The relationship of cultural incongruence and information processing in facilities management in the public health care sector

Abstract

The relationship of organizational culture affecting the organizational effectiveness has been established for centuries. Furthermore, past studies have also supported that effectiveness of an organization is affected by its structure. However, few studies have been carried out on the relationship among organizational culture, organizational structure and organizational effectiveness. In this study, a theoretical model is formulated to bind the relationship among organizational culture, organizational structure and organizational effectiveness through the open system theory, theory on duality of structure, Stimulus—People—Response paradigm, and performance—outcome—belief path. The directional relationship of organizational culture and organizational structure is further explained by information processing theory. Based on the assumption that organizations are open systems and strive for maximum effectiveness, the model is able to establish that, on one hand, organizational structure modifies organizational culture and, on the other hand, organizational culture determines organizational structure. According to the information processing theory, organizations are effective if their information-processing requirements are fitting their information-processing capacities. Through the application of competing values framework, information-processing requirements are considered to be indicated by the Intensity of Cultural Incongruence (ICI). Therefore, it is hypothesized that an organization with higher ICI and lower information-processing capacities of its structure is less effective than which with lower intensity of cultural incongruence and higher information-processing capacities of its structure.

This model is verified by an empirical study of two Facilities Management Units (FMU A and FMU B) in the public health care sector of Hong Kong. To assess the information-processing requirements of the two FMUs, the culture profiles of the two target organizations and their immediate environment, that is, Hospital Cluster A and Hospital Cluster B are measured using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument under the competing values model (CVM). A formula is deduced from the CVM to quantify the ICI through the culture profiles. Based on the formula, the higher the ICI, the higher is the information-processing requirement. In respect of the information-processing capacity, it is measured by the degree of formalization, degree of centralization, level of integration and level of specification through a self-administered questionnaire and semi-structured interview. Based on theoretical support, under an uncertain environment, the high information-processing capacity is facilitated by low degree of formalization, low degree of centralization, high level of integration and low level of complexity.

Results of the study show that, FMU B has a lower ICI, leading to a lower information-processing requirement. FMU B is less formalized and has a higher level of integration. Its information-processing capacity is thus higher. The higher effectiveness of FMU B has verified the condition of “fit” between the information-processing requirement and information-processing capacity in the hypothesis. This study fills the gap of social science studies on organizational culture and organizational structure. Through the information processing model, this study verifies that culture profiles provide a direction for the management to implement culture change. Furthermore, findings of this study provide a foundation to those studies on facilities management in health care sector in Hong Kong.