Academic literature on the topic 'IT company Effective organizational culture'

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of organizational culture, adaptation, political environment and leadership for expatriate managers working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Expatriate leaders on overseas assignment often attempt to transfer their home organization culture to their new location. The subsequent cultural clash can have a destructive impact on both the leader and the organization. Design/methodology/approach – Expatriate leaders’ experiences in the UAE were collected through interviews, with a specific focus on cultural adaptation and most effective leadership styles for implementing strategic organizational change. Findings – Our research revealed that a consultative style was found to be most effective by expatriate leaders in the UAE. Communication with local staff, team building, motivating staff and involving staff in decision-making were highly effective approaches in assisting expatriate leaders to succeed within their organizational cultures. Several strategies have been identified based on the experiences of the expatriate leaders interviewed in our study. Practical implications – The findings offer practical advice for organizational leaders anticipating an assignment in the UAE and human resource management practitioners preparing expatriate leaders for their duties there. The authors also provide suggestions for expatriate leaders to enhance their adjustment to the organizational and political culture. Originality/value – Numerous studies have been done on organizational cultural adaptation; however, comparatively little research has been offered on practical organizational adaptation and leadership specific to the UAE.

Purpose The purpose of this case study is to investigate how a small catering company has coped with the current Covid-19 pandemic. Initial research was performed in 2014 and repeated in 2018. Given the far reaching business challenges of the pandemic, the authors examined the viability of the organization within the current climate. Design/methodology/approach Embedded organizational components of culture, leadership and engagement are explored as key elements in the sustainability of the company during the pandemic crisis. Prior research data using the organizational culture inventory is used to assess organizational culture over a four-year period. Employee data and interview analysis within company structure is used to determine how leadership and employee engagement is impacted. Culture research is examined to determine the influence of company culture upon organizational survival. Findings This paper identifies workplace culture elements that contribute to company sustainability. Embedded core value systems, strong employee engagement mechanisms and focused leadership styles were observed to be critical influences upon company survival during the pandemic. Originality/value This research would assist industry professionals and practitioners in understanding the active workplace culture mechanisms found to be effective for organizational survival during periods of crisis. Companies that adopt similar practices may acquire sustainability advantage during the pandemic.

This case study describes the problems faced by Muhibbah Engineering (M) Bhd group of companies (Malaysia) due to the poor performance of it’s service departments. This case was identified as a result of declining organizational performance of the company from the starting of year 2011 to early 2013. The main issues are declining profits (losses), delay in completing projects, customer complaints, skill depletion and poor organizational culture in the group besides other associated issues. The data related to the problems &issues are collected through personal discussions with the Project Directors of the company, company’s financial reports, financial research reports related to the company and through company’s website articles. The analysis is done on the inputs based on proven management concepts and theories such as leadership styles, organizational culture, span of control, performance management, human behavior and so on. The steps taken to mitigate the problems and the solutions are identifed through the changes made in the company through strategic interventions. The outcomes of each of the major interventions are recorded in this case study for the readers to understand and experiment them in similar and or different situations as the outcomes are positive and proven to be effective.

Organizational culture and learning organizations are the major topics of discussion in corporate world. It is well realized that to become learning Organization is to agree a set of attitudes, values and practices that support the process of constant learning within the organization. A learning culture can be developed in an Organization only when the top management and executive is committed and deeply involved. “Learning Culture” should be a Corporate Goal and stated at the highest level of objectives in order that it is cascaded down to the organizations employees and becomes a part of every employee’s personal, annual goals. It is necessary to establish the relation between culture, learning climate and strategic performance, in order to provide effective direction to the modern organizations. A study has been initiated to analyze the organization culture and organization learning effects toward the Competitive Strategy and Company Performance From the 615 Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in East Javas population, the sample are 143 from the three biggest cities in East Java Indonesia (Surabaya, Malang and Kediri) as the location of this research. This research conducted to apply the Explanatory Research with the Organizational Culture, Organizational Learning, Competitive Strategy and Company Strategy as a Research Variables. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was the appropriate tool to examine and to analyze the data. The results of this research showed that Organization Culture has significant effect towards company Competitive Strategy, Organization Learning has significant effect towards Competitive Strategy, but it did not have significant effect towards Company Performance. Moreover, Competitive Strategy has a significance effect towards Company Performance.

In today's complex organizations, IT governance is an important managerial challenge. IT governance deals with decisions and responsibilities concerning IT. There are many factors influencing IT governance. One factor that has remained relatively unexplored by academic research is that of organizational culture. This research explores the influence of the organizational culture of collaborative networks on IT governance performance. A case study was conducted in a large complex company with several networks. The findings indicated that the networks fit better with different organizational culture types based on their priorities for IT governance outcomes to maximize performance. A clan organizational culture is desired when aiming for effective use of IT for asset utilization and cost-effective use of IT. An adhocracy culture fits better when prioritizing the effective use of IT for business growth. Finally, a combination of market and hierarchy organizational culture is desired and fits better when seeking effective use of IT for business flexibility and cost cutting.

The study attempts to explore organizational culture as a set of beliefs, habits, values, attitudes, traditions, etc. among individuals and groups within any organization. In particular, it is noted that the notion of organizational culture is widely used in a business context. The way organizational culture is expressed has underpinned much of social sciences research and gained particular importance in the mid-20th century when some scholars in the field of management and organizational behavior had started actively advocating the benefits of promoting organizational culture. Thus, the research on a human aspect and human relationships in company management was previously part of sociology focus and from this perspective could be regarded as a predecessor of organizational culture. It is argued that adequate and precise identification of values, basic norms of conduct and employment procedures to be adhered to by all company employees will translate into specific organizational framework which contributes to shaping organizational culture and has dramatic impact on the way employees perceive management decisions. Individual behavior of each employee directly depends on relationships, communication and interaction they have with the rest of the group members. Hence, organizational culture can develop and improve employee capabilities on the one hand, and limit them on the other, especially when a company fails to build clear and effective corporate culture. This study views organizational culture as a set of paradigms which are formed during the organisation’s life cycle through the interaction between its members with internal structural units, strategies, systems and processes, and between the organization and its environment. This interaction suggests certain messages and links which will be valid as far as they ensure the organization’s efficiency, effectiveness and performance. The paper also describes the relationship between culture and a company strategy. A set of principles, values and beliefs shared by all employees, together with a company hierarchical structure, management levels, control mechanisms and effectiveness management tools ultimately shape the fundamental rules of employee conduct and working arrangements and indicate the focus of organisation’s strategy.

The purpose of this article is to establish the relation between the level of employee’s satisfaction and the achieved digitalization level of the company. At the same time, job satisfaction is considered as an important factor in the formation and development of corporate culture. The authors analyze a problem of decreasing the level of job satisfaction in the context of internal organizational changes occurring in the company as part of its digital transformation. The problem is that the creative component and motivational attitudes of employees decrease with the increasing use of modern information technology tools. In the context of digitalization, the development of an effective strategy for interaction between the company's top management and its employees is largely subject to the following chain of criteria: the automation level of business processes – the degree of satisfaction with working conditions by the staff – in the corporate culture of the company.

Leadership performances develops closely connected to the institutional behaviour and societal culture given the permanent trends to implement changes to update standards according to existing norms and rigors existing in any company. The styles adopted in managing or leading the activities influences the tasks’ achievement, the future path to take and the way success is understood, accepted, shared and disseminated. Nowadays, companies face compulsory the influences of more cultures, given the temptation of delocalisation, the curiosity of working with immigrants, the advantages provided in different situations of accepting a higher exposure of leader to different sides of performance, different dimensions of market and financial profits, new behaviours in managing the employees. Starting from this idea, the purpose of this study is to identify and enquire into the hidden dimensions of organizational culture and how the leadership style impacts the strategic developing and let effective relations spring out.The research is built on a survey based on designed questioner applied to 550 leaders and employees, members of the operation and Maintenance Company of MAPNA (Q&M) in Iran. Data collected refers to MLQ leadership style and Denison's Organizational Culture Questionnaire, and the responses received were analysed with SPSS and Smart Plus software. The findings reveal that the relationship between the leadership style and the organizational culture are strongly linked to each other. Therefore, those leaders able to change and accept to use a transformational style will assist the company to move forward faster that those who adopt and keep the transactional style as the single one to prove important.

This study aims to examine the impact of organizational environment (top management support, company-wide support, business process reengineering, effective project management, and organizational culture) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor environment (ERP vendor support) on ERP perceived benefits. In order to achieve the study’s aim, a questionnaire was developed based on the extant literature to collect relevant data from the research informants. The population for this research consisted of all users of Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains (a typical type of enterprise system), which is frequently used in Jordanian companies in Amman City. A random sample of 30% of the research population was selected. The results revealed that business process reengineering, effective project management, company-wide support, and organizational culture have a positive correlation with ERP perceived benefits, whereas top management support does not. In addition, there is a significant positive correlation between vendor support and ERP perceived benefits. Academic and practical recommendations are provided.

The conducted study focused on a multinational ITC (Information Technology and Communications) company. Empirical research aimed to evaluate organizational culture based on Denison’s model through four features: capacity development, basic values, customer orientation, and goals and objectives. At the same time, the study analyzed service provided to customers, taking into account its three phases: pre-transaction, transaction, and post-transaction. As research methods, we used a questionnaire-based survey and direct observation. The results of the study demonstrate that the company has a strong culture based on an adequate core value system (shared by company members), innovative and effective human capital management practices, and customer orientation. All characteristics ensure the integration of sustainability principles into strategies, policies, and management practices of the company. At the same time, the authors develop a design and analysis model of the impact of organizational culture features on customer service effectiveness, highlighting that the four organizational culture features are good predictors for improving customer service effectiveness, which promotes an ethical business model and sustainable pursuit of economic, social and environmental performance. The study identified a set of good management practices and solutions in the design, operationalization, and monitoring of customer service.

Bakgrund: Distansarbete som under de senaste åren har blivit allt mer vanligt innebär enannan typ av arbetssätt, vilket påverkar organisationens kultur. Varje organisation har en egen kultur, där ledaren har en viktig roll i att influera medarbetarna. Om kulturen är effektiv kan organisationen uppnå fördelar som ökad effektivitet och positiva resultat, både ekonomiska och gällande medarbetarna välmående. Det är därför viktigt att ledarskapet anpassas för att upprätthålla en effektiv organisationskultur, när arbetet går från en fysisk arbetsplats till distans. Då kunskapsintensiva organisationer har en teknisk vana som möjliggör att distansarbete fungerar, valdes ett IT-företag ut som studiens undersökningsobjekt. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att få en djupare kunskap om hur chefer och medarbetare på IT-företag upplever att distansarbetet har påverkat ledarskapet och deras organisationskultur. Teoretisk referensram: Studien utgår från tre huvudområden, kunskapsintensiva organisationer vilket är kontexten, ledarskap på distans och effektiv organisationskultur. Alla tre områden beskriver vikten av ledarskap och olika typer av ledarskapsförmågor inom de tre huvudområdena. Metod: Studien utgår från en fallstudiedesign där det empiriska materialet samlades in genom både en kvalitativ och kvantitativ undersökning, vilket utgör en triangulering. Den kvalitativa undersökningen har gjorts i form av intervjuer med chefer inom ett IT-företag, och den kvantitativa undersökningen genomfördes via en enkätundersökning med medarbetarna till de intervjuade cheferna. Slutsats: Ledarskapet påverkas av distansarbete i form av att ledaren inte längre kan läsa av stämningen på samma sätt, vilket leder till att det är svårare att stötta medarbetarna och se deras välmående. Ledarskapet måste därför förändras på distans, bli mer tydligt och ha tydligare kommunikation. Bristen på den sociala interaktionen bidrar även till att ledarens roll blir allt viktigare för att upprätthålla en effektiv organisationskultur, vilket kräver starka relationer och att vara en god förebild.
Background: Distance work, which in recent years has become increasingly common, involves a different type of way of working, which has affected the organizational culture. Each organization has its own culture, in which the leader has an important role in influencing the employees. If the culture is effective, the organization has the possibility to achieve benefits such as increased efficiency and positive results, both financially and the wellbeing of the employees. Therefore, it is important to adapt the leadership to maintain an effective organizational culture when work shifts from the physical workplace to working on distance. Since knowledge-intensive organizations have a technical experience which makes distance work possible, an IT-company was selected as the study's research object. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to gain a deeper knowledge of how managers and employees in IT companies experience how working on distance has affected the leadership and their organizational culture. Theory: The study is based on three main areas, knowledge-intensive organizations which is the context, distance leadership and effective organizational culture. All three areas describe the importance of leadership and different types of leadership abilities, within the three main areas. Method: The study is based on a case study design, where the empirical material was collected through both a qualitative and quantitative study, which constitutes a triangulation. The qualitative study was conducted in the form of interviews with managers in an IT company, and the quantitative study was conducted through a questionnaire survey with the employees of the interviewed managers. Conclusion: The leadership is affected by distance work when the leader can no longer read the atmosphere in the same way, which leads to it being more difficult to support employees and their well-being. The leadership must therefore change when on distance, to become clearer and to have clearer communication. The lack of social interaction also contributes to6the role of the leader becoming increasingly important to maintain an effective organizational culture, which requires strong relationships and being a good role model.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2000.
Also available online on DSpace at MIT.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55).
The concept of dispersed teams is widely applied in industry today. This thesis explores the experience of one remotely located team of a U.S. based multinational in the automotive industry based in Japan. It begins by reviewing the literature on the subject, followed by a general discussion of the concept of organizational culture change and the impact of national culture differences in working globally dispersed. The automotive team that is the basis for this study is successful in the marketplace but sometimes faces conflicts working with the Headquarter and other business units in its efforts to meet the specific requirements of the Japanese market. The differences in priorities and business practices often serve to cause the members in the Japan based remote team to feel isolated and misunderstood in their role as the "front-line" soldiers" with a defined mission of growing the Japanese market. What emerges from the study is the fact that a major culture change in the home organization coupled with diverse cultural differences between Japan and the U.S. makes it difficult for the entire organization to move in sync with the shared visions of the senior management as quickly as necessary in the fast changing marketplace. Although the directions are clear and the future path seem rational, entrenched ways of doing business caused by old habits and existing systems seem to get in the way. There also appears to be no fast and clear-cut solutions to this dilemma. It takes more time to build trust, develop a shared vision and mitigate the cultural gulfs that are inevitable. For management, it means greater efforts to communicate about where the organization needs to move and resolving differences in perceptions between the remote team and the home organizations.
by John Lee.
M.B.A.

The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between organizational culture and organizational performance in a manufacturing company. This company supplies metal products to the motor vehicle manufacturing industry, where the quality and quantity of parts produced is of paramount importance, since the buyers of these products are quality conscious. The organization has three production shifts that rotate each week. Anecdotal observations are that irrespective of the time that a shift operates over the course of the month, the different shifts tend to perform at different levels in terms of quality and quantity of output. This study therefore sought to investigate if these differences between shifts are statistically significant, and if so, whether these shifts also have differences in organizational culture. Components of organizational culture include values, norms, beliefs, attitudes, principles and expectations that give the organization a unique personality and differentiate it from other organizations. While the literature indicates that qualitative or quantitative approaches can be used in organizational culture research, this research adopted the quantitative approach, making use of the Competing Values Framework (CVF). The CVF is a four-category organizational culture typology established by Cameron and Quinn (2006). The framework is based on two dimensions: stability or flexibility of the organization, and external or internal focus. In this research, the CVF was used as a measurement tool to evaluate organizational culture. In order to determine differences in organizational culture between shifts, a survey was undertaken (N=138) which measured employee perceptions pertaining to the existing organizational culture of each of the three production shifts at the company. Secondly, differences in performance between the shifts were examined by using the performance data for a three-month period for each shift in terms of quantity and quality. This data was obtained from the management of the production process at the company. Statistical analysis was done using ANOVA to analyse the differences between the shifts. The findings indicated that the dominant existing organizational culture at the company under investigation is a clan culture. Furthermore, there is a statistically significant difference between the cultures of all the three shifts at the manufacturing company. The results also indicated that there is a statistically significant difference in the quantity and quality of production between the three shifts. In conclusion, the research indicated there are differences in culture and in performance, but given the nature of the data, it was not possible to statistically analyse the relationship between shift culture and performance. However, it is conceivable that cultural differences between shifts may be contributing to performance differences. With regards to further research, it is recommended that this research be extended to other branches of the manufacturing company in other regions, in order to determine whether there are any significant differences in culture and performance between these branches and their shifts. Research could also be extended to other South African organizations to create a sufficiently large sample of shift and/or business units, so as to be able to do statistical analysis of the relationship between culture and performance.

This thesis describes the influences of organizational culture on the success of Alibaba company. In this thesis the influence of organizational culture on the success of Alibaba is explored from 4 aspects. These four aspects include: a) the definition of organizational culture, b) the characteristics of organizational culture, c) the effect of organizational culture on employees, d) the organizational culture model. This thesis uses the case study and interview to explore the relationship between the organizational culture and the success of Alibaba company. The result of the thesis is basic on the answer to the interview from the employees of Alibaba company. The author found that the reason of Alibaba becoming a successful company is its' established organizational culture based on the value of all employees. All the employees believe and trust the organizational culture and they use organizational culture to demand oneself whatever in the company or life. The organizational culture pushes the company and employees' development and growth, which is the main reason for Alibaba company to be a success.

Organizational culture is a significant driver of success for firms, especially for those considering expansion to foreign countries. The purpose of this single case study was to explore effective cultural-oriented strategies that senior business leaders use to align the organization's culture with foreign countries' cultures to improve organizational performance in foreign countries. The target population was 8 current and former senior managers of a firm operating in 16 countries. Data were collected via a mix of videoconference and face-to-face interviews and the firm's archival documents, the financial statements, the HR policy, and the internal control policy. The conceptual framework that grounded this study was Perlmutter and Hofstede's theory of cultural dimensions, including the ethnocentric, polycentric, and geocentric model. Data analysis was conducted using Yin's 5-step model, and 5 themes emerged from the data: general characteristics of the chosen organization culture, communication, adjustment to foreign environments, organizational and national cultures, and issues with employees. The implications for positive social change include the potential to enhance a firm's social responsibility and social acceptance in international markets for the benefit of the firm, its employees, and the local societies.

Mergers have been described as the most complex business process that an organisation can be faced with, requiring executives and other stakeholders to discharge the promise of a more successful merged organisation. However, several studies have highlighted the factors that led to the demise of the merged organisations. One of the often quoted and frequently blamed aspects related to merger failure has been the lack of effective post-merged organisational culture integration and alignment. Where mergers have been successful, it was attributed to a structured approach to integrating and aligning all aspects related to organisational culture thus ensuring the creation of a high performing organisation, conducive to effective performance management. The main research problem in this study centred around the identification of strategies that could be used to design an integrated model for creating a post-merged organisational culture which is conducive to effectively managing performance. To achieve this objective, the following approaches were adopted: A literature study was conducted with the view to identifying the challenges facing merged organisations in general and post-merged South African Higher Education institutions in particular. The researcher also conducted interviews with senior HR practitioner at the institutions participating in this study to gain insights into their experiences of performance within their merged institutions. The institutions involved in this study were Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT and Durban University of Technology (DUT). The insights gleaned from these interviews were incorporated into the survey questionnaire. The literature study also concerned itself with the identification of strategies that merged organisations could use in its pursuit of organisational culture alignment and integration. These strategies included conducting critical pre-merger assessments or due-diligence studies, adopting structured approaches to dealing with resistance to change, employee engagement, the design, implementation and communication of monitoring and evaluation of merger success measures as well as several other moderating variables referred to in figure 1.2. In terms of sub-problem six of the study, the findings of sub-problems one, two and five were used to develop an eight-step integrated theoretical model to create an organisational culture conducive to effective performance management in a post-merged environment. The model served as a basis for the design of a survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was used to ascertain the extent to which respondents from the three participating institutions (NMMU, CPUT and DUT), perceived the various strategies as being important in establishing a post-merged organisational culture conducive to effective performance management. The results that emerged from the empirical study showed a strong concurrence with the strategies identified in the literature study and included in the integrated theoretical model. The quantitative and qualitative results from the empirical study where incorporated into the integrated theoretical model, which lead to a refined Eight-Step Integrated Post-merged Organisational Culture Creation Model as depicted in Figure 7.1 with associated details in Figure 7.2.

Despite 40 years of research, little is known about what moderates the relationship between organizational culture and company financial performance. This quantitative study examined if innovation moderates the relationship between an organization's culture, as measured by the Denison Organizational Culture Survey, and a company's financial performance, as indicated by return on assets (ROA). Understanding if innovation moderates the relationship between organizational culture and ROA could help business leaders foster a culture that maximizes financial performance. Lewin's field theory was the theoretical foundation explaining organizational culture. Denison Consulting provided the archival dataset, which included organizational culture scores and ROA data for 104 publically traded companies. Companies were classified into 5 innovation quintiles. Pearson's correlation, ANOVA, and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that ROA did not correlate with Denison's organizational culture dimensions of adaptability, mission, consistency, and involvement; the second highest and second lowest innovation quintiles had greater ROA at high levels of mission and consistency as compared to low levels of mission and consistency; and innovation moderated the relationship between organizational culture and ROA. Enabling companies to maximize their financial performance by adjusting their organizational culture in relationship to their innovation strategies could enable the creation of cutting-edge products and services, thereby generating positive social change.

Background:  Organizational culture is one of the most prominent topics in academia and has gained its status due to the transferability from academia into managerial practice. Today, organizational culture has become an institutionalized topic and scholars call for a need to revive the topic (Chatman & O'Reilly, 2016). Inconsistency with organizational culture and organizational vision, external market pressure and a changing composition of the workforce ask to adapt organizational culture to current times. Research question: How is culture formulated and the evolution of cultural values interpreted in the work life of a company with a cultural focus? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe how a multinational company with a strong focus on the management of culture and values re-interprets their core cultural values in the face of modernization and internationalization. At the same time, the preservation of the cultural core is investigated by looking at how culture is expressed at the case company. Method: The research design of this study is a qualitative case study with the collection of empirical data through interviews, observations, and organizational documents. Abductive reasoning was employed to serve the exploratory layout of the study. A constructivist ontological and interpretivist epistemological position was taken. Quality criteria, relevant for qualitative research studies were considered. Conclusion: The findings of my study show that organizational culture change and preservation ask for a differentiated point of view between promoted modification in cultural content such as formalized communication, and the degree of modification in cultural consensus, behavior and intensity of expression.The data shows a dissonance between communicated and exhibited change, where behavior does not meet the stage of textualized modification. The organizational culture at IKEA is characterized by stability and persistence with a notion of ethnocentricity. It is still expressed and experienced in the same way that it has been for many years despite attempts to reinvigorate it.

Attention to safety and health are of ever-increasing priority to industrial organizations. Good Safety is demanded by stockholders, employees, and the community while increasing injury costs provide additional motivation for safety and health excellence. Safety has always been a strong corporate value of DuPont and a vital part of its culture. As a result, DuPont has become a benchmark in safety and health performance. Since 1990, DuPont has re-engineered itself to meet global competition and address future vision. In the new re-engineered organizational structures, DuPont has also had to re-engineer its safety management systems. A special Discovery Team was chartered by DuPont senior management to determine the “best practices’ for safety and health being used in DuPont best-performing sites. A summary of the findings is presented, and five of the practices are discussed. Excellence in safety and health management is more important today than ever. Public awareness, federal and state regulations, and enlightened management have resulted in a widespread conviction that all employees have the right to work in an environment that will not adversely affect their safety and health. In DuPont, we believe that excellence in safety and health is necessary to achieve global competitiveness, maintain employee loyalty, and be an accepted member of the communities in which we make, handle, use, and transport products. Safety can also be the “catalyst” to achieving excellence in other important business parameters. The organizational and communication skills developed by management, individuals, and teams in safety can be directly applied to other company initiatives. As we look into the 21st Century, we must also recognize that new organizational structures (flatter with empowered teams) will require new safety management techniques and systems in order to maintain continuous improvement in safety performance. Injury costs, which have risen dramatically in the past twenty years, provide another incentive for safety and health excellence. Shown in the Figure 1, injury costs have increased even after correcting for inflation. Many companies have found these costs to be an “invisible drain” on earnings and profitability. In some organizations, significant initiatives have been launched to better manage the workers’ compensation systems. We have found that the ultimate solution is to prevent injuries and incidents before they occur. A globally-respected company, DuPont is regarded as a well-managed, extremely ethical firm that is the benchmark in industrial safety performance. Like many other companies, DuPont has re-engineered itself and downsized its operations since 1985. Through these changes, we have maintained dedication to our principles and developed new techniques to manage in these organizational environments. As a diversified company, our operations involve chemical process facilities, production line operations, field activities, and sales and distribution of materials. Our customer base is almost entirely industrial and yet we still maintain a high level of consumer awareness and positive perception. The DuPont concern for safety dates back to the early 1800s and the first days of the company. In 1802 E.I. DuPont, a Frenchman, began manufacturing quality grade explosives to fill America’s growing need to build roads, clear fields, increase mining output, and protect its recently won independence. Because explosives production is such a hazardous industry, DuPont recognized and accepted the need for an effective safety effort. The building walls of the first powder mill near Wilmington, Delaware, were built three stones thick on three sides. The back remained open to the Brandywine River to direct any explosive forces away from other buildings and employees. To set the safety example, DuPont also built his home and the homes of his managers next to the powder yard. An effective safety program was a necessity. It represented the first defense against instant corporate liquidation. Safety needs more than a well-designed plant, however. In 1811, work rules were posted in the mill to guide employee work habits. Though not nearly as sophisticated as the safety standards of today, they did introduce an important basic concept — that safety must be a line management responsibility. Later, DuPont introduced an employee health program and hired a company doctor. An early step taken in 1912 was the keeping of safety statistics, approximately 60 years before the federal requirement to do so. We had a visible measure of our safety performance and were determined that we were going to improve it. When the nation entered World War I, the DuPont Company supplied 40 percent of the explosives used by the Allied Forces, more than 1.5 billion pounds. To accomplish this task, over 30,000 new employees were hired and trained to build and operate many plants. Among these facilities was the largest smokeless powder plant the world had ever seen. The new plant was producing granulated powder in a record 116 days after ground breaking. The trends on the safety performance chart reflect the problems that a large new work force can pose until the employees fully accept the company’s safety philosophy. The first arrow reflects the World War I scale-up, and the second arrow represents rapid diversification into new businesses during the 1920s. These instances of significant deterioration in safety performance reinforced DuPont’s commitment to reduce the unsafe acts that were causing 96 percent of our injuries. Only 4 percent of injuries result from unsafe conditions or equipment — the remainder result from the unsafe acts of people. This is an important concept if we are to focus our attention on reducing injuries and incidents within the work environment. World War II brought on a similar set of demands. The story was similar to World War I but the numbers were even more astonishing: one billion dollars in capital expenditures, 54 new plants, 75,000 additional employees, and 4.5 billion pounds of explosives produced — 20 percent of the volume used by the Allied Forces. Yet, the performance during the war years showed no significant deviation from the pre-war years. In 1941, the DuPont Company was 10 times safer than all industry and 9 times safer than the Chemical Industry. Management and the line organization were finally working as they should to control the real causes of injuries. Today, DuPont is about 50 times safer than US industrial safety performance averages. Comparing performance to other industries, it is interesting to note that seemingly “hazard-free” industries seem to have extraordinarily high injury rates. This is because, as DuPont has found out, performance is a function of injury prevention and safety management systems, not hazard exposure. Our success in safety results from a sound safety management philosophy. Each of the 125 DuPont facilities is responsible for its own safety program, progress, and performance. However, management at each of these facilities approaches safety from the same fundamental and sound philosophy. This philosophy can be expressed in eleven straightforward principles. The first principle is that all injuries can be prevented. That statement may seem a bit optimistic. In fact, we believe that this is a realistic goal and not just a theoretical objective. Our safety performance proves that the objective is achievable. We have plants with over 2,000 employees that have operated for over 10 years without a lost time injury. As injuries and incidents are investigated, we can always identify actions that could have prevented that incident. If we manage safety in a proactive — rather than reactive — manner, we will eliminate injuries by reducing the acts and conditions that cause them. The second principle is that management, which includes all levels through first-line supervisors, is responsible and accountable for preventing injuries. Only when senior management exerts sustained and consistent leadership in establishing safety goals, demanding accountability for safety performance and providing the necessary resources, can a safety program be effective in an industrial environment. The third principle states that, while recognizing management responsibility, it takes the combined energy of the entire organization to reach sustained, continuous improvement in safety and health performance. Creating an environment in which employees feel ownership for the safety effort and make significant contributions is an essential task for management, and one that needs deliberate and ongoing attention. The fourth principle is a corollary to the first principle that all injuries are preventable. It holds that all operating exposures that may result in injuries or illnesses can be controlled. No matter what the exposure, an effective safeguard can be provided. It is preferable, of course, to eliminate sources of danger, but when this is not reasonable or practical, supervision must specify measures such as special training, safety devices, and protective clothing. Our fifth safety principle states that safety is a condition of employment. Conscientious assumption of safety responsibility is required from all employees from their first day on the job. Each employee must be convinced that he or she has a responsibility for working safely. The sixth safety principle: Employees must be trained to work safely. We have found that an awareness for safety does not come naturally and that people have to be trained to work safely. With effective training programs to teach, motivate, and sustain safety knowledge, all injuries and illnesses can be eliminated. Our seventh principle holds that management must audit performance on the workplace to assess safety program success. Comprehensive inspections of both facilities and programs not only confirm their effectiveness in achieving the desired performance, but also detect specific problems and help to identify weaknesses in the safety effort. The Company’s eighth principle states that all deficiencies must be corrected promptly. Without prompt action, risk of injuries will increase and, even more important, the credibility of management’s safety efforts will suffer. Our ninth principle is a statement that off-the-job safety is an important part of the overall safety effort. We do not expect nor want employees to “turn safety on” as they come to work and “turn it off” when they go home. The company safety culture truly becomes of the individual employee’s way of thinking. The tenth principle recognizes that it’s good business to prevent injuries. Injuries cost money. However, hidden or indirect costs usually exceed the direct cost. Our last principle is the most important. Safety must be integrated as core business and personal value. There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve learned from almost 200 years of experience that 96 percent of safety incidents are directly caused by the action of people, not by faulty equipment or inadequate safety standards. But conversely, it is our people who provide the solutions to our safety problems. They are the one essential ingredient in the recipe for a safe workplace. Intelligent, trained, and motivated employees are any company’s greatest resource. Our success in safety depends upon the men and women in our plants following procedures, participating actively in training, and identifying and alerting each other and management to potential hazards. By demonstrating a real concern for each employee, management helps establish a mutual respect, and the foundation is laid for a solid safety program. This, of course, is also the foundation for good employee relations. An important lesson learned in DuPont is that the majority of injuries are caused by unsafe acts and at-risk behaviors rather than unsafe equipment or conditions. In fact, in several DuPont studies it was estimated that 96 percent of injuries are caused by unsafe acts. This was particularly revealing when considering safety audits — if audits were only focused on conditions, at best we could only prevent four percent of our injuries. By establishing management systems for safety auditing that focus on people, including audit training, techniques, and plans, all incidents are preventable. Of course, employee contribution and involvement in auditing leads to sustainability through stakeholdership in the system. Management safety audits help to make manage the “behavioral balance.” Every job and task performed at a site can do be done at-risk or safely. The essence of a good safety system ensures that safe behavior is the accepted norm amongst employees, and that it is the expected and respected way of doing things. Shifting employees norms contributes mightily to changing culture. The management safety audit provides a way to quantify these norms. DuPont safety performance has continued to improve since we began keeping records in 1911 until about 1990. In the 1990–1994 time frame, performance deteriorated as shown in the chart that follows: This increase in injuries caused great concern to senior DuPont management as well as employees. It occurred while the corporation was undergoing changes in organization. In order to sustain our technological, competitive, and business leadership positions, DuPont began re-engineering itself beginning in about 1990. New streamlined organizational structures and collaborative work processes eliminated many positions and levels of management and supervision. The total employment of the company was reduced about 25 percent during these four years. In our traditional hierarchical organization structures, every level of supervision and management knew exactly what they were expected to do with safety, and all had important roles. As many of these levels were eliminated, new systems needed to be identified for these new organizations. In early 1995, Edgar S. Woolard, DuPont Chairman, chartered a Corporate Discovery Team to look for processes that will put DuPont on a consistent path toward a goal of zero injuries and occupational illnesses. The cross-functional team used a mode of “discovery through learning” from as many DuPont employees and sites around the world. The Discovery Team fostered the rapid sharing and leveraging of “best practices” and innovative approaches being pursued at DuPont’s plants, field sites, laboratories, and office locations. In short, the team examined the company’s current state, described the future state, identified barriers between the two, and recommended key ways to overcome these barriers. After reporting back to executive management in April, 1995, the Discovery Team was realigned to help organizations implement their recommendations. The Discovery Team reconfirmed key values in DuPont — in short, that all injuries, incidents, and occupational illnesses are preventable and that safety is a source of competitive advantage. As such, the steps taken to improve safety performance also improve overall competitiveness. Senior management made this belief clear: “We will strengthen our business by making safety excellence an integral part of all business activities.” One of the key findings of the Discovery Team was the identification of the best practices used within the company, which are listed below: ▪ Felt Leadership – Management Commitment ▪ Business Integration ▪ Responsibility and Accountability ▪ Individual/Team Involvement and Influence ▪ Contractor Safety ▪ Metrics and Measurements ▪ Communications ▪ Rewards and Recognition ▪ Caring Interdependent Culture; Team-Based Work Process and Systems ▪ Performance Standards and Operating Discipline ▪ Training/Capability ▪ Technology ▪ Safety and Health Resources ▪ Management and Team Audits ▪ Deviation Investigation ▪ Risk Management and Emergency Response ▪ Process Safety ▪ Off-the-Job Safety and Health Education Attention to each of these best practices is essential to achieve sustained improvements in safety and health. The Discovery Implementation in conjunction with DuPont Safety and Environmental Management Services has developed a Safety Self-Assessment around these systems. In this presentation, we will discuss a few of these practices and learn what they mean. Paper published with permission.

Abstract How can a business develop sustainable societal relationships in a world that is often described as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous? While public expectations of companies are complicated and continuously changing, there are clear underlying trends in modern society that shape this relationship. Understanding these trends allows a company to develop the capability of proactively managing societal relationships. The findings of the study are especially relevant for industries that visibly operate in the public space and should anticipate societal resistance. This paper first describes the societal trends that shaped the way people and organizations have interacted since the Second World War. In this period increasing environmental and social awareness and assertiveness developed along three evolutionary paths: –active public discourse that continuously pushes the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable and desirable, with increasing focus on human values and space for the individual;–industry sectors and international organizations that try to preempt new societal expectations with voluntary guidelines and self-regulation; and–governments that formalize important and matured parts of the public discourse and voluntary guidelines in laws and regulations. Secondly, the authors adopt a practical model to describe how companies have struggled to keep up with this continuously evolving and dynamic societal landscape due to lack of adaptation. An increasingly defensive and reactive business approach to societal pressure has led to a low point in trust from stakeholders. To regain trust and their social license to operate companies need to take a more proactive approach to societal relationships, which require both organizational and cultural change. Finally, the authors take the example from the safety journey, where the oil and gas industry has been very successful in demonstrating that excellence in safety is both a moral obligation and good for the bottom line. The same applies to excellence in societal relationships. Using the evolutionary model of safety culture with its maturity ladder as analogue, the authors provide a practical and value-driven framework to guide companies on their organizational and cultural change journey towards effective societal relationship management.

Raytheon Six Sigma (R6Sigma) is a six-step quality management approach and culture change effort that has proven to be highly effective. It incorporates lessons learned from the earlier efforts by Motorola, Texas Instruments, Allied Signal, General Electric, and many others. Within each of these major companies, the Six Sigma approach is a reflection of the company’s unique culture and specific industry needs. However, one criticism common to most of these programs is that the change analysis and leadership tools are engaged too late in the overall process. Building upon the lessons learned by other organizations, the paper recounts the early engagement of the Six Sigma tools, coupled with direct customer involvement, on a large-scale program by the Raytheon Company: The Airborne Stand-off Radar (ASTOR) system, which is under development for the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD). Because the ASTOR program is still years from completion, this paper cannot provide detail in terms of final lessons learned or quantified results derived from the front-end application of R6Sigma on this program. The purpose of this paper is to capture the thought processes behind (and initial stages observed during) early customer involvement and the application of R6Sigma process improvement approaches at the beginning of the program.

Abstract Since the implementation of the Drilling Performance Department in late 2017, ADNOC Offshore has been able to develop a company performance-oriented culture among the drilling teams. This performance culture is reflected in 25% ILT reduction in 2018 and 12% in 2019. Furthermore, 37 NPT RCA cases were investigated and concluded in 2019, which resulted in 57 actions for tracking and closure. With 5 (five) concessions, 9 (nine) different shareholders, and 39 (thirty-nine) rigs, drilling performance management is challenging. ADNOC Offshore created a centralized Drilling Performance Team to capitalize on this diversity as an opportunity to improve the traditional drilling performance role. This paper describes the team's approach on Drilling Performance and the consecutive result. The team enhances the typical drilling performance role of Key Performance Indicator (KPI) management and reporting by adopting the Performance Opportunity Time (POT) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Process. At the same time, the Drilling Performance Team facilitates the flow of information between teams to ensure effective knowledge transfer within such a large organization. The POT concept tackles the well duration reduction through the reduction of Invisible Lost Time (ILT) and Non-Productive Time (NPT). To reduce the ILT, the team took advantage of the extensive technical background in the various drilling teams. Performance improvement initiatives were proposed by taking references from different teams within ADNOC Offshore and evaluating the application in other concession. Other approach is to compare with out-of-company references. For NPT reduction, the innovative approach was to use the HSE Root Cause Analysis (RCA) concept. This RCA process led by the Drilling Performance Team was implemented to standardize the approach and have a systematic investigation analysis. This process resulted in identifying root causes and effective corrective action plans. As per HSE, addressing the root causes of incidents would result in the most significant impact in NPT. This approach also allows an independent and more detailed look on the subjects, where commonly these tasks are done in a limited manner by drilling teams alone with their ongoing operational workload. Finally, results are communicated to the drilling organization through lessons learned portal and technical bulletins.

Aiming for zero — zero leaks, zero ruptures, zero third party damage hits, zero-harm to the public may be considered by some to be unrealistic, but it is definitely a goal worth chasing. Striving for this level of perfection is key in achieving pipeline operational excellence and avoiding operational mediocrity. Central to safe operations is a pipeline integrity management plan (IMP) that establishes processes for assessing and mitigating risk within a framework structured to ensure the long-term integrity of pipeline system assets. When properly implemented in compliance with regulation and industry practice, an IMP will reduce both the likelihood and consequences of incidents. It remains the cornerstone in the management of pipeline risk and safety performance and is critical in preventing system failures, injuries, property damage, and other serious consequences. But a sustainable process for managing risk and improving performance must go beyond relying on regulatory compliance and following generic industry practices. In this respect, too often IMPs are judged only from a compliance perspective that provides little insight into how well the IMP is being executed or whether the management systems are actually effective. Integrity management can also be examined in context of the larger corporate culture and with the specific corporate processes that impact employees’ decisions and behaviors in ways that transcend procedures printed in a manual. A culture of adherence to compliance as an ultimate goal can lead to complacency, and a company cannot achieve a zero incident level adhering only to regulations. The focus on meeting regulatory requirements should be replaced by an integrated broader view on risk management derived in part from emerging industry best practices and standards. Benchmarking against these standards can establish a performance baseline, identify opportunities for improvements, set targets, measure performance, and instill a continuous improvement process. An approach to assess the degree to which an IMP is regulatory compliant, technically adequate, implemented and effective is to apply a “Plan,” “Do,” “Check,” “Act” (PDCA) based approach. This framework, while confirming basic regulatory compliance, also allows an operator to determine the degree to which the IMP is being executed in alignment with corporate management system objectives and accepted best practice guidelines relating to the 4 P’s — “People, Process, Product and Performance.” When applied as the basis for an extra stage “E” review, this PDCA process helps determine the health and risk-reducing “effectiveness” of the IMP through application of record reviews, subject matter expertise, supporting personnel interviews, industry consensus standard benchmarking and assessment of lagging and / or leading indicators as follows: • Are the workflows required to satisfy IMP objectives and the corresponding personnel accountabilities clearly defined? • Are technical procedures in place to meet IMP objectives and satisfy IMP work flow requirements? • Are the procedures adequate, up to date and readily available to integrity management personnel? • Have the procedures been effectively implemented? • Are records indicating work flow process completion available? • Is a management of change process embedded within the procedure and work flow process? • Is there a process to receive input from personnel to provide suggestions for continuous improvement? • Is the IMP as structured and implemented in alignment with corporate management system and enterprise risk management objectives? • Is the IMP effective in reducing pipeline risk and providing a sound and defensible basis for risk-based decisions and investment planning? Traditional integrity management provides focus on assessing risks and addressing those risks through mitigation activities, while ensuring compliance with laws and regulations designed to continually improve safety. The challenge today is to go beyond determining if an IMP is simply in compliance. An effective risk management system is one where there is a strong safety culture; decisions at all levels of the organization are based on an understanding and consideration of risks; there is continuous monitoring of risk levels and adjustment of responses; and continuous improvement is embedded in the procedures and processes.