Investigating the Relationship between Organizational Environment and Productivity of Organizational Managers

Euro-Asian Journal of Economics and Finance http://www.absronline.org/eajef ISSN: 2310-0184 Volume: 1, Issue: 1 (October 2013), Pages: 51-62 © 2013 Academy of Business & Scientific Research

*Corresponding author: Fariba Azizzadeh, Islamic Azad University, Department of Management, Science and Research Branch, Isfahan, Iran

E-Mail: [email protected]

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Investigating the Relationship between Organizational Environment and Productivity of Organizational Managers

Hassan Zirak 1, Fariba Azizzadeh2*, Hamidreza Bahrami3, and Rasool Sarihi Sfestani4

1. M.A of Public Administration, Islamic Azad University, Department of Management, Mahabad, Iran.

2, 3&4. Islamic Azad University, Department of Management, Science and Research Branch, Isfahan, Iran.

According to increasing shortage of resources and increasing competition in global market, productivity as a work culture is a necessity for society in order to it can develop in economic, social and political aspects. Productivity in organizations can be a function of various variables among them organizational climate plays a significant role as a value system which specifies the procedures for conducting activities and the acceptable behaviors. Thus aim of present study is to investigate the relationship between organizational climate and also some dimensions of it such as organizational structure, organizational responsibility, organizational identity and organizational support with organizational productivity among top managers of various organizations in West Azerbaijan province. Totally 150 questionnaires were distributed to statistical population and among them data collected from 115 usable questionnaires were exploited for testing research hypotheses. With respect to normality of data after Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine type and intensity of relationships between variables. Results show a direct relationship between organizational climate and its three dimensions i.e. organizational responsibility, identity and support with organizational productivity. Thus it is recommended that by applying efficient managerial mechanisms and creating an appropriate organizational climate with respect to dimensions of organizational responsibility, identity and support serious measures are taken to improve productivity in organizations of West Azerbaijan province.

Keywords: Organizational Productivity, Organizational Structure, Organizational

Responsibility, Organizational Identity, Organizational Support

INTRODUCTION

Because of the increase and growth of productivity is one of the most basic ways to achieve greater production and subsequently provide welfare and well-being of people in communities, recognition of factors that cause increasing efficiency is one of the major ideals of researchers and scholars in this context. Employee’s feel about work environment, is what that makes an ideal work environment from organization. Productivity in organizations

can be a function of different variables, in which the enterprise space has an essential role. Institutional space point to a set of measurable properties in work environment, that perceptible directly or indirectly by whom work and live in that environment and affect on their perception and motivation. Organizations need different program and tools to make and increase employee motivation, that this study looking for the question

Organizational environment and productivity Hassan Zirak & Fariba Azizzadeh

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of “Is there a significant relationship between organization climate and productivity of West Azerbaijan office managers?

LITERATURE REVIEW

Productivity increase when the corporate culture shaped for achieving priority and goals of the organization and sometimes also changed. Studies show that organizational culture is a key for improving productivity and has played a decisive role in the organizational success or failure [7]. Organizational culture and productivity are closely related to each other [6].

According to French and counterpart (1986) the best organizational space can’t offer based on existing theories and the results of researches. The research has been carried out, the target population includes the high school administrations in Tehran and its results are:

1- There is a relationship between organizational performance and productivity of school administrations

2- The service productivity of school managers are associated with triple levels of organizational space and based on Scheffe test include:

a) Service productivity of school administrators in vigorous enterprise space “3” is more than service productivity of school administrators in medium enterprise space “2”.

b) Service productivity of school administrators in medium enterprise space “2” more than service productivity of school administrators in poor enterprise space “1”.

Thus the service productivity of school administrators has direct relation with triple levels of organizational space in school environments [5].

In the proposed model, the six dimensions of identity, friendship, remuneration, conflict, and support and danger adoption that the nine dimensions of organizational climate and effective in raising the level of productivity, was approved [10, 12].

This study was done under the title of leadership style and organizational climate with service productivity of eighth region managers of Islamic

Azad University. The sample size was calculated using the formula with minimum required sample of 200 managers and 600 employees. The validity of test is 0.913. The results of this study, addressed below:

1- There is a relationship between organizational climate and service productivity of the Islamic Azad University managers.

2- In the suggested model, dimensions of structure, rewards, friendship and Criteria, are among nine dimensions of organizational climate dimensions that can be a good predictors for the service efficiency of Islamic Azad University managers [11].

Litween and Stringer (1968) after carrying out extensive researches have shown that the leadership style is of factors that affecting organizational climate. They perceived that organizational climate refers to the perception of its members from official system, non-formal method of managers and other important factors, which this understanding affects on attitudes, beliefs, values and motivations of individuals in a particular environment [8].

French (1986) knows the survival and success of organizations depends on management’s attention to external environment factors, internal environment (organizational) and efficiency (results). These factors have impact upon each other. For example an organization affects on legal employment laws (an external factor) by strengthening and supporting of educational programs [5].

Taheri, Shahnam (2006), points to issues such as: productivity concept, the need for comprehensive utilization management, measuring productivity and the ways of efficiency improvement as the most important factors influencing productivity namely include human resource, rations and indices management, principles and benefits of comprehensive utilization management and its several applied theorem [15].

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This research is a practical. In a variety of categories, current research is correlation one. In

Euro-Asian Journal of Economics and Finance ISSN: 2310-0184 Volume: 1, Issue: 1, Pages: 51-62

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this study, addressing to the rate of change of one or more factors caused by changes in one or more other factors by the correlation coefficients. This research also classified according to the method of data collection as descriptive one. In this study, all organizational managers used for research purposes and to meet this propose, the population of Azerbaijan offices were selected. Since statistical societies usually have a large size and geographic extent and researchers can’t refer to all of them, so inevitably sufficed to the selected sample and generalize it’s results to society [4].Sample size estimation was performed according to the following formula:

In this formula the most important parameter that needs to be estimated is S². To calculate S², 25 questionnaires were distributed and its variance was calculated equal to 0.0729. Error level is 5%, so the confidence level will be 95%. Therefore the value of and d considered according to the level of error as 1.96 and 0.05, respectively. Thus, based on the numerical value from formula, a sample size is 112, however, to consider the number of questionnaires not returned or incorrectly filled, the distributed questionnaire was 150 that of which 115 one was used. According to the main society that involved all offices of Azerbaijan, sampling for basic and middle managers were carried out randomly. In this study a questionnaire consisting of 54 questions was used, which is consisted with a questionnaire designed by Moghimi (2011) [9] and Saatchi et al. (2011) [14]. Table 1 shows the details of the research questionnaires.

In this study, the qualitative variables of ordinal scale are used. In this study the five likert scale is used for determining desire variables. Respondents selected the measure between two extreme ones such as agree- disagree, love- hate and acceptance- rejection, based on his attitude. In this study, Cronbach’s alpha was used to calculate the reliability that calculated by SPSS software. For this purpose a prototype of questionnaire contains 36 questions were pretests by basic and median managers, and then the reliability was calculated by obtained data from questionnaire by SPSS software and Cronbach’s alpha. Complete results for calculate the obtained coefficient of the

Cronbach’s alpha was also listed (Table 2). Minimum reliability coefficient for Inventory research is 0/7, and be noted that the current obtained coefficient is higher.

In order to describe the data, data analysis and Test hypotheses, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used, respectively. Finally, the correlation coefficient was used for cleaner and identical analysis and making decision for whether there is a significant relationship between two variables. According to the normal or non-normal data, the Pearson correlation coefficient or Spearman’s method respectively will used for determining the type and extent of the relationship between variables. All data analyzed using computer and by Excel and SPSS software in two sections of descriptive and inferential statistics.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The Main Hypothesis of the Research

- There is a significant relationship between current organizational climate and productivity of managers

Sub-hypothesis

(a) There is a significant relationship between Organizational Structure Dimensions and productivity of managers.

(b) There is a significant relationship between corporate responsibility and organization managers’ productivity.

(c) There is a significant relationship between corporate identities and organization managers’ productivity.

(d) There is a significant relationship between organizational supports and organization managers’ productivity.

DATA ANALYSIS

39.1% of the studied population consists of individuals aged between 41 to 50 and the most frequency dedicated to them. However the less of them under 30 years (11.3%), 37.4% from age


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group of 41-50 that in the short distance from age group of 41-50. Also 12.2% is higher than 50 years old. 93.9% of subjects were male and 6.1% were women. 46.1% of studied population was composed of individuals who have license and the most frequency dedicate to them. It is also the less for subjects with Ph.D. degree (7.8%) and 14.8% in Diploma and 31.3% had a master’s degree. 40% of studied population consisted of people who had work experience between 5-15 years. It is also that the less frequency for whom had lower than 5 years work experience (7%). 29.6% have between 16 and 25 and 23.5% have more than 25 years work experience. The Kolmogorov-Smirnove test was used to examine the normality of the data. Here we tests for all data and each of the variables that it’s results shown in table 3. This test is done at 99% confidence level.

According the results in table-1, as can be seen, the significant level of all research variables greater

of data normality and the methods of parametric and Pearson correlation will be used to study hypothesis.

Test Hypothesis

Main Hypothesis

There is a significant relationship between organizational climate and productivity of managers in West Azerbaijan offices.

H0: There is no relationship between organizational climate and productivity of managers in West Azerbaijan offices.

H1: There is a relationship between organizational climate and productivity of managers in West Azerbaijan offices.

According the SPSS output in Table 4, the correlation of 0.759 observed between two variables, which indicate a relatively strong positive correlation. However, because the significance correlation (0.000) is also lower than the coefficient of error (0.01), so the null hypothesis rejected and research hypothesis accepted with 99% confidence coefficient and concluded that there is a significant relationship between

organizational climate and productivity of West Azerbaijan office managers.

First Sub-hypothesis

There is a significant relationship between Organizational Structure Dimensions and pro¬ductivity of managers in West Azerbaijan office.

H0: There is no relationship between Organizational Structure Dimensions and productivity of managers in West Azerbaijan offices.

H1: There is a significant relationship between Organizational Structure Dimensions and productivity of managers in West Azerbaijan offices.

From table 5 observed that the correlation between two variables is 0.032, which shows almost no correlation. On the other hand, because the significance level of correlation (0.737) is greater than coefficient of error (0.01), so the null hypothesis is not rejected and research hypothesis reject by the error level of 1%. Also conclude that there is no relationship between Organizational Structure Dimensions and productivity of managers in West Azerbaijan offices.

Second Sub-hypothesis

There is a significant relationship between corporate responsibility and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

H0: There no relationship between corporate responsibility and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

H1: There is a significant relationship between corporate responsibility and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

In table 6, the observed correlation between two variables is 0.441 that show relatively poor correlation. However, because the significance correlation (0.000) is also lower than the coefficient of error (0.01), so the null hypothesis rejected and research hypothesis accepted with 99% confidence coefficient and concluded that there is a significant relationship between corporate responsibility and organization managers’ productivity of West Azerbaijan office managers.

Third sub-hypothesis


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There is a significant relationship between corporate identities and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

H0: There is no relationship between corporate identities and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

H1: There is a significant relationship between corporate identities and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

In table 7, the observed correlation between two variables is 0.441 that show relatively poor positive correlation. However, because the significance correlation (0.000) is also lower than the coefficient of error (0.01), so the null hypothesis rejected and research hypothesis accepted with 99% confidence coefficient and concluded that there is a significant relationship between corporate identities and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

There is a significant relationship between organizational supports and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

H0: There is no relationship between organizational supports and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

H1: There is a significant relationship between organizational supports and organization managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

According to the SPSS output results in table 8, also seen that the correlation between two variables is 0.854 that show strong positive correlation. However, because the significance correlation (0.000) is also lower than the coefficient of error (0.01), so the null hypothesis rejected and research hypothesis accepted with 99% confidence coefficient and concluded that there is a significant relationship between organizational supports and managers’ productivity in West Azerbaijan offices.

Finally, Table 9 summarizes the results of testing hypotheses.

CONCLUSIONS

In this study with the title of “Study the relationship of organizational environment band

productivity of organizational managers in a offices of West Azerbaijan State” examine the relationship between organizational climate and productivity of managers, in this regard, relationship between four indexes that proposed by Litwin and French (1986) as organizational structure, corporate responsibility, corporate identity and organizational support with productivity of managers were studied [8]. Productivity in organizations could be a function of several variables, that among them, organizational climate has a major role [3]. Litwin and Stringer (1968) believe that organizational climate refers to perceptions of organization members from formal system, manager’s non-formal method and other important environment factors, that this perception affects one’s attitudes, ideas, values and motivation in specific work environment that accordingly nine factors as follow were introduced to organizational environment:

1- Responsibility: people feel that they are in own charge, rather than their all decisions reviewed by supervisors.

2- Reward: people’s feel about rewarding to good performance, pay equity and success policies.

3- Risking: feel challenged at work and in the organization, whether the accounted risking was encouraged or the safest way to work is selected?

4- Friendship: a feeling of friendship and kindred in work environment and development of non-official and friendship groups

5- Support: feel assistance and cooperation between managers and employees and emphasis of supporting.

6- Criteria: count important of goals and performance measures, emphasis on doing the task rightly, the challenge of individual and group goals.

7- Inconsistent: managers and employees’ willingness to listen different ideas and theories, emphasis on solving inconsistency instead of turning off or ignoring them.


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8- Identity: a sense of a person about attachment to the company and is a valuable member of a working group [8].

In this study, the relationship between four indexes between organizational environment indexes, that has been discussed above were considered with work productivity of managers. Finally we looking for whether are there a significant relationship between organizational climate and productivity of managers in offices of West Azerbaijan? That by finding appropriate response could reinforce productivity of managers and enhanced.

According to the survey results there is a significant relationship between organizational climate and productivity of managers. Thus, compliance with organizational climate and productivity of managers and respect to the framework prevailed of organization climate, managers productivity will increase and vice versa, productivity of managers declined by decreasing managers’ productivity. Thus, making a suitable organizational climate can affective in increasing its’ productivity. These results are in accordance with Baumgartner (1988) [2]; Litwin and Stringer (1968) [8]; Vaughan (1983) [16]; Abdullah (1992) [1] and Nazem (1999, 2001 and 2004) [11, 12, 13].

Also there is a significant relationship between dimensions of organizational structure and productivity of managers in offices of West Azerbaijan. There is a significant relationship between organizational identity and productivity of managers in offices of West Azerbaijan. Also there is a significant relationship between organizational support and productivity of managers in offices of West Azerbaijan.

The main limitation of this study was the lack of appropriate management and collaboration of managers with researchers in completing research questionnaire. In This study four indexes considered from all indexes of organizational climate that could obtain other results by considering other ones.

Since there is a relationship between organization climate with productivity of basic and middle managers, suggested that with implementing

efficient management and making suitable organizational climate and specially pay attention to the factors of responsibility, identity and support, serious efforts will done for improving productivity in offices of West Azerbaijan. To reach far and near goals of an organization , from competent and responsible professional directors expected that considered affective variables in this regard as organizational health, organizational climate, making culture and control stand and making creative productive organization by using principals of management and human relations and tier in regard to productivity and efficiency in human resources and organizational effectiveness.

Recommended that also emphasis on individual judgment and do what they think is right. Management was outlined to their subordinates and makes them responsible for their works.

REFERENCES

1. Abdullah, Mahlok, (1992) “Organizational culture/ the key to excellence, Malaysian Success Stories. Better quality of work life through Productivity”, APO. Abstract, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University.

2. Baumgardner, John Elizabeth, (1988), ”perceptions of nursing and faculty and administrators about organizational climate and its effect on research productivity in baccalaureate and higher degree programs of nursing education”, Dissertation abstract, PHD, the University of Akron.

3. Boulden, George, P. (1992). “Productivity linked to Profitability the basis for improve worklife. Betler quality of work life throug productivity”, (Asian productivity Organizations).

4. Farhangi, Ali Akbar & Safarzadeh, Hosein, (2008) "research methods in the human science (with a view on the dissertation writing)" Pyam-e-Pouya publishing, Tehran, second edition.

5. French, Wendell L. (1986) “Human resources management”. Houghton– mifflin company.

6. Kashani, Majid & Khanyfar, Hussein, (2011) “The impact of organizational


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culture on productivity”, thesis. School year of 90-91.

7. Kazemi, Syyed Abbas, (2010) “Utilization and analysis in organizations”, Samt publisher.

8. Litwin, George H., & Stringer, Robert A., (1968) “Motivation and organizational climate”. Harvard University.

9. Moghimi, Mohammad, (2011) "Organization and Management Research Approach". Termeh Publications, Tehran, 7th Edition.

10. Nazem, Fattah, (1987), “productivity management (organizational climate and productivity)”, Islamic Azad University Research Publications (Roudehen)

11. Nazem, Fattah, (1999) "study the Relationship between leadership style and organizational climate and productivity of Islamic Azd university managers to provide appropriate management model", research project, Roudehen Islamic Azad University.

12. Nazem, Fattah, (2001) “study the Relationship between leadership style and organizational climate and productivity of Islamic Azad university managers to provide appropriate management model," PhD thesis of Department of Management, Science and Research Islamic Azad University.

13. Nazem, Fattah, (2004) "Study the Relationship between leadership style and organizational climate and productivity management services of petrochemical industry to provide appropriate management model", research project, the National Petrochemical Company of Iran.

14. Saatchi, Mahmoud & Kamkari, Kambiz & Asgarian, Mahnaz, (2011) "Psychological tests", Vireyesh Publications, Tehran, second edition.

15. Taheri, Shahnam, (2006) "productivity and quality management", Tehran, Aein Publications.

16. Vaughan, K. M., (1983) “The Relationship of Managers”, Education, Training and Experience to Organizational Climate and

Productivity. [Dissertation Abstract ,Ed. D.] , Boston University.


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APPENDIX

TABLES

Spectrum

sensing

Measure

(data type)

Items

(no.) measured structures

Questionnaire

(from-to

question)

Likert Ordinal 24 Dimensions of Organizational Structure 1-24

Likert Ordinal 6 Corporate responsibility 25-30

Likert Ordinal 8 Corporate Identity 31-38

Likert Ordinal 8 Organizational Support 39-46

Likert Ordinal 8 Productivity of organization managers 47-54

Table 2. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the scale separation structures

Items (no.) Cronbach's alpha measured

structures

Entire Quesionnaire 0.880 54

Dimensions of Organizational

Structure 0.895 24

Corporate responsibility 0.853 6

Corporate Identity 0.739 8

Organizational Support 0.903 8

Productivity of organization

managers 0.932 8


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Table 3- Normality test results for research variables

Organizational Support

Corporate Identity

Corporate responsibility

Organizational Structure Dimensions

productivity of managers

Organizational climate

115 115 115 115 115 115 Date no.

3.1152 3.7261 3.4493 3.4638 3.1489 3.4386

Normal

parameter

s

Average

0.76055 0.75417 0.69254 0.36251 0.79797 0.48441 Standar

d

deviatio

n

1.378 1.620 1.292 1.143 1.077 0.748 Kolmogorov-

Smirnov statistic

0.045 0.011 0.071 0.147 0.197 0.630 Significant level

(Sig.)

Table 4. The correlation between two variables of organizational climate and productivity of managers

Organizational

climate

productivity of

managers

Organizational climate

Pearson Correlation 1 .759**

Sig. (2-tailed) 0 .000

N 115 115


Pearson Correlation .759** 1

Sig. (2-tailed) 0 .000

N 115 115

**. Correlation is significant at the 0. 01 level (2-tailed) .

Table 5. The correlation between the two variables of Organizational Structure Dimensions and productivity of managers




Pearson Correlation 1 .032

Sig. (2-tailed) .737

N 115 115


Pearson Correlation .032 1


N 115 115


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Table 6. Correlation between two variables of organizational responsibility and productivity of managers

Organizational

responsibility

Productivity of

managers

Organizational

responsibility

Pearson

Correlation 1 .441**


N 115 115

Productivity of

managers

Pearson

Correlation .441** 1


N 115 115


Table 7. Correlation between two variables of organizational responsibility and productivity of managers

Corporate Identity Productivity of

managers

Corporate

Identity

Pearson

Correlation 1 .669**


N 115 115

Productivity of

managers

Pearson

Correlation .669** 1


N 115 115



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Table 8. The correlation between organizational support and Productivity of managers

organizational supports

Productivity of managers

organizational supports

Pearson Correlation

1 .854**


N 115 115

Productivity of managers

Pearson Correlation

.854** 1


N 115 115

**. Correlation is significant at the 0. 01 level (2-tailed).

Table 9. Summary of hypotheses test

Result Significance hypothesis

Accepted Significant

The main hypothesis of the research: There is a significant relationship between current organizational climate and productivity of managers.

Rejected Non-Significant

First Sub-hypothesis: There is a significant relationship between Organizational Structure Dimensions and productivity of managers.


Second Sub-hypothesis: There is a significant relationship between corporate responsibility and organization managers’ productivity

Accepted Significant Third Sub-hypothesis: There is a significant relationship between corporate identities and organization managers’ productivity


Fourth Sub-hypothesis: There is a significant relationship between organizational supports and organization managers’ productivity


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Figures

Independent variable Dependent variable

Figure 1- Theoretical model of research

Dimensions of Organizational Structure

Corporate responsibility

Corporate Identity

Productivity of

organization managers

Organizational Support

Investigating the Relationship between Organizational Environment and Productivity of Organizational Managers

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