satisfaction for A Study Of Government Sectors In Abu Dhabi.

Employees are considered to be  very important  determining factor that helps in  ensuring the organizational success  in the highly competitive environment and this is true in case of  mainly government organizations as they have to rely  a lot on the  behaviour of the employees  so that they can deliver  friendly services  to the customers (Kuruvilla & Ranganathan, 2010) . With the rise in globalisation the capabilities of any organisation so that they can stay competitive in globalised marketplace relies more on the quality of human resource. Thus most of the organisations depend on the employee and their expertise to gain competitive advantage in globalised economies (Reiche, 2007). Most of the firms currently emphasise on just the extrinsic and intrinsic rewards and are less bothered about the traditional cultural activities, but the key for good performance is found to be prevalent strong culture (Karl & Peluchette, 2006). Because of difference in organizational culture  same kind of strategies do not  deliver similar kinds of results  for two companies  belonging to same  location as well as same industry. A strong as well as positive  organizational culture  helps in making average  individual employee performance , achieve brilliant performance , on the other hand  a negative as well as weak culture  result in demotivation  of even an outstanding employee  resulting in underperformance thus finally ending in no  achievements . Thus indicating that organizational culture plays direct as well as active role in employee’s performance management (Ahmed, 2012). Organizational culture finds correlation with employee satisfaction regarding their jobs (Ahmad, 2014 ; Shahzad & et al., 2012), employee retention (Ahmed, 2012) as well as job performance of employees (Bergmann et al., 2000 ; Samuel & Chipunza, 2009 ; Younies et al., 2008).

However it has been seen that organizational culture receives lower levels of empirical investigations in relation to employee satisfaction as well as performance of employees (Lok & Crawford, 2004) . There have been several researches in the field of organizational culture but little evidence is being gathered to find or prove the impact or role played by organizational culture on the employee satisfaction mainly in context of government organizations of Abu Dhabi.  A positive impact of organizational culture on the performance of employees has been found in case of Australian as well as Hong Kong managers (Lok & Crawford, 2004) . The four main dimensions of organization culture that affect employee performance in case of organization are:  reward and recognition, teamwork, training and development as well as communication and it has been found that all these dimensions of organization culture   are very crucial in determining the performance of employees (Zainol, 2009). Even reports indicate a significant amount of relationship between   service culture and organizational culture (Alwi et al., 2014) , but none specifically works on the relationship between organizational culture and employee satisfaction in the governmental organizations in UAE.

Literature Review

With the growing internationalisation and the competition in 21^st century in UAE, there are several motivational drivers like environmental quality, quality of service, employee training, time and speed of competition etc. In order to maintain all these benchmarks of service quality, the government of Abu Dhabi is working dedicatedly towards restructuring the public agency framework. Therefore this research will  be considering the  analysis of role of organizational culture in employee satisfaction in relation to  Abu Dhabi  Distribution Company ( ADDC)  which is a public joint stock organization and is a wholly owned subsidiary of well known  government organization of Abu Dhabi,  Abu Dhabi  Water and Electricity  Authority ( ADWEA).

The main aim of the study is to investigate the level of job satisfaction within government organization in Abu Dhabi that is ADDC and how it gets affected by organizational culture. Thus the main research objectives that need to be fulfilled through this research are:

To analyse whether the organizational culture impacts the employee satisfaction in government organizations.

To find out relationship between organization’s culture  and its affect on  employees job satisfaction in governmental organizations in Abu Dhabi.

On the basis of above research objectives and the purpose of the study following research questions have been formulated that will be answered through this study:

Does organizational culture of government organizations play any role on the employee satisfaction?

What kind of role does organizational culture play in improving or declining the employee satisfaction in government organizations?

Organisational culture along with  the reputation of organisation  are considered to be intangible assets  that are used by organizations for creating  strategic advantage that is highly competitive  so that it can differentiate itself  from other organizations  as well as to improve the performance of the organization on the whole . This section reviews the previous studies done in the field of organizational culture and its impact on employee satisfaction in case of government organizations across the world. There are several articles that discuss and tell that corporate culture is very vital asset that impacts the organizational reputation and it not just improves the financial performance but is also positively connected with the reputation as well.

In a study that uses the measures as well as techniques developed by Singhapakdi, the scholars measured the theory of idealism as well as theory of relativism (Alwi et al., 2014) . When various patterns of culture were elaborated there were major differences found on specific scales that supported the relation between organizational culture and its impacts on values as well as ethics. Organisational culture can be defined as a set of beliefs that have been shared between the members of any firm who are working or operating in the form of a group (Robbins & Coulter, 2008) . The manner in which all these values shape the perceptions of the employees regarding the demands as well as challenges they face on everyday basis impacts both their behaviour as well as their outlook (Scott-Findlay & Estabrooks, 2006) . The core organisational values are thus connected to the manner in which the employees of the organization act in any organizational group or unit and this also has huge impact on the possible internal conflicts within the organization (Watson et al., 2005) . Thus studies do suggest that it is beneficial to address organizational culture when the cultural challenges at the workplace are being researched. But these studies do not suggest the impact of organizational culture on the level of job satisfaction or employee satisfaction in any organization mainly in the context of government organizations.

It has been found in studies that the core values as well as organizational culture do have direct impact on employee retention (Kopelman et al., 1990 ; Kerr & Slocum, 2005). The organizational values form the heart or core of several activities occurring within the value chain mainly in case of activities that are related to human resource for example selection of employees, compensation systems, employee retention as well as training and development. Various kinds of strategies developed within these policies can cast huge impact on the way the employees in any organization react towards the work challenges along with their commitment levels towards the organisation on the whole. The functionalist aspect of the organization culture helps in addressing the role played by the core culture in the performance of any organization (Denison & Mishra, 1995) . Therefore it becomes important for the management  to analyse as well as  make required provisions  for the manner in which  the organizational culture casts impact  on several variables   like performance of employees  (Denison et al., 2004) ,  job satisfaction (Lund, 2003)  as well as  on organizational commitment (Casida & Pinto-Zipp, 2008) .

Researchers have been interested in the phenomenon of job satisfaction   for many decades (Cranny et al., 1992 ; Hwang & Chi, 2005). Several definitions in this regard have been given for employee satisfaction that focuses mainly on the job itself, whereas few definitions also include the factors related to job .  Employee satisfaction can be defined as the aggressive responses or the positive feelings by the researchers as well as the practitioners belonging to the field of management, while some have defined it as the gap that exists between the actual gain and the gain that is expected. As per scholar’s views job satisfaction is considered to be part of employee job (Hu et al., 2009) and it helps in motivating the employees positively towards job satisfaction. Job satisfaction can be defined as the employee’s emotional ability in relation to negative or positive aspects related to job experiences (Lock, 1969) . The personal traits possessed by the employee along with the organizational environment affects the job satisfaction amongst the employees (Seashore & Taber, 1975) .  Employee satisfaction at their jobs has strong impact and is found to be related inversely with employee commitment that is their intention to either leave or to stick with the organization (Egan et al., 2004 ; Lambert et al., 2001 ; Silverthorne, 2004).

It is known that  culture prevailing in any organization has huge infleunce on the performance as well as commitment (Lok & Crawford, 2004) .  In case the employees have much better understanding regarding the organizational culture it has been found that they have more job satisfaction (Chen & Lee, 2008) . As suggested in study there exists very strong relationship between organizational commitment and culture, but in case the organizations have negative organizational culture, then they will be lacking in employee commitment levels (Silverthorne, 2004) . Uninterrupted commitment from the employees ensures that the organization will not be left by them or they will not easily quit the firm as well as will not respond to dissatisfaction, thus making sure that they stick with the organization for longer term (Appealbaoum et al., 2004) . It has been confirmed through studies that culture within the organization has a very strong impact on the retention rate of the employees (Sheridan, 1992) . However all the above studies indicate that there has been no such research that analyses the role of organizational commitment in relation to employee satisfaction in case of government organizations. That is why this research study has been designed to study the role played by organizational culture in employee satisfaction in case of government organization in Abu Dhabi.

The employee performance is the main reason for enhancing the net profits of any organization. Strong organizational culture is therefore considered to be a driving force that helps in improvement of employee performance. It helps in increasing the self-confidence as well as the commitment of the employees, while resulting in decline in stress during job. It also assists in enhancing the ethical behaviour amongst the employees (Poon, 2004) . According to some researchers employee satisfaction is very vital for motivating the employees at work (Rao, 2005) . While according to few researchers if the employees seem to be happy at the workplace then it will bring in better productivity within  the organization, which will result finally in increased employee commitment towards the organization (Habib et al., 2014). Strong organization culture has a positive impact on the performance of employees by enhancing  their attention towards detail,  improving their people orientation,  increased outcome orientation of employees, the employees become much more team oriented and it also helps in increasing aggressiveness,  innovation and risk  taking along with  stability amongst the employees. Strong culture improves the employee performance as it shapes the entire organization to perform in best capabilities and towards better achievements.

 The main aim of this study is to collect  relevant data and to find out answers  for the research questions and examine the role of organizational culture in employee satisfaction in case of government organizations in Abu Dhabi.

 A set of beliefs that is built around theories developed by researchers and their ideas simply underpinning the research methods and interpretation is called a paradigm (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010) . This research philosophy will be pragmatic paradigm as it will be supporting an intuitive approach for the study; moreover pragmatic research helps in reflecting the innate disposition of researcher towards systematic enquiry.

This research will be using qualitative approach as qualitative research techniques helps in gathering information that has been analysed instead of data just in form of words or in form of concept quantification (Punch, 2005) . Qualitative research approach has been preferred because it will allow the researcher to analyse and understand the perspective of the persons in the government organization of ADDC in Abu Dhabi or it will help in analysing the behaviour of the people who belong to particular professional or social setting (Karami et al., 2006) .

The implications of this study will cover the government bodies or organization in Abu Dhabi which is ADDC and the reasons for choosing a government or public organization is that the aim of this study is to find the role of organizational culture in employee satisfaction in government organizations in Abu Dhabi.

The main target population for study will be the Abu Dhabi government employees, higher officials as well as managers at ADDC.

Sampling is defined as picking a specific  portion from the  chosen target population in the form of  a representative of the whole population (Kerlinger, 1986). Systematic Random Sampling will be used for choosing the respondents in the organization for sending questionnaires. Total 300 employees will be chosen out of which at least 150 will be completing the questionnaire.

Both primary as well as  secondary data needs to  be collected for the study where  primary data is collected with the help of a questionnaire. Secondary data will be collected from various research journals. Academic articles etc. the questionnaire will be divided into two parts: first part will have questions related to demographic information and second part will be having multiple answer questions related to organizational culture and employee satisfaction. The survey questionnaire will be sent online to all the respondents and before that a consent letter will also be sent to them to maintain the ethics of conducting research.

The expected result will be that organizational culture will be playing major role in employee satisfaction as it has a strong as well as  very deep impact on the employee performance, which will in turn help in keeping the employees highly satisfied in the long run and this will finally result in improved productivity of the employees, thus finally enchaining the employee satisfaction and commitment of the employees towards the organization.

In order to complete the research on time the following timeline will be followed while conducting the study and the timeline has been attached as Appendix with the proposal. 

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