Abstract:
Edgar Schein (2004) defined culture as a “common set of values and beliefs” of the
people within an organisation. Very often, in the modern context, are companies
fighting for a differentiating factor which will afford them a competitive edge in the
market. This rings especially true for the short-term insurance industry, which is
essentially offering a product, but the service and experience for the client is a critical
part of sealing the deal. Strategy is the organisations plan of action to accomplish its
long, and short-term goals via a unique value proposition to clientele. However, in
most organisations, strategy formulation is not the problem; the difficulty is strategy
execution. Though there is a vast body of literature on the two separate subjects of
culture, and strategy execution, there is very little describing the interconnection in
the short-term insurance industry in South Africa and the influence organisational
culture has on successful strategy execution, as well as predictability.
The approach to this study was quantitative using a questionnaire, distributed
electronically, to accumulate all relevant data pertinent to organisational culture and
strategy execution. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to
analyse the 110 useable responses received, thus enabling the computation of the
Pearson’s correlation coefficient and regression coefficients. There were a total of
six (6) hypotheses; from the analyses executed there were five (5) cases of partial
association between the organisational culture dimensions with each individual
strategy execution dimension; however, in the 6th hypothesis tested, there was no
association at all, thus we failed to reject the null hypothesis in that instance. With
the partial associations for hypotheses one through 5, the correlations varied
between weak, medium and strong.
This research attempts to contribute to the current literature on organisational culture
and the interconnectedness with strategy execution. It is hoped that this work will be
of use to managers in the short-term insurance industry in South Africa.