Organizational Culture And Strategy. How Does It Work? An Empirical Research

Why do some companies fail in their efforts to implement competitive strategies? Why do others win in implementing competitive strategies? Of course the reasons behind every fail and every win are numerous and can be related to insufficient resources, lack of information, changes in the external environment, etc. But let's say that two companies, trying to implement a competitive strategy, have the necessary resources, information and the environment is relatively calm. Although the two companies have the same opportunity in implementing the strategy, only one is successful in its efforts, while the other fails. Why? One possible answer and one of the most plausible causes behind this fail is the resistance to change. Strategies are designed to increase the company's overall performance by strengthening its capabilities and core competencies and by eliminating the inefficient activities and processes. But, this phenomenon will change the way in which things are done inside the company. This, in term, will change the culture which defines that organization. Facing this threat, employees will try to maintain things as they were, while managers are trying to implement the new strategy to gain competitive advantages. As a consequence of this conflict, the new strategy will most likely fail in its implementation, causing negative effects on the company. This article wishes to provide a theoretical and empirical view on the importance of having a dynamic organizational culture designed to sustain new strategic initiatives. To underline this importance, an empirical study was conducted on several Romanian construction companies with the intent of revealing the correlations between a supportive culture and strategy. In conducting this study the main objective was to reveal if companies characterized by a supportive and dynamic organizational culture are more likely to have a strategy formulated and implemented.