Organizational Culture and Employee Work Performance in the County Governments of Kenya
Purpose: With the dynamism in the service industry, organizations are increasingly looking for ways of providing quality services for sustained competitive advantage. However, little attention is paid to what enhances good service delivery in terms of good organizational culture and how it affects employee work performance. The County Governments of Kenya are constitutionally mandated to provide proximate services to the people at the grass root level. However, a large population of citizens still rates most services delivered by the county governments as average or poor. The main purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between organizational culture and employee work performance in the County Governments of Kenya guided by institutional theory. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study adopted the mixed research designs - descriptive and exploratory - and the data were collected using questionnaires with both structured and unstructured questions. Findings: The structural equation model revealed that the coefficient of primal assumptions has positive and significant relationship with employee work performance in the county governments of Kenya (β =.277, .000<0.05), coefficient of values and employee work performance (β=.205, .000<0.05), coefficient of artifacts and employee work performance in the County Governments of Kenya (β=.195, .003<0.05). The study concluded that organizational culture significantly influences employee work performance in the county governments among the three predictor variables. Practical Implications: The study recommends for the need to cultivate virtue of timeliness, work ethics, diligence, creativity in task accomplishment among workers in county governments. Originality/Value: Teamwork among employees, discipline, professionalism, competence, integrity, ethical conduct guided by accountability, transparency, and good rapport with the public are recommended for creating a strong organizational culture in the county governments of Kenya.