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InvestigatingOrganizational Culture: A

Comparison of a `High'- and a

`Low'-PerformingResidentialUnit for

Peoplewith IntellectualDisabilitiesElizabeth Gillett

and Biza Stenfert-Kroese

y

Psychological Services, Coventry Primary Care Trust, Sage Ward, Gulson Hospital, Gulson Road, Coventry CV1 2HR, UK,ySchool of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

Accepted for publication 25 June 2003

Background This pilot study investigates organizational

culture in small community-based residential servicesfor people with intellectual disabilities, one of the

under-researched determinants of staff behaviour and

performance. Staff performance is of primary importance

in the provision of quality services.

Materials and methods Two matched residential units

were assessed using COMPASS: A Multi-Perspective

Evaluation of Quality in Home Life, and identied as

`high' and `low' performing. The organizational culture

of the units was assessed using the Organizational

Culture Inventory in order to investigate any asso-

ciations.

Results The unit with better quality outcomes demon-

strated a more positive organizational culture overall, withstatistically signicant lower scores on three negatively

inuential cultural styles, namely, oppositional, competi-

tive and perfectionistic.

Conclusions There may well be a meaningful relationship

between organizational culture and quality outcomes,

although the nature of this relationship is far from clear.

The continuation of investigations into organizational cul-

ture is encouraged.

Keywords: organizational culture, quality of life, residen-

tial services, staff performance

Introduction

When developing quality services for people with intel-

lectual disabilities, staff performance has a primary role

(e.g. Rice & Rosen 1991; Hatton & Emerson 1995). Hastings

et al. (1995) developed a framework representing factors

that determine the behaviour of staff and highlighted

several under-researched variables, including `organiza-

tional culture', an areaof interestin organizational research.

Organizational culture has been dened as

`how things are done around here'. It is what is typical

of the organization, the habits, the prevailing atti-

tudes, the grown up pattern of accepted and expected

behaviour. Drennan (1992).

Organizational culture has captured the attention of

academics and practitioners in varying disciplines because

of its potentially profound inuence on organizational

performance. Some authors (e.g. Petty et al. 1995; Schein

1996) have described how culture can affect performance

by inuencing managerial and workforce behaviour. Stu-

dies of organizational culture have focused mainly on

business environments. However, a number of studies

have applied it to clinical settings such as residential

treatment centres for children (Sawyer & Woodlock

1995) and healthcare environments (Klingle et al. 1995).

White etal. (2003) highlighted that certain organizational

cultures can increase the users' vulnerability to abuse,

whilst Hatton et al. (1997, 1999a,b) stated that organiza-tional culture is an important feature of intellectual dis-

ability services as it is associated with staff outcomes such

as work satisfaction, turnover and reported stress. They

suggest that it can have an inuence in either buffering

against or exacerbating the effects of stressful environ-

mental factors. Hatton et al. (1997) reported that 30% of

staff working in intellectual disability services self-report

high levels of stress, and as several aspects of organizations

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inuence stress, it is important to understand these factors

alongside aspects such as the characteristics of users. High

levels of stress are implicated in poor staff performance

(e.g. observed interactions; Rose et al. 1998) and other

behaviours with negative consequences, such as absentee-

ism and turnover (Hatton et al. 1997). Clinical implicationsresulting from these behaviours include decreased quality

of life (Felce 1996), reduced continuity of care and decreas-

ing workforce skills and experience (Baumeister & Zaharia

1986).

Quality of life is often proposed as the ultimate criterion

for the assessment of service effectiveness (Perry & Felce

1995) and an important goal of services (e.g. Dagnan et al.

1996); therefore, a quality of life measure is a useful way of

quantifying the overall outcome of staff's performance.

Despite this common goal, studies have consistently

shown substantial variation in quality within service mod-

els (e.g. Hatton et al. 1995) and that houses managed by thesame organization vary in their ability to achieve specic

levels of performance (Hewson & Walker 1992). Organiza-

tional culture may be a factor that helps explain some of

these ndings. However, Hatton et al. (1999b) recognize

that there is not an empirically established link between

organizational culture and service quality as so little

research has been undertaken in this area.

This pilot study aims to explore associations between

organizational culture and quality outcomes in commu-

nity residential services for people with intellectual dis-

abilities. Accordingly, this study investigates whether

demographically comparable residential units with iden-

tied differences in users' quality of life differ on a mea-sure of organizational culture. It was hypothesized that the

residential unit with a higher quality of life for the users

would have a signicantly more positive organizational

culture.

Method

Design

This pilot cross-sectional study compared staff groups

from two residential units with analogous resourcing,

structures and demographics on a measure of organiza-tional culture.

Participants

The participants were the staff groups from two residential

units (n 7 and 8, respectively), each comprising two

community houses managed as one unit, in the same

provincial town, operated by a voluntary organization.

These units were selected on the basis of similar structures,

resourcing and demographics (see Table 1) with a clearly

identied differential in the delivery of targeted goals of

the service as measured by a quality of life instrument.

Measures

COMPASS: a multi-perspective evaluation of quality

in home life

COMPASS (Cragg & Look 1992) measures the extent to

which the lifestyles of people with intellectual disabilities

using residential services are consistent with the principles

of normalization (Wolfensberger & Glenn 1975). The areas

assessed are the `Five Accomplishments' (O'Brien & Lyle

1987), activity and competence, access to the community,

making and maintaining relationships, dignity and status,

and choice and decision making. It also encompassesindividuality (Blunden et al. 1987). COMPASS has good

inter-rater reliability, good internal reliability and an

easily interpretable factor structure, with the scores con-

verted into percentages of total possible score (Dagnan

et al. 1994).

Organizational Cultural Inventory

The Organizational Cultural Inventory (OCI; Cooke &

Lafferty 1989) presents 120 statements, which describe

behaviours and `personal styles' that are implicitly

required of members of organizations. The respondent

reads each statement and indicates on a ve-point Likertscale the extent to which people at work are expected to

behave in that way. The scores are plotted onto a circum-

plex that converts the raw scores into percentiles, and the

culture is categorized into a constructive (C), passive-

defensive (PD) or aggressive-defensive (AD) cultural style.

Xenikou & Furnham (1996) compared the four most

established measures of organizational culture (Rousseau

1990) and reported the OCI as the most internally reliable.

Cooke & Szumal (1993) found it a reliable and valid tool for

assessing organizational norms and expectations.

Procedure

Following an initial selection of residential units on the

basis of an area manager's judgement of the `best' and the

`worst' performing units in their area, a global COMPASS

prole was completed for each unit to formally operatio-

nalize `high' and `low' performance. These global COM-

PASS proles were derived by completing section 1

(interviews with users and staff) separately for each of

280 Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

# 2003 BILD Publications, Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 16, 279284


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the two houses within each unit. Section 2 (observations)and section 3 (subjective opinion of assessor) were then

completed to cover both the houses within each unit.

During individual meetings between the rst author and

staff members, the OCI was introduced and completed per

instructions. These meetings always occurred in a quiet

and condential room with no interruptions. The indivi-

dual OCI scores for staff within the same unit were com-

bined to create a global prole by calculating the mean

average.

Results

The global prole OCI scores of staff groups A and B

highlight that staff group A scores consistently better than

staff group B, with higher (or equal) scores for each of the C

styles, and lower scores for each of the PD and AD styles

(see Table 2). In order to establish whether the two units'

culture signicantly differed, MannWhitney U-tests com-

pared the three OCI overall cultural styles along with the

12 individual style scores (see Table2).

It can be seen that there is a signicant difference(P < 0.01) in the AD cultural style, with staff group B

(low performing) showing signicantly elevated levels

of this undesirable style in comparison to staff group A

(high performing). Furthermore, three of the four indivi-

dual styles making up the AD cultural style also showed

signicant differences in the same direction (P


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tunities and stafng levels (Fleming & Stenfert-Kroese

1990); and resources (Shah & Holmes 1987). However,

the residential units in this study are very similar on all

of these factors, as shown in Table 1, and are managed by

the same area manager with similar budgets and targets.

Therefore, the corresponding difference in organizational

culture may help to explain the differences in the users'

quality of life.

The low-performing staff group B were found to have

signicantly higher scores on the negatively inuential ADcultural style, and in three of the individual styles within

this category, namely: oppositional (e.g. norms of confron-

tation and criticism); competitive (e.g. norms of win

against others and compete rather than co-operate); and

perfectionistic (e.g. norms of never making a mistake and

setting unrealistically high goals). It is clear how elevated

levels of these styles within a community home for people

with intellectual disabilities could impact on quality out-

comes and continuity of care for residential service users.

The behavioural norms associated with these styles are in

direct opposition to the principles of normalization and

team working, which are perceived as being of paramountimportance. These styles also reect a task rather than a

person orientation, that is a primary concern for comple-

tion of tasks rather than of interpersonal relations and

interactions (Cooke & Burack 1989).

In addition to these directly related behavioural patterns

impacting on clinical outcomes, AD styles are also nega-

tively associated with positive organizational outcomes

such as job satisfaction, employee well-being, role clarity

and motivation (Cooke & Hartmann 1989). In terms of

well-being, staff stress is implicated as one of the many

causal factors in absenteeism and turnover (Hatton et al.

1997), although no differences in turnover or absence

gures were found between the two units in this study.

Nevertheless, staff stress can be associated with poor per-

formance in servicesfor people with intellectual disabilities

(e.g. Rose et al. 1998) and does vary within organizational

boundaries and across sectors (Blumenthal et al. 1998).

Because of the pilot nature of this study, several poten-tial threats to validity were apparent, including minimal

opportunities for statistical analyses of data and difcul-

ties accessing all of the staff employed by each unit. With

regards to the choice of measures, COMPASS focuses on

the extent to which users are leading socially valued roles

without any reference to the person's preferences. This is

opposed to Felce's (1997) model of quality of life that

highlighted the importance of integrating objective and

subjective indicators. A more recent review of quality of

life (Hensel 2001) brings into question the validity of the

concept because of its reliance on satisfaction as a sub-

jective variable. She provides evidence that satisfaction is astable psychological function over time and conditions,

possibly related to disposition, which is maintained at a

high level by a homeostatic or adaptive mechanism (e.g.

Cummins 1995). It is suggested that quality of life mea-

sures should be abandoned as a means of judging services

and therefore future larger scale research investigating

organizational culture should consider the means by

which they assess meaningful user outcomes.

Table2 Means and signicance levels for staff groups A and B on the individual and overall cultural styles of the OCI

Style

Group A (high)

Mean

Group B (low)

Mean P-value (one-tailed)

Constructive () 153 138

Achievement (11) 35 35Self actualizing (12) 33 30

Humanistic encouraging (1) 44 36

Affiliative (2) 42 34

Passive-defensive () 91 117

Approval (3) 21 29

Conventional (4) 27 34

Dependent (5) 26 33

Avoidance (6) 18 22

Aggressive-defensive () 76 101

Oppositional (7) 19 23

Power (8) 20 27

Competitive (9) 14 18

Perfectionistic (10) 22 30

P < 0.05; P


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In terms of the use of the OCI, Klingle et al. (1995)

suggested that as it does not address the users' perspec-

tive, its value as a generalizable measure of culture within

clinical settings, particularly those serving the needs of

full-time residents, is limited. In response, it has been

stated that the OCI is not designed to measure userperceptions or outcomes, rather, it measures the operating

culture of work organizations based on normative beliefs

of organizational members; accordingly, the OCI is equally

applicable to any workplace (Cooke, personal communi-

cation). Identifying alternative measures of organizational

culture that include the user perspective may provide an

interesting contrast for future research.

The aim of this paper was to explore associations

between organizational culture and quality outcomes in

residential services for people with intellectual disabilities.

Results suggest that there may well be a meaningful

relationship, although the nature of this relationship isfar from clear. These ndings support the continuation

of investigations into organizational culture, with a focus

on clinically as well as statistically signicant results, as

a relatively small but constant difference may have a

signicant impact in terms of service user and organiza-

tional outcomes. A comprehensive understanding of

organizational factors alongside clinical ones will ulti-

mately contribute to the design of an environment that

will support both staff and users living optimum quality

lifestyles.

AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank all those that assisted with this

project, especially the service users and staff of the two

residential homes.

Correspondence

Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Elizabeth

Gillett, Chartered Clinical Psychologist, Psychological Ser-

vices, Coventry Primary Care Trust, Sage Ward, Gulson

Hospital, Gulson Road, Coventry CV1 2HR, UK (Tel.:

44 24 76246270; fax: 44 24 76246269; e-mail: Liz.Gillett@

Coventrypct.nhs.uk).

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