A Conceptual Model of Organizational Culture and its Implications in the Service Sector

Abstract

The increasingly global competition in all productive sectors – including the service sector – has forced companies to adjust their organizational processes to incorporate a customer experience approach. This adjustment implies the need for modifications to certain internal organizational factors, such as organizational culture, values and beliefs, in order to survive. This research proposes that – besides other factors – organizational culture type and the level of cus- tomer orientation can account for a considerable portion of a company’s success or failure. Therefore, the objective of this conceptual paper is to propose a model that determines which type of organizational culture (clan, hierarchi- cal, adhocracy, or market) facilitates a greater degree of customer orientation. Specifically, this research proposes that a market type of organizational culture will have greater customer orientation than the other classifications of organi- zational culture and that a higher degree of customer orientation fosters employee satisfaction, which can have a pos- itive impact on customer satisfaction.