The effect of organizational culture on the performance of UAE organizations

ABSTRACT This study investigates the relationship between organizational culture (OC) and the performance of organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A theoretical framework to measure this relationship in the UAE is designed. Interviews with experts and questionnaires were conducted to prioritize certain identifiers and indicators of the relationship between organizational culture and performance in the context of the UAE. The OC—performance relationship framework was analyzed and tested. The number of respondents from the UAE organizations is 131. The results of the study showed a positive relationship between organizational culture and performance, and this relationship is especially stronger with job satisfaction. Moreover, the results also indicate that there is no evidence of any difference between the performance of organizations in the public and private sectors. Furthermore, the degree of implementation of the positive OC constructs varies from one construct to another. These positive OC constructs are goal achievement, employee engagement and commitment, and team spirit. This research is one of the few, if not the first, to investigate the relationship between OC and organizational performance in the private and public organizations in the UAE. The study would be useful for managers to concentrate on the cultural dimensions that enhance organizational performance.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Organizational culture and performance are critical components of a successful organization. Employers play a vital role in sustaining a strong culture. Extant literature on the organizational culture and performance in the UAE and the Gulf is scanty. This study contributes to the literature by investigating organizational culture dimensions that need more attention from decisionmakers in the UAE. The passion for such dimensions is obtained if there is a strong relationship between the organizational culture and performance dimensions. This research presents a new framework describing the relationship between organizational culture and UAE organization's performance. The findings indicate that the relationship between organizational culture and performance is particularly strong to job satisfaction. It was found that there is no evidence about any difference between the performance of organizations in the public and private sectors.
The organization's performance needs to be measured with sufficient indicators in many sectors, and that is a gap in the previous research. Based on literature review, empirical studies are narrowly-focused and their investigation is limited to a single country or a small area in a country. In some studies, many organizations from different fields are investigated (Zhang et al., 2008). In other studies, however, only one sector is investigated (Prajogo & McDermott, 2011), and in some cases, only one company is investigated (Xenikou & Simosi, 2006). This research gap is more obvious when the study is applied in the UAE, where a very limited number of research studies are conducted. This research is comprehensive; it investigates several different private and public sectors in the UAE. Most of the previous research is limited to a certain sector. Therefore, this research is one of the few, if not the first, attempting to investigate the relationship between OC and performance in the UAE organizations in different sectors. It presents a new framework describing the relationship between OC and UAE organization's performance. The framework contains several identifiers or constructs, where each identifier can contain several dimensions, and these dimensions are used to measure the OC or the performance. Moreover, the relationship between OC and performance is investigated in the framework. The framework was customized to be suitable for the context of the UAE.
The paper aims to employ a fully-fledged framework of dimensions to evaluate the OC and performance of organizations in the context of the UAE. The study evaluates, based on that framework, the degree of OC-positive practices' implementation in the UAE. The framework will also be used to evaluate the performance level of the organizations based on the opinions of the employees in these organizations. The relationship between OC and performance will be investigated to identify the most important aspects of OC to consider.
This study is significant since it addresses OC dimensions that need more attention from decision-makers in the UAE. The passion for such dimensions is obtained if there is a strong relationship between the OC and performance dimensions.

Literature review
Generally, OC is about the norms, values, beliefs, and the interaction of employees with each other in an organization. To measure these values and beliefs, some constructs are used. For each construct, there are several dimensions for measurement. Sometimes, however, there is only one dimension for a certain construct. Another name that can be used is identifiers. The word "identifiers", which means measures, was used in the literature such as the studies by Cheung et al. (2012) and Aftab et al. (2012).

Identifiers of OC
Most of the reviewed studies focused mainly on studying OC itself. Only few studies focused on examining OC application or effects on certain country's organizations and its relation to its performance in a comprehensive manner. A list of cultural dimensions is compiled to reflect the various perspectives adopted by different researchers.
OC is influenced by the way of working by the organization's founder and managerial staff; because of their role in decision-making related to the strategic decision (Oparanma, 2015). Culture is a variable that can improve organization's effectiveness (Wang & Abdul-Rahman, 2010). Effective organizations empower and engage their employees. They build their organizations based on teamwork and increase capability at all levels. Employees at all levels feel that they are engaged, participating in the organization's decisions and plans that are directly connected to the organization's goals. When employees feel a strong sense of ownership, they become innovative and committed (Denison et al., 2006).
Culture could affect achieving goals. It is important for facilitating organizational innovation, accepting perspectives, new ideas and any organizational change that may be needed (Bates & Khasawneh, 2005). Adaptability is the degree to which adjustments are possible in practices, processes, or structures to changes in climate (Boylan & Turner, 2017). An organization's performance can be improved by several effective practices like employee training, organization reward systems and empowerment for employees and increase team spirit in organization's working system (Chandler et al., 2000).
A comprehensive list of the OC identifiers has been fully-developed. Table 1 summarizes the literature on OC identifiers, which were investigated by different researchers and to be investigated to study the relationship between them and organization performance. The most relevant studies were selected and shown in Table 1. The identifiers are written positively, indicating that their existence is good for the organizations. It is clear that some dimensions are repeated in several studies, and that means they are very important. For example, "employee participation in organization's plans" is the most important dimension repeated in 15 studies. Therefore, this dimension must exist in the framework of this study. Moreover, each one of "acceptance of new ideas and perspectives", "encourage team contributions", and "encourage innovation and creativeness" is repeated in 14 studies.

Organizational performance
Researchers utilize the terminology of organizational effectiveness and organizational performance interchangeably. Organizational performance is related to the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of a certain program or activity (Javier, 2002). It is the ability of the organizations to achieve its goals and objectives by utilizing resources effectively and efficiently (Karanja, 2014). Performance is a very significant concept as it is a measure of the success of organizations. Organizations should know about the performance indicators to measure, manage, and compare performance.
Measuring performance starts with the identification of performance indicators that allow for a detailed specification of process performance. Performance indicators are described as physical values that are used to measure, compare, and manage organizational performance. There are various categories of performance indicators for different approaches of performance measurement; however, there are two main categories of indicators that are used to determine organizational performance. One category is financial or cost-based measures of performance and the other is the non-financial or non-cost-based measures of performance (Bhatti et al., 2014). Financial performance indicators are one of the most important indicators to evaluate the organization's performance in any industry. The financial dimension refers to whether the organization's strategy, implementation, and execution are contributing to bottom-line improvement (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). The financial goals have to do with shareholder value, revenue growth, profitability, and sales volume. On the other hand, there are other organizational non-financial specific measures of performance that may reflect the success of the organization. They include measures such as customer satisfaction, internal business processes, quality, innovation and learning, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employee turnover (Mayer & Schoorman, 1992). The main objectives of the customer dimension are customer satisfaction and loyalty. Obtaining continuous feedback from customers, satisfying their requirements, improving customer service, and developing innovative products tailored to their needs help increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. The outcome would eventually improve the organizational performance.
Furthermore, the internal business processes dimension is very important as it focuses on the internal operations of the organization to satisfy customer requirements. Organizations would attempt to identify and measure its core factors such as quality, cost, time, employee skills, productivity, and technologies, etc., to ensure customer satisfaction and continued market leadership.
Quality plays a significant role in the success of all organizations. It is one of the dimensions that the organization uses to measure its performance. One of the main objectives and challenges of organizations is to provide quality products to customers that are produced at a lower cost. Organizations aim to deliver quality products and services with optimum utilization of resources to their customers which will consequently increase its performance (Badri et al. 1994).
Innovation and learning dimension is also very significant as global competition requires organizations to make continuous improvements to their existing and new products and processes. It is very important to enhance training programs for employees on quality, time, cost management, and new technological advancements. In addition, encouraging employees to be risk-takers, developing innovative ideas, and launching them into the market would create more value for the customers and increase organizational performance. As a result, the organization becomes able to innovate, learn and improve ties directly to the organization's value (Kaplan & Norton, 1992).
Job satisfaction dimension can be defined as one's attitude towards his/her job. Job satisfaction is related to five main dimensions: task identity, task significance, skill variety, autonomy, and feedback from the job that leads to satisfaction with supervision, co-workers, work, pay, and promotion. Hence, job satisfaction is a very important factor that employees may possess which as a result may affect the organization's performance (Hackman & Oldham, 1975). Organizational commitment is related to the level of desire employees are willing to put efforts in order to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. Furthermore, it reflects the nature and the quality of linkage between employees and management (Oliver, 1990). Job satisfaction and organizational commitment have a direct relationship with employees' turnover. Employees with low organizational commitment and job satisfaction tend to be less motivated which may lead them to leave their job and thus increase the turnover rate. Table 2 shows some of the performance indicators found in the literature. It is important to note that sometimes a certain identifier can be considered as OC in some studies and as a performance indicator in other studies. An example of that is innovation and learning. In the current study, innovation and learning are considered as part of OC.

Previous studies
There are some previous studies that investigated the relationship between organizational culture and performance. A close look at these studies revealed the research gaps. Some studies concentrated on reviewing of literature such as the study by Lim (1995), Abu-Jarad et al. (2010), and (3) (8)   Awadh and Alyahya (2013). Empirical studies usually focus on a certain country and in some cases on a small area in a country. The current study is an empirical study. The scope of the study can be used to distinguish different types of research. Sometimes, many organizations from different sectors are studied, such as the current study. Sometimes, however, a narrow investigation is performed, where only one sector is studied. In some cases, only one company is investigated. As an example of the wide scope, Zhang et al. (2008) investigated the relationship between OC and performance in a wide range of industries in China. Another example is the study of Prajogo and McDermott (2011) who covered various firms in the industry sector in Australia. Moreover, Naranjo-Valencia et al. (2016) studied the relationship between OC and performance in many industrial Spanish companies. Furthermore, in the same direction, some studies covered several companies, such as the studies by Ogbonna and Harris (2000), Kumar (2008), Dadzie et al. (2012), and Yesil and Kaya (2013) in UK, Malaysia, Ghana, and Turkey, respectively. However, none of the studies with wide scope investigated the effect of OC on performance in the UAE.
As previously mentioned, there are some cases in which the study is even more narrow, and focuses on only one organization such as the study by Xenikou and Simosi (2006) that focused on a large financial organization in Greece. Another research study is by Ahmad (2012), focusing on COMSATS Institute of Information Technology. obviously, the gap here is the investigation in a wide scope in the UAE, where our study focuses on several different private and public sectors in the UAE. The framework was customized to be suitable for the context of the UAE, and then the survey questionnaire was distributed and analyzed.

Research hypotheses
As found in the literature, many studies investigated the relationship between OC and organizational performance ( Gupta and Kumar (2020) investigated the differences between performance in public and private sectors. Parhizgari and Gilbert (2004) found that effectiveness measures are significantly different across the private and public sectors. Some studies found that private sector outperforms the public sector, especially in developing countries (Goel & Rekhi, 2013). However, a study by Zeffane and Melhem (2017) in the UAE found that public sector employees tend to be more satisfied, more trusting, and have less intention to leave their organization. Therefore, this study will investigate if there is a significant difference between the performance of public and private sectors.
The following hypotheses were formulated:

H1: OC has a positive relationship with organizational performance.
To investigate this hypothesis, data analysis using correlation was done to examine the relationship between organizational culture and performance. Correlation analysis is a statistical method used to evaluate the strength of the relationship between the culture and the performance of UAE organizations. The higher the correlation coefficient, the stronger is the relationship between culture and performance of the organization. Moreover, the p-value is also computed.

H2: Employees in private sectors have better performance than employees in public sectors.
Two sample t-test analysis was computed to examine the hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes that the performance of the public sector is lower than the private sector. Failing to reject the null hypothesis is a good indication for the public sector in the UAE, in which the public sector is very powerful and supported by a rich government.

H3: the degree of implementing positive OC constructs is satisfactory in the UAE organizations according to the view of respondents
One sample t-test is utilized to analyze if the OC constructs are strongly applied in UAE organizations. This is done by comparing the average construct to 3.5 as done by many researchers, and when it is more than 3.5, then the implementation level is satisfactory

Methodology
Many OC identifiers and performance indicators were identified and studied through a comprehensive literature review. An interview with experts in the field was conducted, where those culture identifiers and performance indicators were prioritized. It means that the study is designed in four major steps, where the first step was making Tables 1 and 2 about the most relevant studies found in the literature. Tables 1 and 2 show all the possible dimensions for OC and performance.
Step 2 was about customizing these dimensions in the context of the UAE based on an interview with experts in the field to build Table 3. Experts rephrased the dimensions and reduced their number. Table 3 is the foundation for the questionnaire.
Step 3 is to test the reliability of the data using Cronbach Alpha.
Step 4 was about hypotheses related to the objective of the study and testing them using correlation and t-tests.
Seven OC identifiers and five performance indicators, that are the most important in the UAE organizations, were identified as shown in Table 3. The initial classification of constructs in tables 1 and 2 are based on literature review. The final classification of the selected dimensions in Table 3 is based on experts' opinions.
As a result, a questionnaire was developed and administered based on the culture identifiers and performance indicators selected by the experts. The questionnaire includes two parts: personal information, and OC identification, and performance assessment. The first part aims to collect personal information from the respondents. The second part includes twenty-five OC and performance statements. In this part, respondents are requested to express their degree of agreement on the use of culture identifiers to represent their OC based on a 5-point Likert scale. They were also requested to evaluate their organization's performance based on a 5-point Likert scale. Scale one means a "strongly disagree" while five means "strongly agree". This questionnaire was distributed to the employees of oragnizations in the UAE where 131 responses were collected. These employees are working in public and private sectors in the UAE, and the questionnaire was sent to them in November 2020. This questionnaire aims to evaluate the culture and performance of their organizations and to study the relationship between them.
Statistical analysis was done to investigate the relationship between i) OC identifiers and their operators; ii) performance indicators and their operators and iii) the OC and performance. Cronbach's alpha reliability testing and correlation analysis are conducted to study such relationships. In addition, some hypotheses are examined and tested using various techniques in Microsoft Excel such as one-sample t-test and two-sample t-test to evaluate the hypotheses.
Based on the discussion with experts and the data collected from the questionnaire, an organization culture-performance relationship framework was proposed. Figure 1 shows the framework. The arrows in the figure represent the direction of the hypothesized influence. The numbers are Cronbach's alpha values that show the inter-relationship between each construct and its operational statement. However, some constructs don't have Cronbach's alpha values because there is only one item in the construct, so it was not provided. All values are above 0.7. Therefore, the internal consistency of constructs is satisfactory.

OC Identifier Dimension
Goal Achievements Goals of organization are specific, clear and understandable for employees.
Encouraging employees to work on organization goal instead of individual goals.

Employee Engagement and Commitment
Employee engagement in organization's plans.
There is an atmosphere of trust in organization between employees and management.
Members feel a strong sense of ownership in organization.

Adaptive Orientation
Accepting new ideas, perspectives and to be changeoriented.
Workforce diversity to adapt to market change and enhance performance.

Team Spirit
Exchanging opinions and ideas and encourages team contributions rather than individuals' contribution.
Capability and innovation-supportive Orientation Encouraging innovation and creativeness.
Organization continually invests in the development of employee's skills by having periodic coaching/training programs.
There is an encouragement of performance appraises to be used as a basis to reward employees in organization.
Organization develops employee capability in work at all levels.

Coordination and Integration
Encouraging cooperation, assistance and knowledge sharing across employees/departments.
Employees are encouraged to accept criticism or negative feedback from others without becoming defensive.

Reward Orientation
Equitable rewards for all employees based on performance.

Identifier Dimension
Financial Profitability and sales volume.
Competitiveness in the market.

Customer
Customer's feedback on continuous improvement of customer service.
The number of customer's complaints are decreasing.

Job Satisfaction
Employees are encouraged to be independent and self-controlled.
Continuous feedback from employees about their job.
Employees' job satisfaction.

Quality Achievement
Continuous improvement during all processes.
Achieving quality products and services with optimum utilization of resources.
Internal Business Process Productivity improvement.
The data collected through the questionnaire are summarized in the descriptive statistics figures 2, 3, and 4. Most of the respondents are males, and most of them are from the public sector. Generally, they have sufficient experience, which is a good indicator of the value of their opinions.

Finding & discussions
In the first hypothesis, Pearson correlation was used, where the number of respondents is sufficiently large. All p-values are less than 0.01 which means that there is a positive relationship between organizational culture and performance in the UAE. As shown in Table 4, the relationship between OC and performance is strong as expected where the values of the correlation coefficient are relatively high. For instance, the correlation coefficient of the capability and innovationsupportive orientation and job satisfaction relation is 0.895. However, there are some weaker relationships such as the relationship between reward orientation and the financial indicator. The value of the correlation coefficient between them is 0.405. In addition, the correlation coefficients between the UAE organization culture constructs, job satisfaction and quality  achievement are relatively higher than the financial indicator. This indicates that UAE organizations' cultures affect more employee job satisfaction and quality achievement of products and services than the financial performance of the organization. Because job satisfaction has the highest correlation with the OC, more focus will be on this construct in the second hypothesis. The strong correlation between OC and performance is generally found in the current findings in the research field (Dadzie et al., 2012;Hogan & Coote, 2014;Jacobs et al., 2013;Kaleem, 2019;Karanja, 2014;Kumar, 2008;Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2016;Zain-Ul-Abidin et al., 2020).
Two sample t-test analysis was used to test the second hypothesis. As it can be seen from Table  5 which is for job satisfaction, the p-value is 0.185 which is relatively higher than the alpha value 0.05. Thus, the alternative hypothesis is rejected. This means that there is no evidence that UAE organization's performance in terms of job satisfaction in the private sector is better than the public sector according to the views of the employees. Similarly, Table 5 was generated for all the performance indicators, and for all of them, p-values were greater than 0.05. That means there is a difference between the public and private sectors in all the dimensions of performance. In many cases, however, the performance of the private sector can be generally better. The main  difference is that the public sector in the UAE is very powerful because of the effective government management, which usually hires the best people with qualifications from all over the world (Kaleem, 2019). The public sector is heavily involved in the technological revolution which depends on state-of-the-art information systems (Saraiva, 2019).
After investigating the performance constructs in the second hypothesis, the third hypothesis is for OC. One sample t-test is used to examine whether the OC constructs are applied in UAE organizations with satisfactory levels. As shown in Table 6, constructs such as goal achievement, employee engagement and commitment, and team spirit have a p-value less than 0.05, which indicates that such constructs are strongly applied in UAE organizations. However, constructs such as adaptive orientation, reward orientation, capability and innovation-supportive orientation, and coordination and integration have a p-value greater than 0.05 which indicates that such constructs are weakly applied in UAE organizations. The literature presents different levels of implementation of positive OC practices, depending on the country and sector in which  the research concentrates (Gilbert & Von Glinow, 2015;Gupta & Kumar, 2020;Parhizgari & Gilbert, 2004).
Generally, this study shows different degrees of implementing the positive OC practices in the UAE. The message here for the managers is to pay more attention to such practices in the areas indicated in Table 6 with large p-values, especially those associated with innovation, accepting criticism, recognition of good work, and reward system. Part of the problem is related to the Arab culture, in which people do not accept criticism, for example. Moreover, even though most of the respondents are generally satisfied and the performance is good, better performance is expected when more positive OC practices are applied. This is ascribed to the high level of correlation between OC and performance. From the correlation table, two constructs were the most important, and they are employee engagement and commitment and capability, and innovationsupportive orientation. This means innovation-supportive orientation takes its importance from the high level of correlation with performance, and the lower degree of implementation in the UAE, and it, therefore, affects the performance negatively.

Conclusion
This study investigates the relationship between OC and the performance of the UAE organizations. OC identifiers and performance indicators were examined and identified from literature review. The identifiers and indicators were prioritized based on discussions with experts, identifying the OC identifiers and performance indicators that most of the UAE organizations give attention to. Responses were collected from employees of UAE organizations to study the constructs. The OCperformance relationship framework was developed and tested using statistical analysis. The findings show a positive relationship between organizational culture and performance. It also reveals that some OCs have a stronger relationship with performance than others, where two of them were the most important, and they are employee engagement and commitment and capability and innovationsupportive orientation. Moreover, only three OCs constructs were implemented sufficiently, while the other four constructs need more attention. It was found that UAE organizations encourage their employees to be independent, self-controlled, and feel a strong sense of ownership. However, the level of dimensions, such as accepting negative feedback, reward system, and work recognition, need more attention. Generally, the performance of organizations in the public and private sectors is the same. For example, the study also shows that in terms of employee job satisfaction in UAE organizations, there is no significant difference in the public and private sectors.
This study directs decision-makers to the areas in which more attention should be paid in the UAE organizations regarding the OC. However, it does not explain the reason why some aspects of OC are implemented with levels lower than others. Moreover, future research can show a roadmap on how to enhance those areas step by step. The framework in this study is more related to the context of the UAE. Future research in the UAE is suggested to compare two sectors such as the construction industry and the service sector using this framework. Further research is also needed in other countries, with certain adjustments to the framework. Finally, there is perhaps a difference between OC and national culture. Therefore, future research can focus on national culture and its effect on performance.