| Abstract: | An organizational culture is a system of shared beliefs and attitudes of its
members. However, organizational culture has been an area in which
conceptual work and scholars in organizational management have provided
guidance for mangers as the culture improves its effectiveness. Every
organization is assumed to have its own culture - organizational culture,
which is hidden and difficult to identify. The purpose of this study was to to
assess and to analyze organizational culture which has been in practice at
the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in its current situation. In this study, crosssectional
descriptive survey design was used. Moreover, semi-structured
interviews of qualitative research method were employed by the researcher.
The total sample size was 60 employees drawn from the Head Office of the
Commercial Bank of Ethiopia. Structured questionnaires, interview guides,
as well as focus group discussion schedule were employed to collect primary
data from the sampled respondents, key informants and the group
discussants respectively. In addition, the secondary data were collected from
relevant, potential documents located in different resources centers,
including the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia using documentary analyses.
The quantitative data collected was analyzed manually using descriptive
statistical technique and presented as frequency distributions in terms of
frequencies and percentages In addition, the qualitative data were analyzed
using content analysis. Fifty-four percent of the respondents believed that the
Bank’s workers strongly shared its vision, and sixty-three percent of them
did not strongly share the Bank’s procedures, rules and regulations. The
majority of the study participants rated the workers’ commitment and their
involvement in the decision making process as weak, and stated lack of role
clarity in the Bank. In addition, there were lack of openness of information
flow in all directions and internal communications, transparency, openness
and fairness in making decision, accountability, consistency, as well as the
Officials did not treat everyone similarly in the Commercial Bank of
Ethiopia. However, there was strong feeling of belongingness to the group inthe Bank. Organizational celebrations were also found to be the dominant
organizational culture in the Bank. Generally, negativistic cultural values
(such as strong subjectivity, highly centralized values, weak working
relationships and mistrust) among colleagues were found in the Commercial
Bank of Ethiopia. The dominant organizational culture in the current
situation of the CBE is composed of organizational directions, like shared
vision, strategies and policies, clarity of objectives, shared procedures, rules
and regulation were found to be slightly stronger than the rest of cultural
values considered in the study. Therefore, the General Manager of the Bank
should create awareness regarding proper organizational cultures through
various training workshops, meetings and celebrations. In addition to these,
the Bank should work with different national and international management
consultants on how to change the current organizational culture so that the
Bank may improve and develop better cultural values that may contribute to
its overall performance. By and large, the concerned Officials and
stakeholders should develop a system which brings about cultural changes in
the Bank and then these endeavor may create better working conditions
and enabling environment. |
