The Forgotten Dimension: Work Culture in Plant Turnaround Maintenance of a Malaysian Petrochemical Company (original) (raw)
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Managing People in Plant Turnaround Maintenance: The Case of Three Malaysian Petrochemical Plants
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the importance of managing people within the context of plant turnaround maintenance in Malaysia. The apparent emphasis placed on this was the consequent of many failures in turnaround maintenance implementation in petrochemical industries. The 'softer' human resource concerns were too often received little attention. An investigation into issues, challenges, and problems of three large Malaysian petrochemical companies is reported. The paper highlights the extent to which the issues and challenges of managing contractors, organizing the turnaround, managing health/safety/environment, leadership, communication, resource allocation and mobilization, planning and scheduling, and work culture formed the major concerns among the people in the turnaround maintenance. The study stressed the importance of capacity building in managing behavioral aspects of the people in turnaround. However, as the samples were drawn from three petrochemical companies, it would not be valid to generalize the indings to other industries without relecting the distinctive nature of that particular industry pertaining to the management of turnaround. The study has highlighted the great inluence of people skills in managing the turnaround maintenance successfully. It provides businesses a case to justify training investments in managing people.
Safety Science, 2004
Organisational culture has become a focus of much attention in industry in general and the nuclear industry in particular. In maintenance work, the research has addressed mainly human error issues or strategic decision making and optimisation. The present study utilises the CULTURE-questionnaire that is designed to measure the different cultural aspects of complex organisations. Functioning of the questionnaire and the results obtained in a case study at a maintenance organisation of a nuclear power plant are reported in this paper. The questionnaire consisted of four instruments: measures of values, psychological job characteristics, individual perceptions and organisational core task. Three of the instruments were factor analysed and 13 summated scales were formed. The core task instrument was used in a cluster analysis to separate the respondents into groups on the basis of their orientation towards the maintenance work. Differences between the work tasks, section, age and length of service were studied. Hierarchical position in the company influenced perceptions of values. Core task orientation influenced the perception and subjective feelings towards one's organisation. Several partially overlapping subcultures were thus identified. The implications of the different work orientations for effective maintenance are discussed.
Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2005
This study aims to characterize and assess the organizational cultures of two Nordic nuclear power plant (NPP) maintenance units. The research consisted of NPP maintenance units of Forsmark (Sweden) and Olkiluoto (Finland). The study strives to anticipate the consequences of the current practices, conceptions and assumptions in the given organizations to their ability and willingness to fulfill the organizational core task. The methods utilized in the study were organizational culture and core task questionnaire (CULTURE02) and semi-structured interviews. Similarities and differences in the perceived organizational values, conceptions of one's own work, conceptions of the demands of the maintenance task and organizational practices at the maintenance units were explored. The maintenance units at Olkiluoto and Forsmark had quite different organizational cultures, but they also shared a set of dimensions such as strong personal emphasis placed on safety. The authors propose that different cultural features and organizational practices may be equally effective from the perspective of the core task. The results show that due to the complexity of the maintenance work, the case organizations tend to emphasize some aspects of the maintenance task more than others. The reliability consequences of these cultural solutions to the maintenance task are discussed. The authors propose that the organizational core task, in this case the maintenance task, should be clear for all the workers. The results give implications that this has been a challenge recently as the maintenance work has been changing. The concepts of organizational core task and organizational culture could be useful as management tools to anticipate the consequences of organizational changes. q
Propósitos y Representaciones, 2020
Today, it is necessary to learn to manage and administer organizations based on values, which is also influenced by the culture and atmosphere of the organization. No comprehensive research has been done on organizational culture and personnel values. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical framework based on the components of organizational culture and personnel values in Bandar Imam Petrochemical. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-exploratory in terms of data collection method and with the help of a questionnaire. The statistical population of this study includes all employees of Bandar-e-Imam Petrochemical with a total of 3622 people. The said value is variable between 425 and 850. Taking into account the probabilities related to the unusability of a number of completed questionnaires, a total of 620 questionnaires were randomly distributed in the desired area at different hours of the day, and finally 595 questionnaires were used as a basis for statistical analysis. (Organizational Culture Questionnaire and Personnel Values Questionnaire) was used. In this study, in order to determine the validity of the questionnaires through communication with elites (management professors) and the second-order confirmatory factor analysis model, all the proposed dimensions in this section (15 dimensions) were approved. Experts were located and the research model was approved. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used for reliability of variables and questionnaires. To analyze the research data, factor analysis and confirmation of structural equation modeling and to fit the research model, SPSS and AMOS software were used. The results show that the research model has the necessary validity and there is a positive and significant relationship between organizational culture and personnel values in Bandar Imam Petrochemical. Finally, based on the importance and purpose, suggestions are presented.
Working together, working apart: management culture in a manufacturing firm
Sociological Review, 2008
This paper presents a case study of management culture in a manufacturing organisation. Its general aim is to assess the usefulness of the concept ‘culture’ as it applies to organisations. After first establishing that the organisational members had a sense that their organisation was an unique ‘family’ the article then proceeds to argue that this ‘togetherness’ was, in many contexts, divided. Managers also had a series of conflictual orientations to other members that were partially defined by the managers organisational role but were also underwritten by assumptions about organisational history, community, biography and profession. The paper concludes by suggesting that, at this level of analysis, managers are not often an unified block with a common identity and that management culture is hence best seen as a map of oppositions and commonalities that reflects the wider culture that the organisation is a part of.
Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to determine the development of a proposed conceptual framework in exploring the relationship between leadership styles (transformational leadership and transactional leadership) and safety behavior (safety compliance and safety participation) with safety motivation as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach: The paper describes the development of proposed conceptual framework in exploring the relationship between leadership styles, safety motivation and safety behavior. Findings/highlights: There is a positive relationship between leadership styles and safety behavior meanwhile safety motivation moderates the relationship between leadership styles and safety behavior. Research limitations/implications: There is a need for additional research to empirically validate the proposed conceptual framework in the plant turnaround maintenance of petrochemical companies. Practical implications: This paper could assist the management especially the leaders and employees to have better understanding on leadership styles that can enhance employees' safety behavior. Originality: The study contributes to the asset management literature in providing an overview of the relationship between safety leadership and safety behavior with safety motivation as the moderator in new context which is plant turnaround maintenance in petrochemical industry.
Inverting the Organisational Structure from Traditional to Employee First: a Case Study Analysis
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This paper evaluates a case study to demonstrate the impact that personality constructs and sociological phenomena have on business performance, focusing in particular on the sub-issues of chain communication networks, resistance of senior management to change, and illusions of unanimity preventing senior managers from voicing their concerns to their peers. The paper aims to analyse these sub-issues through the application of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, Hofstede’s cultural dimension of Power Distance, and the sociological theories of Groupthink, Chain Network Communication Model and the Abilene Paradox. This report provides several recommendations designed to prevent the occurrence of these issues in the future. Such recommendations include a leadership workshop designed to develop change management skills, the implementation of inviting frontline employees to senior management team meetings to promote opportunities for open and fluid communication in the workplace, ...
European Journal of Business and Management, 2014
As businesses evolve, to keep ahead of competition, so do their expectations for their employee's performance. An employee is a key element of an organisation and the success or failure of the organisation depends on individual employee performance which affects positively or negatively the organisation performance at large. Every business has their own specific way of doing things, has developed norms and procedures over time and has different atmosphere and feeling and this is the organisation culture. Organisation culture adopts overtime to cope up with such dynamic changes and meet the varying demand of employee expectations and satisfaction which in turn influence the employee's performance. The study analyses the influence of organisation culture on employee's performance with a focus on Wärtsilä Limited, a private organization in Kenya. It has offered recommendations on what can be done to achieve optimum performance while adopting the right culture. The study employed a survey research design with the target population comprising of a stratified census sample of 63 members of staff from the organization at different levels. The data has been collected using questionnaires and analysed using descriptive statistics, to determine whether organisation culture really affects the employee's performance. The researcher has provided an introduction letter from the university as assurance that the information would be treated with maximum confidentiality, as reluctance to provide some personal information was an anticipated limitation of the study. Collected data was analysed using SPSS software and data represented in graphs, charts and tables for better understanding and interpretation. Since employee's job performance is one of the important factors for a business to compete in this global market, the purpose of this study is to explain and empirically test the effect of the four elements of Organisation culture namely; organisation values, organisation climate, leadership styles and work processes to the employee's performance. The results of this study suggest that managers should focus on the factors that have a significant effect on employee performance, if they want to enhance their businesses. Based on the results, this study was able to revealed that organizational values has a more significant effect to employee's job performance at Wärtsilä, than the organisation climate as is mostly assumed as a vice versa relationship. Overly a positive relationship between organisation culture and employee performance was established, however the effect diversely varied amongst the variables with work processes and systems in Wärtsilä having more effect to employees performance. The sophisticated and extensive nature of the paper would add value to organization studies discipline by providing an important qualitative perception towards organizational culture and employee performance and would initiate further discussions to create an effective framework between organizational culture and its impact on performance.
Employees’ Performance and Organisational Culture in the Utility Sector
Jurnal Intelek, 2022
The study investigated the influence of organizational culture towards employee performance at utilities sector. The purpose of the study was to analyze the relationships between factors that influence employee performance, which are employee participation, openness to communication and reward systems among employees of utilities sector. The researchers have selected the employees working at the utilities sector as the study population, which included 134 employees. A set of questionnaires has been used to collect and analyze data and distributed via Google Form to respondents. The statistical analyses were performed using version 23 of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). In order to identify the impact of organizational culture among employees at this sector, the Correlation and Multiple Regressions analyses were used. The results showed that there is a strong relationship between independent and dependent variables. The results also indicate that the three hypothe...