Borneo Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities
DOI: https://doi.org/10.35370/bjssh.2020.2.2-02
e-ISSN: 2682-8235
© 2018, UCTS Publisher.
Submitted: 23 September 2020 Accepted: 18 November 2020 Published: 31 December 2020
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Organizational Culture and Job Performance in Microfinance Firms:
A Study of Yangon
Nu Nu Lwin
Department of Management Studies
Yangon University of Economics
Corresponding author: nnlwin.yue@yueco.edu.mm
Abstract
With the growing competition among local and foreign microfinance institutions (MFIs),
local microfinance firms have been struggling to retain their position through sustaining
organizational performance. Since the organizational performance is the collective
results of the employees’ job performance which is largely determined by organizational
culture of respective organization. Accordingly, this study is an attempt to observe the
role of organization culture in improving job performance of employees in microfinance
firms in Myanmar. The study is conducted based on the responses of 160 staff who are
working in selected eight microfinance firms in Yangon. This study applies two-stage
random sampling method in which eight microfinance firms are randomly chosen among
84 microfinance firms in Yangon and 20 staff from each microfinance firm are randomly
selected as the respondent. The data are collected from altogether 160 selected
respondents with structured questionnaire during December 2019. The results of the
study reveal that all cultural dimensions except masculinity dimension, have significant
effects on both types of employees’ job performance of the MFIs, in which power
distance is the major influencing factor on task performance whereas collectivism has
the largest effect on contextual performance of the employees. Uncertainty avoidance is
the second largest influencing factors on both task performance and contextual
performance. This finding reflects the precautious nature of microfinance business. This
study provides the implications for microfinance companies to design and promote
strong and healthy organizational culture with appropriate cultural dimensions that can
enhance the job performance of their employees and thereby, improve the overall
performance of microfinance firms in Myanmar.
Keywords: Job Performance, Microfinance, Organizational Culture, Power Distance,
Uncertainty Avoidance
Introduction
Nowadays, the impact of organizational culture on firm performance has been given
more attention in several areas of study. Under the context of highly contested
environment, sustaining competitive advantages of a business is largely determined by
continuous improvement of organizational performance which is the collective job
performance of its employees. In Myanmar, the enactment of Microfinance Law in 2011
has paved the way for expansion of microfinance services by allowing local and foreign
investors to establish wholly, privately-owned microfinance institutions (MFIs). Since
then, several local and foreign MFIs are entering into the market and thus, several
incumbent firms are struggling to retain their position through sustaining organizational
performance. Under such condition, to sustain organizational performance, these firms