Research Project: Organization Culture and Job Satisfaction at Matalan

This research project examines the impact of organizational culture on employee job satisfaction, focusing on the Matalan store. The report begins with an introduction, outlining the research aim, objectives, and a literature review that explores the concepts of organizational culture and job satisfaction, highlighting their interconnectedness and the factors influencing them. The methodology section details the research philosophy, approach, design, data collection methods (primary and secondary, including surveys), and data analysis techniques. Ethical considerations, such as obtaining consent and ensuring confidentiality, are also addressed. The report then presents a detailed literature review, delving into the elements of organizational culture and factors affecting job satisfaction, including the relationship between culture and employee contentment. The final chapters present the findings, conclusions, and recommendations, suggesting ways to enhance job satisfaction through organizational culture, and identifying areas for future research. The report emphasizes the importance of a positive work environment and its effect on employee performance and retention within the retail sector.

Research Project

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1
1.1 Research project description..................................................................................................1
1.2 Research aim and objectives..................................................................................................2
1.3 Literature review....................................................................................................................2
1.4 Research methodology...........................................................................................................4
1.5 Structure of the project..........................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................5
2.1 introduction............................................................................................................................5
2.2 Elements of organizational culture........................................................................................6
2.3 Factors affecting job satisfaction...........................................................................................8
2.4 Relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction.........................................9
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY.................................................................................................10
3.1 Methodology, methods and techniques...............................................................................10
3.2 sampling...............................................................................................................................11
3.3 Data collection.....................................................................................................................11
3.4 Ethical considerations..........................................................................................................12
CHAPTER 4: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS............................................................12
CHAPTER 5- CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION.....................................................25
5.1 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................25
5.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................25
5.3 Areas for further study.........................................................................................................25
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................26

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
Research title: Impact of organization culture on employee job satisfaction: a study on
MATALAN store
1.1 Research project description
Background
Organization culture comprises of a system of shared values, beliefs and assumptions
governing the behaviour of people in an organization. According to Ferguson and Reio, (2010),
through the system of shared values, organization culture strongly influences the employees
within an organization. The culture of every organization is unique which acts as a boundary and
guideline for the behaviour of employees. Lowe, (2017) asserted that different cultures influence
the employees in different ways. The culture of an organization impacts professional lives of
employees by providing them a sense of identity. It creates a shared sense of responsibility
among the employees whereby they are able to relate themselves to the job as well as with the
colleagues. Job satisfaction is another important concept that need to be considered by the
organizations. It is concerned the extent to which an employee is content with his or her own job.
Job satisfaction depends on a number of factors which organizations need to consider in order to
keep their employee satisfied (Halepota and Shah, 2011). As work is an important aspect and
majority of the time is spent by an employee at his workplace, it is important determine job
satisfaction and factors impacting it.
Rationale –research problem
Organizations are highly concerned about the satisfaction of their employees. The
MATALAN store is a British fashion and home ware retailer that is known for its range of
products and superior service (About Matalan, 2017). In order to maintain its service standards,
the store needs to take into account all the important factors. Job satisfaction and organizational
culture are two such important factors (Antoncic and Antoncic, 2011). In the present time, fierce
competition in the retail industry is a serious concern for MATALAN store where the
competitors are striving their best to deliver highest quality customer service and increase their
customer base. This creates a critical situation for already existing organizations to not only
survive in the competition but also retain its customers. As customer service is one of the aspect
on which the performance of a retailer depends, it is required for MATALAN store to keep its
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employees satisfied so that they may be able to provide the best possible services to the
customers. dissatisfaction may become a serious problem for the chosen retail store and its
performance. Therefore, considering the need of employee satisfaction, the present research is
being undertaken so that the impact of organization culture on job satisfaction of employees at
MATALAN store could be explored and necessary steps could be taken towards developing a
culture that promotes the satisfaction of employees.
1.2 Research aim and objectives
Aim: To analyse the impact of organization culture on job satisfaction of employees in
MATALAN store
Objectives:
 To study the various aspects of organization culture and job satisfaction in retail industry
 To evaluate the organization culture at MATALAN store
 To analyse the impact of organization culture on the job satisfaction of employees
 To recommend ways if enhancing job satisfaction of employees through organizational
culture at MATALAN store
1.3 Literature review
According to Hogan and Coote, (2014), Organizations culture of the company can easily
affect the job satisfaction of an employee. The culture of the company represents different types
of predefined policies which instruct an employee and give direction at a workplace. Different
companies follows various plans and policies to satisfy the employee in a firm. However, in
contrast to this, as per the views of Mills, (2017), Management has a responsibility to provide
appropriate and open environment to the employee so that they can easily share their ideas and
suggestions to the management. To create good organization culture, management needs to
provide appropriate environment and policies to an employee. (Bortolotti, Boscari and Danese,
2015).
According to Fortado and Fadil (2012), MATALAN store provides open environment
and good company culture to the employee for the job satisfaction. They follow different types
of strategies and approaches to maintain employee relation in the company. Top management of
MATLAN company provides effective environment which help to maintain employee relation.
However, in contrast to this, as per the views of Choo, (2013), In the firm, All employees of the
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company has different culture, background and values so they should provide open environment
where they can easily communicate with each other. To maintain employee relation in an entity
management needs to take actions according to the employee demands (Briody, Meerwarth
Pester and Trotter, 2012).
According to Helms Mills and Mills, (2017), Organization culture of the firm can easily
affect the overall company performance and also affects the relationships of an employee. There
are different types of factors that helps to satisfy the employee needs such as salary,
environment, culture, values, practises, plans and policies. One of the factors that directly affects
the overall entity performance that is employee relation. However, in contrast to this, as per the
views of Büschgens, Bausch and Balkin, (2013), To maintain employee they need to involve
employees in decision making process which helps to increase the level of motivation and they
will give more effort to get desired goal of an entity .
According to Hogan and Coote, (2014), to satisfy employees in company management
needs to provide effective environment to them. To increase the level of job satisfaction of an
employee they need to provide efficient policies and also maintain employee relation in the
company. Organizational culture consists different factors such as beliefs, values, environment
and policies. However, in contrast to this, as per the views of Briody, Meerwarth Pester and
Trotter, (2012), management needs to provide appropriate environment and policies help to
maintain employee relation in an entity. They should follow different types of leadership styles
to manage the entire organization. Company's culture directly affects the employee relation and
also affects the firm performance overall manner (Chatman and et.al., 2014).
According to Helms Mills and Mills, (2017), organization culture provides significant
contribution to the progress of the organization. It has profound impact on the commitment and
retention of employees. Possessing a better understanding of the organization culture provides
increased satisfaction to the employees. Organization culture and its relevance to employee
satisfaction is an important issue in today’s business scenario. The relationship between culture
and job satisfaction profoundly impacts the performance of an organization. Briody, Meerwarth
Pester and Trotter, (2012) asserted that organization culture is important to be studied as it forms
the basis of employee behaviour and thus their satisfaction. The extent to which employees
perform their task well depends upon the culture that they work in.
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1.4 Research methodology
Research philosophy
For the present study on Matalan Store, positivism philosophy will be adopted. This will
assist in gaining factual information through observation and measurement.
Research approach
For the research on organization culture at Matalan Store, inductive approach would be
adopted. The reason behind adopting this approach is that it will help in making broad
generalizations on the basis of specific observations.
Research design
Research design acts as a blue print for the study (Grafton, Lillis and Mahama, 2011). In
the present research on Matalan store, exploratory research design will be used. This will assist
in exploring the problem from a new angle.
Data collection
Data collection comprises of two methods. They are primary and secondary method of
data collection (Flick, 2011). For the present research on Matalan store, both primary and
secondary methods will be used for data collection. Primary method will comprise of using
survey questionnaire for collecting data. Primary methods will be used as it will help in obtaining
relevant data to the aim of the study. Secondary data will be collected from journals, books,
online articles, blogs etc. the reason behind using secondary data is that it will assist the
researchers in understanding the subject matter in detail.
Data analysis
Data analysis is concerned with transforming the data so that it can lead to appropriate
conclusion. There are two methods of analysing data. They are qualitative and quantitative
methods (Ihantola and Kihn, 2011). For the present study, the data will be analysed by using
qualitative method. Thematic analysis technique will be used for analysing the data. Thematic
technique will help the researcher in gaining familiarity with the data. This would provide ease in
analysing the data through formation of themes.
Ethical issues
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 Prior permission: Ethical issues may arise if permission is not taken from the
participants. Therefore, the researcher will ensure that consent is obtained from the
participants, in order to prevent this issue.
 Confidentiality: The researcher might face ethical issue related to confidentiality and
anonymity. Therefore, while carrying out the study, it will be ensured that anonymity and
confidentiality of data will be maintained.
 Appropriate citation: As this study involves use of secondary data as well, it is important
that the work of others authors is properly cited. Failure to do so would lead to ethical
issues. Hence, the researcher will ensure to appropriately cite other authors’ work.
1.5 Structure of the project
The project will comprise of the following structure:
 Chapter 1- Introduction: This will outlines the specifications of project. A brief review of
literature will be provided along with aim and objectives. This chapter will also provide
details about the methodology to be used in the project.
 Chapter 2- Literature review: This chapter will critically evaluate the views of previous
researchers on the topic of the study regarding impact of organization culture on
employee job satisfaction.
 Chapter 3- Methodology: In this chapter, the details of research methods adopted for
conducting the present study on Matalan store will be provided. It will also contain
justification of the method used.
 Chapter 4- data collection and analysis: This chapter will comprises of analysis of the
collected data. It will be presented through the use of charts and tables.
 Chapter 5- Conclusion and Recommendations: The last chapter will provide conclusion
on the basis of the analysed data. Recommendations and areas for further study will also
be discussed.
CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 introduction
After introduction, the another chapter that holds an importance of organization culture
that help to increase job satisfaction of employees in a company. This chapter will concentrate on
the impact of organizational culture to job satisfaction of an employee. Information that has been
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collected from the different sources such as books, journals, and other online sources. This
chapter identifies the appropriate gaps that has been noticed in the previous chapter. In addition
to this, it helps to identify the important factors that affects the organizational culture in the
company.
2.2 Elements of organizational culture
Organizational culture is big issue in the firm and this will directly affects the overall
firm performance in a world. Firm should provide open environment to the employee so that they
can easily give their own ideas and suggestions to the management. Manager has a responsibility
to give equal respect to each employee in an entity (Choo, 2013). Organizational culture
encompasses values and the behaviour that “ effort to the identification of social and
physiological environment of the company” . Organizational culture represents the values,
beliefs and principles of an entity members in a firm. To maintain employee relation and firm
efficiency in the world they need to provide appropriate environment and cultural to an
employee. There are different types of factors and elements that affect the organizational culture
such as employee relation, environment, plans and policies. To maintain organizational culture,
management has a responsibility to provide effective policies and environment which help to
increase job satisfaction in an employee (Dextras-Gauthier, Marchand and Haines 2012).
Administration usually adjust their leadership behaviour to get the mission and objective
of an entity. It is very essential to understand the employee needs and behaviour and according to
that they should provide appropriate environment and policies to the employee. There are various
organizational culture such as clan, adhocracy, market, hierarchy cultures. Clan culture provides
friendly environment to the employee. It involves the employees in every task to get desired
objective of the firm. In the adhocracy culture, it creates dynamic and creative working
environment in the firm. It provides innovations and experiments are the appropriate bonding
material in the company. In the market culture, the employees are totally focused on the
objective of the firm. Managers provides appropriate methods sand techniques to get higher
performance in the world. Hierarchy culture provides structured environment to the employee to
achieve long term goals of the company in a world (Eversole, Venneberg and Crowder, 2012).
Elements of organizational culture
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There are different types of elements which affects the culture of the Organization. There
are different factors of OC which describes the desired state or results that the leader of the
company wish to get through the activities of the members of an entity. Some of the elements of
organizational culture as follows:
values and norms
Values and norms are essential to the company and it includes criteria, standards and
instructions that the employees of the company refer to when identifying which types of
behaviour, events and situations relating to the firm activities. They set the appropriate goal and
objective to get higher performance in a world. Values can be divided into different parts such as
one is terminal and another one is instrumental. The terminal value is desired sand specific that
the employees seek to get for the firm. Basically the terminal values include different thing or
factors such as roles and responsibilities, plans and policies, reliability, economy and equality
(Fortado and Fadil, 2012).
The instrumental values are determines the standard rules of the process and training and
other socialized contribution. Manager provides good training the employee so that they can
easily innovate a product in the company. It helps to get higher performance and productivity in
a market (Büschgens, Bausch and Balkin, 2013).
Norms can be defined as a behaviour and style of an employee in the firm. It provides
training and development to the company instrumental values. Basically, norms is the agreement
between the employees engaged in activities regarding to the manner in which they will easily
interact with each other (Helms Mills and Mills, 2017).
Cultural forms
Cultural forms includes different types of elements such as stories, rites, company
language etc. these all are the elements of the cultural form which help to maintain employee and
also maintain organizational culture in the firm. Manager and a leader has a responsibility to
provide to take appropriate decisions based on the employee needs. The manager discusses the
values and norms to the management to generate efficient agreement for an employee. It can also
create an appropriate bond between the employees in the organization. They create effective
policies for the employee to maintain employee relation and give more job satisfaction to the
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employee. It creates effective agreement to the employees to maintain employee relation in a
company.
Stories
Organization shares the story about a firm to the employee such as founder of the
company, as a way to explain the cultural norms, values and forms. Manager and a leader
provide appropriate information to an employee by using the different types of methods of
communication. It uses narrative based events and presentations about an entity story. To
understand the history about the company employees can easily get the desired objectives
(Hogan and Coote, 2014).
Organizational language
Organizational language is most important element of organizational culture. An
employee uses different types of languages to communicate with each other. Clues related to the
communication language can be easily found in the documents that is produced by the company
including job description, form letters training manuals and another communication from the
senior management. Different companies customized their technical words that allow to the
employees can quickly communicate to the other employees to solve an operational barrier in the
company.
Routines and rituals
Routine work can be done on the regularly basis and in the same way every time.
Employees schedule the daily work and solve the appropriate problem discuss with the
management. Rituals are that in which company conducts the meetings for the purpose for the
new enterprise development. They also decide the promotional strategies and approaches which
help to increase overall company performance in the world.
2.3 Factors affecting job satisfaction
There are different types of factors that affect the job satisfaction in the company such as
working condition, opportunities for the advancement, stress level, relationship with the
management, financial rewards, environment etc. these all are the factors that affects the
organizational culture in a firm. To maintain employee relation in an entity they need to provide
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plans, policies and open environment to the employee so that they can easily get the desired goal.
Management role is to enhancing employee job satisfaction is to ensure the working environment
is positive, and also they should have appropriate resources which help to produce innovative
products in a world (Mills, 2017).
Manager should provide appropriate environment and policies which helps to maintain
employee relation in the firm. Environment is the most important factor that affects the company
culture. Each employee has different types of preferences at the workplace. The manager has a
responsibility to provide effective and efficient environment to the employee based on their
needs.
2.4 Relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction
There are different types of organizational culture which help to provide efficient
environment to the employee so that they can easily increase job satisfaction in a company.
Different companies follows different types of organizational culture which have different
characteristics and functionalities to reduce a problem of job satisfaction. There are various
organizational culture which has different characteristics to maintain relationship with the
employees. MATALAN uses four types of organizational culture which is clan, adhorarcy,
market and hierarchy culture.
Market culture mainly creates the condition for the satisfaction of affirmation needs in an
employee. It creates effective working environment to an employee so that they give their ideas
and opinion for the specific issue. Hierarchy culture gives the satisfaction of cooperation and the
security needs of the employee. Clan culture provides the satisfaction of respect needs. They
create a friendly work environment in an entity. All organizational culture gives higher job
satisfaction an employee in the company. There are different types of organizational culture in
the world and all they have interrelationship with the job satisfaction. These culture of the
company provides effective and open environment the employee so that they can easily give
their contribution to the work. All cultures concentrate on t involve employee in every tasks to
improve their skills. They provide friendly environment to the employee in the company to
involve them into the work. It helps to get higher performance and also helps to get desired
objective in the world. For the job satisfaction of an employee in an entity they need to provide
effective policies, plans, good working culture and open environment to the employee. It will
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give more motivation to an employee and they will give more effort to get desired objective of
the firm in the world.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Methodology, methods and techniques
Research philosophy
Research philosophy guides the way that should be used for gathering and analysing the
data pertaining to a particular phenomenon. research philosophy is of different types, namely,
positivism, interpretivism, pragmatism etc. pragmatism involves the use of mixed or multiple
methods. Positivism philosophy is based on the view that observations can help in gaining
factual knowledge (McGrath and O'Toole, 2012). In contrast to this, interpretivism is concerned
with interpretation of elements of the study by the researcher. For the present research on
Matalan store, positivism philosophy has been used. With the help of this, the role of researcher
was limited to collection and analysis of data. The selection of positivism philosophy is justified
because it helped to conduct the research in a highly structured manner. Moreover, it facilitated
the researcher to appropriately choose qualitative or quantitative methods for the study, as was
suitable.
Research approach
Research approach is the plan that the researcher follows for undertaking the various
procedures of the study. Research approaches are of two types, namely, inductive and deductive.
Inductive approach generalizes from specific observation to general conclusions. In contrast to
this, deductive approach is characterized by moving in the direction of general to specific
(Grafton, Lillis and Mahama, 2011). For the present study on organization culture, inductive
research approach was used. This was selected with the reason to enable the researcher to make
broad generalizations about impact of organization culture on job satisfaction by making specific
observation. Further, it was also used because it assisted in using data collection for exploring a
phenomenon by identifying themes and patterns.
Research design
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