Assessing the relationship between strategy and organizational culture in an Iranian manufacturing industry

Abstract

Organizational culture and strategy are linked because organizational strategy can be devised by studying the organizational culture in place. In other words, organizational strategy is influenced by the culture set in the organization. Organizational culture and strategy are often part of the major contributing factors to how far a business will proceed. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and the competitive strategies in Iran-Khodro Automotive Company. The research was conducted in Iran-Khodro Automotive Company. The employees were considered as the population of the study and a questionnaire was designed for the purpose of data collection. Results show that there is a significant relationship between strategy and organizational culture. Considering a minor difference between differentiation and lower cost strategies, the company's strategies could be mentioned as a combination of the two. Furthermore, in terms of its competitive strategies, the company seems to pursue differentiation strategy rather than focus strategy. In addition, analysis of the company’s organizational culture characteristics demonstrates that some of these characteristics are not in coordination with company's strategies in specific cases in the Company.