A Study of the Effect of Functional Subcultures on the Performance of Hong Kong Construction Companies

As some theorists regard organizational culture as ambiguities, this study attempts to prove that ambiguities are actually the resultant overview of interacting and dissimilar functional subcultures. Therefore, study of the effect of culture on performance should focus on the subculture system instead of the illusive and probably non-existing unitary corporate culture. To this end, a consensual structural framework that effectively demarcates the boundaries of subcultures is needed. By using the Viable System Model as a structural framework for the demarcation of functional subcultures, a questionnaire survey on construction professionals in Hong Kong was conducted. Statistical analysis results indicate that corporate culture could be better understood as a system of functional subcultures that correspond to the five functions of the viable system model. It is further noted that the strength of some functional subculture variables associates differently and significantly with organizational performance.