Employees’ Perception of Organizational Culture at Jimma University: Main Campus in Focus

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to explore the organizational culture perception of academic staffs and managers at the main campus of Jimma University; southwest Ethiopia. To that end, institution based cross-sectional study design and mixed method was employed. The Competing Values Framework (CVF) model was implemented to frame the study. In addition, the qualitative data were gathered from six managers of the University using Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and the data were analyzed thematically. Likewise, the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) questionnaire was distributed to 239 academic staffs from 4 colleges and 23 departments of Jimma University; main campus. Among them, 204 (85.3%) valid responses were returned and analyzed with descriptive statistics. Consequently, as discovered from the statistical analyses, Hierarchy Culture; (Mean= 3.46; SD=.60301), Market Culture; (Mean= 3.43; SD=.75662), Adhocracy Culture; (Mean= 2.84; SD=.66755) and Clan Culture; (Mean= 2.65; SD= .91869) were the culture types perceived by the academic staffs of Jimma University; main campus. Seemingly, as revealed from the thematic analyses, the Clan, Adhocracy and Market cultures were the culture types perceived by administrators of Jimma University. Besides, the overall (comparative) analyses showed that Market culture was the only (University-wide) culture type perceived by both the academic staffs and managers at Jimma University. However, it was discovered that academics and managers had major differences in perceiving the four culture types of the University. Moreover, also academic staffs differed in perceiving the Clan, Adhocracy and Market culture typologies of the University across the demographic characteristics of sex, age, education level, academic rank, and role. Therefore, it was possible to realize the existence of both vertical [between managers and academics] and horizontal [among the academic staffs] conflicts (discrepancies) in perceiving Jimma University’s organizational culture. In general, the University’s culture can be approached as both internally focused and stable and externally focused and flexible. Subsequently, articulating the culture (guiding values) of the University in a clear-cut dimension is tentatively difficult. Hence, the culture of Jimma University is heterogeneous and can be understood as ambiguous.