The Telecommunication Industry In Mauritius Management Essay

In this era of globalization, the world has become a global village leading to a promising industry environment. Organization has to adapt to changes in the competitive environment. The knowledge of all aspects of management is primordial, since organizations are compelled to operate differently and its effectiveness depends on the motivation and behavior of the workforce in order to survive in this challenging and dynamic environment.

The changing winds of change in today’s business situation where the marketplace is progressively more competitive and the degree of innovation is growing, together with the force of the emergence of global knowledge-based economy, have made telecommunication organisations realise that knowledge is their key asset (Snyman and Kruger, 2004). The telecommunication industry has to deal with more fierce competition in the global marketplace than ever before due to the new human resource concept on knowledge management. “Telecommunications plays a vital role in the fast expanding Mauritian financial services sector. Innovative technology like this network management system helps us to provide our enterprise customers with faster and more reliable data services for an improved customer experience” explains Kapil Reesaul, Senior Executive, Business Market, and Mauritius Telecom.

According to Graham & Bennett (1998), Human Resource Management is one of the important departments of operation in management. Human Resource Management has three main functions, acquiring human resources, maintaining them and developing them. Being a resource centered HRM directs human resources and represents appropriate culture and climate for the employees in the enterprise. It is the Human Resource which gives companies edge over others. In order to be successful the management implements motivation policies and principles to have committed employees.

Brown (1998) explains that there is a connection between organization culture and motivational factors which are vital to achieve better performance level in any firm. Furthermore motivation is the prime factor for good performance. In order to acquire better performance employees must be self motivated or must be given incentives. According to Boddy (2002), many organizations strive with great success, and after few years the same organization fails to produce their goods and services in the same way as they used to. Many people thus put the blame of such failure on the ‘organization culture’. This is because organization culture is the personality of the organization. Moreover organization culture influences the behaviour of the people by articulating a set of values and reinforcing these values with formal policies, informal ritual and jargon. Later these values become shared and respected by all employees leading to higher commitment. Senior management may determine to acquire a corporate culture and set corporate values and standards behaviour that reflect the objectives of the firm.

The Denison model

1.2 Objectives of this dissertation

My dissertation will help to enlighten how organizational culture can promote the performance of the firm. In order to have more concrete study I have chosen the telecommunication industry in Mauritius. Telecommunication sector plays an important role in the economy of Mauritius; despite providers of services are becoming more and more competitive as well as sophisticated and various facilities. Nowadays everyone expect to get the best service. It is a genuine fact that it is the employees that provide the service.

The aim and objectives of this dissertation is to:

Assess the importance of organizational culture.

To find out how organizational culture is implemented at the organisation

Evaluate how leadership can promote organizational culture

Determine whether organizational culture and employees commitment is directly related

Investigate the impact of organizational culture on employee motivation

Determine how organizational culture influences employee’s behaviour and attitudes

Explore how organizational culture impact on the performance on an organization

1.3 Purpose of this dissertation

There is a consensus that there is need for more attention of organizational culture to be able to keep pace with the rapid changes in the work environment so as to promote performance of the organization. Organizational culture is very important for the employees and the management also of an organization. In large organizations, vision statements, mission statements and statements of values are often formalized to describe the company’s culture. Being aware of an organization’s culture at all levels is significant because the culture defines suitable and inappropriate behavior.

In this optic it is imperative to understand this concept whether at Emtel Ltd, Orange or MTML, the company adapt to the organizational culture to enable the employees of the organization to improve the performance.

1.4 Structure of the dissertation

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The main purpose of this literature review is to establish a solid background of information that is essential to assess how organisational culture promotes the performance of the telecommunication industry.

2.1 Definition of Organisational Culture

Firstly Organisational culture is a set of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organisation. It also controls the means they interact with each other and with stakeholders. Schein (1985) has denoted culture as being a deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation that operate unconsciously and is also taken for granted assumptions that a group has learned throughout its history. Culture is the structure and the control system to determine behavioural model. Organizational culture is manifested in the typical characteristics of the firm. It refers to a set of basic keys that worked in the past that they are accepted as valid assumptions within the company. These rules are maintained in the continuous process of human interaction, to ensure that the right way in which things are done or problems should be understood in the organization. The mechanism of routine behaviour, norms, values, philosophy, rules of the game and feelings all form part of organizational culture (Hellriegel et al., 1998).

Organizational culture is an integral part of the general running of an organization. A strong culture provides shared values that ensure that everyone in the organization is moving in the right direction pointed by Robbins, 1996. Moreover the mission, vision and strategy define the purpose of the firm; its work in the world, the organizational culture expresses its inner life and character, the way in which it pursues its work.

The model of Schein for organizational culture is used to characterize corporate sustainability strategies: introverted, extroverted, conservative and visionary strategies are distinguished. Each strategy is assessed regarding the relation and the integration in the levels of organizational culture according to the model of Schein. The model consists of three levels, i.e. artifacts, values and basic assumptions. This framework is used for a case-study to identify the organizational culture of a global leading mining company.

2.2 The role of Organisational culture

Firstly the role of organisational culture is essential to understand organisational behaviour. Organisational culture has strong influence on employees’ behaviour and attitudes; culture is not simply an accumulation of the various, complex and often fraught inter-personal relationships of an organisation. Similarly Van de Post et al, 1998 refers to organisational culture as what personality is to an individual. It can be denoted that organisational culture provides a meaning and direction that enables the firm to have stability. This implies that organisational culture is a very crucial element for managers in managing diversified workforce in business environment.

Furnham and Gunter (1993) explain the functions of organizational culture as being an internal integration and coordination. Internal integration can be described as the socializing of new members in the firm, creating the boundaries of the organization, the feeling of identity among personnel and commitment to the organization. The coordinating function refers to creating a competitive edge, making sense of the environment in terms of acceptable behaviour and social system stability (Martins, 2000). Organizational culture offers a shared system of meanings, which forms the basis of communication and mutual understanding. If the organizational culture does not fulfill these functions in a satisfactory way, the culture may significantly reduce the efficiency of an organization (Furnham and Gunter, 1993).

Similarly organizations use different resources and processes to guide behaviour and change. Organizational culture complements coherent managerial tools by playing an indirect role in influencing behaviour. Culture epitomizes the expressive character of organizations: it is communicated through symbolism, feelings, and the meaning behind language, behaviours, physical settings and artifacts.

2.4 Organizational culture and Leadership Style

Similarly leadership is the heart and sole of an organization culture. Leadership has been studied extensively in several contexts together with differing cultures, among the others and has been discussed since the time of Plato (Goffee & Jones, 2000). Management determines consciously or sometimes unconsciously the form of culture, which will evolve. The type of leadership style the manager wishes to use will positively or negatively affect Organizational Behaviour. According to Schein (1992), there is no best style of leadership since what may work effectively in one company may not work in another.

Leadership has been described as a process, although most theories and research on leadership look at a person to achieve understanding (Bernard, 1926; Blake, et al., 1964; Drath and Palus, 1994; Fiedler, 1967; and House and Mitchell, 1974). Vecchio (1995) defines leadership as the process through which leaders influence the values, behaviours and attitudes of others. Similarly, Northouse (2007, p3) has stated that leadership is a process by which a person influence others to accomplish objectives and direct the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. In contrast, Lippitt (1999) has demonstrated leadership as getting people moving in a direction, making a decision and supporting paths, typically they would not have chosen. However, Nirenberg (2001) noted that the English language business press defines leadership as being centered on one person at the top of the organization who has the responsibility for all decisions. Contrary to Nirenberg, Tichy and Cohen (1997) suggested that leadership should in fact be a disseminated responsibility communal by many in the organization and this would become a key competitive advantage.

Effective leadership should persuade employee behaviour in a optimistic manner, as managers who could motivate staff by providing training, offering incentives and giving promotion to employees. This could apparently encourage staff to work harder and remain dedicated to the organization. Moreover this citation of Sieff quoted in Mullins (1993, p: 11) summed up the contribution of leaders, to the organization culture, “Leadership is vitally important at all levels within the company, from main board to the shop floor. Leadership is the moral and intellectual ability to visualize and work for what is best for the company and its employees. The most vital thing the leader does is to create team spirit around him near him, not in a schoolboy sense, but in realistic terms of mature adults.”

Similarly in a study made by John Kotter et al, has deduced that “leaders must create a safe place for ideas to grow and develop with open forum for input”. It has been found that there are five obvious, quantifiable indicators of a healthy leadership culture which are Passion, Accountability, Consistency, Transparency and stability.

Passion

Leaders are motivated by features other than reward. Team members realize and are encouraged by the mission of the organization. Being passionate, leaders encourage pursuit of individual team members’ goals. Team members support each other.

Accountability

Leaders give the employees the reasons, courage and purpose to change for the better. It must be explicit in every contact. Inner accountability is the force that generates a sense of integrity. Inner accountability is the force that makes everyone works with integrity.

Consistency

Leaders who approach ever interaction dedicated to work consistently build trust within a team. Consistency of purpose ensures that team members are engaged and will rely on.

Transparency

Transparent leaders encourage transparency to ensure freedom to be opt and give instructions and receive feedback.

Stability

Leaders are essential to stability. Passion, accountability, consistency and transparency all merge with stability to build a culture for growth and excellence. It means that consequences and rewards are the same everyday and the vision pursued today. Efforts are the same, yet the fruits will be multiplied. Numerous leadership traits are critical to successful turnaround (Shelley and Jones, 1993, p. 71).

In the essence the values of business according to O’Toole and James, are the key drivers of the culture of an organization. The more faithfully leaders create value- based culture that builds a strong sense of community through employee involvement.

To gain a better understanding, it is significant to look into the notion of motivation and how culture has a positive or negative impact on employee motivation and performance levels.

2.5 Motivation and organizational

According to Whittington and J. Lee (1998), motivation is crucial since the key to success is to recognise that each employee is an individual. This means giving close attention to how individuals can be motivated with means like incentives, rewards, leadership and, considerably, the work they do and the industry situation within which they carry out that work. (Armstrong 2003). The famous motivation theory has been developed by Abraham Maslow. He has developed a hierarchy of needs that ranged from basic needs (food, water and shelter) to a higher order will only motivate people after the salary and benefits. The upper – level needs are fulfilled by involvement, participation and challenging tasks.

Maslow’s approach is useful; managers commonly make two mistakes when applying this particular framework. Whittington and J. Lee 1998 have illustrated that managers make assumptions about workers based on job classification and the qualification of the employees. It is easy to assume a blue-collar employee is working at the basic need level and the white- collar employees are working at the higher order level of needs. Motivation is referred to the forces within an individual that account for the way in which they execute. It is concerned with why individuals choose a particular option of action in liking to others. Mitchell (1982) identifies four common features, which inspire the definition of motivation. These are as follows.

Motivation is typified as an individual experience. Every human being is unique and all the major theories of motivation consent to for this exclusivity to be established in one way or another.

Motivation is described regularly as deliberate. Motivation is understood to be under the worker’s control and behaviours that are influenced by motivation, such as effort spent, are seen as alternative of action.

Motivation is complex. The two factors of greatest significance are what get people activated and the forces of an individual to engage in preferred behavior.

The purpose of motivational theories is to forecast behaviour. Motivation is not the behaviour itself, and it is not performance. Motivation concerns achievement, and the internal and external forces, which persuade a person’s preference.

From Mitchell’s description motivation can be defined as the forces within an individual, which desires and chooses to take on in certain patterns of behaviour. It is obvious to recognize that an individual’s performance at work will be determined by how motivated he/she is.

Alternatively, Mullins (1999: 15) has explained the concept of motivation as “a driving force within individuals, by which they attempt to achieve some goal in order to fulfill some need or expectation.”

2.6 Organizational learning along with the concept of knowledge management

Davidson & Voss, 2002 have stated that successful knowledge management is at the heart of organizational performance and enables Organizations to comprehend the value of human capital. On the contrary, organizational culture underpins knowledge management by influencing how employees learn and share knowledge.

Nonaka and Toyama (2003, p. 2) found that knowledge creation is a process in which various contradictions are made through dynamic interactions among the individuals, the organization, and the environment. They argued that knowledge is formed in a spiral that

integrates opposing concepts. The approach focuses on the flow of knowledge which originates within individuals and is then made available to others in the organization. The process relates to the conversion of tacit into explicit knowledge and is consistent with the view that ‘knowledge is a phenomenon in motion’ (Patriotta 2004, p. 10).

Annion (1994) asserted that learning could engage an organization in innovative activities and getting itself transformed throughout adaptive learning and innovative learning. Owing to the change of external environment and the development of high technologies, organizations are full of uncertainty, the traditional way of thinking and organizational patterns are persistently challenged. Consequently, it is the best strategy for organizational development to enhance organizational competitiveness through the organizational learning (Sadler, 2001). Learning is important as same as the production of goods and services, the organization can discover as it can produce, and organizational production systems can be fully integrated into the learning systems.

2.7 Commitment and performance.

“Commitment” can be defined as the willingness of people to provide their energy and loyalty to a social system or a successful attachment to a firm apart from the solely Influence significance of the relationship (Buchanan, 1974). It is also alleged that commitment was developed through the process of identification in which a person experiences something of some ideas generated as an extension of the self explained Iverson, 1996.

Commitment can be elaborated By Porter et al, 1974 into

A belief and acceptance of the goals and values of the organization and profession

A willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization and

Desire to attain membership in the organization

According to Meyer and Allen (1997), a committed employee is the one who stays with the organization through thick and thin, attends work regularly, puts in a full day, protects company assets, shares company goals among others. Thus by having a committed workforce is a value added advantage to an organization.

The interest in the concept of organizational commitment is likely to affect its relationship with other key aspects of employee behaviour. Organisational commitment can affect job performance and turnover; Farell et al 1981 suggested that society as a whole benefited from employees’ organizational commitment due to lower job movement and higher national productivity.

A recent research study conducted by Hagberg Consulting Group has shown that employee loyalty is positively impacted by teamwork, trust, confronting conflict, candor, and meritocracy and decision participation. Loyalty also improves when employees feel they are contributing to something meaningful beyond financial objectives

Cohen (2000) has undertaken research on the cultural socialization and tested whether individualized measures of power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity is related to an employee’s level of commitment. Merging Hofstede’s cultural model and Meyer and Allen’s (1984) organizational commitment components, Cohen (2000) has found that the cultural dimensions were significant predictors of multiple bases and foci of commitment. Similarly Power distance is related to normative commitment. The uncertainty avoidance element is interrelated to continuance commitment. Moreover the collectivism element is allied to the three types of commitment which are affective, continuance and normative.

The research study made by Geiger (1998) is principally based on the relationship between escalating commitment and Hofstede’s (1980) value dimensions which are power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity. The results reveal that the relationship between exposure to an acceleration situation and increase commitment has moderated by cultural values.

The empirical study made by Maignan and Ferell (1999) find in two independent samples to study whether components of an organizational culture influence the level of commitment to corporate citizenship. The results reveal that a market- oriented culture as well as humanistic culture has led to proactive corporate citizenship, which in turn is allied with improved levels of employees’ commitment.

Normally, it is believed that the higher commitment level lead to higher performance. Conversely, Steers (1977) finds that commitment is generally not linked to performance, which could be due to many reasons. Firstly, the samples made in two organizations in the study reveal that there have been difficulties in trying to reduce turnover rate and absenteeism. The managers also try to retain more loyal employees, but high performance is not role relevant. The organizations also end up bring more stable, but less productive or creative workforce. The managers in both enterprises are strongly concerned about employee retentions rather about high performance.

Consequently, Miller and Lee(1999) have established that organizational commitment is positively related to the return on asset. This implied that organizational commitment may affect the organizational performance. Conchas (2000) also discovers that the more committed the employees are, the greater the return is to the shareholders.

2.8 Training and development to enhance performance

Training usually refers to the activities that help employees to do their current jobs more effectively. Development usually refers to the activities that help employee prepares for the next job opportunity (Moskowitz, 2007).

According to Armstrong (2009), training is considered as a systemic and planned instruction activities to promote learning. The same author considered Training and Developmemt as one of the several responses an organisation can undertake to promote learning. Similarly in the Bureau of labour statistics, Training requirements in the telecommunication industry are varied by occupation. Many jobs despite the qualification needed on- the- job training. Furthermore other jobs require particular skills that may take several years of experience to learn completely. Employers need acollege education for some managerial, professional, and maintenance and repair jobs.

As there has been rapid introduction of new technologies and services, the telecommunications industry is among the most rapidly changing in the economy. This result to workers must keep their job skills up to date. Telecommunication industry employers looked for workers with knowledge of and skills in computer programming and software design, voice telephone technology, lase and fiber optic technology, wireless technology, and data compression. To preserve their skills and stay abreast of new technologies, workers may receive training throughout their careers.

On the other hand, Hughey and Mussnug (1997) have considered training as the involvement of learning by doing whereby he argued that training typically entails personal involvement, commitment, and experiential gains. With an increasingly more discerning customer base, Mauritius Telecom is constantly raising targets in terms of productivity and standards by improving staff performance through training. To achieve its objectives, the management has developed an employee oriented internal policy which sees to it that each employee has the possibility to acquire new skills through training, workshops, and seminars.

The company training division has an ongoing training programme with a special budget allocation which provides for a wide range of courses run both by Mauritius Telecom trainers and guest lecturers in centers located in Telecom Tower and throughout the country. It is well equipped in terms of up-to-date audiovisual equipment to facilitate the delivery of training sessions.

In addition to that Beardwell-Holden (1995) defined training as “a planned process to modify the skills, knowledge and attitude (SKA), through learning experience to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities”. Moreover he said that, “in work situation, its purposes are to develop the abilities of the individual to satisfy the current and future needs of the organisation.”

According to definition of Dowling and Welch (2004), “training aims to improve current work skills and behaviour, whereas development aims to increase abilities in relation to some future position or job, usually a managerial one.”

Bozionelos and Lusher draw attention to this in their case study of production team leaders’ training and development in the UK plant of a multinational organization in the telecommunications technology industry. The authors conclude that forecast, implementing and monitoring effective training and development programs is essential to improving the proficiency of team leaders and boosting unit performance within medium and large-sized business organizations, where teamwork is becoming increasingly valued.

Even though training makes an essential contribution to the business, in Mike Wills has found in the publication made by McGraw-Hill in the McGraw-Hill Training Series must be remembered that training does not provide the complete solution for the development of a company’s employees. Mike Will maintains that this is a vital 10 per cent of their development after training course. Unless people have the skills, knowledge, and theoretical framework to make sense of what is going on around them, how can they make the right decisions and take the right actions?

2.9 Organizational culture and performance

Researchers like Denison (1990) argue that the performance of an organization is correlated to the degree to which culture values are strongly held or widely and commonly shared. Likewise, Ogbonna (2000, 1993) argue that widely held and strongly shared values help management in minimizing the undesired consequences on certain strategic alternatives by predicting the employee reactions.

A strong culture is “a set of norms and values that are widely shared and strongly held throughout the organization” (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1996:166), boost firm performance. This assumption is based on the intuitively powerful idea that organizations benefit from having highly motivated employees dedicated to common goals (Peters et al, 1992). Similarly it can be denoted that the compatibility between individual values and organizational culture values, that is, value congruency promote employee commitment Nazir, 2005, decreases labor turnover (Sheridan, 1992) and cultivates job satisfaction (O’Reilly et al, 1991). Correspondingly, the performance benefits of a strong corporate culture are thought to derive from three consequences of having widely shared and strongly apprehend norms and values: enhanced coordination and control within the firm, improved goal alignment between the firm and its members, and increased employee effort. Similarly, quantitative analyses have shown that firms with strong cultures outperform firms with weak cultures (Burt et al., 1994).

The relationship between culture strength and performance reliability must depend on how strong-culture firms learn from and respond to both their own experiences and changes in their environment. Incremental changes to organizational habits may be easier in strong-culture firms, because employee have an agreed upon framework for interpreting environmental feedback and a common set of routines for responding to different signals from the environment. Furthermore stable environments, firms with strong corporate cultures must have less variable performance than firms with weak corporate cultures, in addition to performing at a higher average level.

Schein (1991: 15) stresses that organizational cultures “provide group members with a way of giving meaning to their daily lives, setting guidelines and rules for how to behave, and, most important, reducing and containing the anxiety of dealing with an unpredictable and uncertain environment.” Widespread agreement about basic assumptions and values in the firm should increase behavioral consistency (Gordon and Di Tomaso, 1992) and thus promote organizational performance, which is a function of the probable return to an organization’s activities and its ability to carry out those actions. Theorists have put forward three interrelated explanations for the performance benefits of strong cultures (Kotter and Heskett, 1992). First, widespread consensus and endorsement of organizational values and norms facilitates social control within the firm. When there is broad agreement that certain behaviors are more appropriate than others, violations of behavioral norms may be detected and corrected faster. Corrective actions are more likely to come from other employees, regardless of their place in the formal hierarchy. Informal social control is therefore likely to be more effective and cost less than formal control structures (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1996). Secondly, strong corporate cultures enhance goal alignment. Goal alignment facilitates coordination, as there is less room for debate between different parties about the firm’s best interests (Kreps et al, 2001). Finally, strong cultures can enhance employees’ motivation and performance because they perceive that their actions are freely chosen (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1996).

2.10 Conclusion

On a conclusive note, organizational culture has a strong influence on employees’ behaviour and attitudes since it conveys a sense of identity and unity of purpose to employees of the organization. Moreover each organisation has its own unique culture and employee behaviour will depend on the existing norms and values of that particular culture. Various cultural aspects can change the view and working environment as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory states that people are motivated by a number of factors at work, aiming to satisfy one particular need before moving on to attempt to satisfy the next in the hierarchy. Organizations alter, people change and most importantly people’s expectations vary. In other words, management must be fully aware of what aspects within the working environment encourage people to perform better.

3.0 COMPANY PROFILE

3.1Importance of the Telecommunication i