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Abstract

The study investigates the influence of organisational culture on employee retention among private universities in Ghana. From the review of literature, it appears that the issue of culture in relation to employee retention has not been given much research efforts, especially among private universities in Ghana. The study adopts Handy’s cultural model as limited efforts have been geared toward investigating the effect each of the four kinds of culture has on employee retention. Based on this, six hypotheses were developed and tested. To test for the various hypotheses, multiple regression technique was used. A total sample size of two hundred and sixty-three (263) was selected using the multistage sampling method. Findings from the study revealed that, out of the four
pillars/kinds of culture, achievement culture and support culture had significant and positive effects on retention whilst power culture had a significant and negative effects on retention. Role culture had no significant effect on employee retention. The study recommends that, in order for private universities to retain their skilled employees, authorities and policy makers should increase the extent of achievement culture and support culture and minimize the extent of power culture with no regard to role culture.

Keywords: Organisational Culture, Support Culture, Power Culture, Role Culture, Achievement Culture, Employee Retention, Private Universities, Ghana

1. Introduction
   The idea that organisations can be thought of as cultures, and that culture influences everything an organisation
   does, gained broad acceptance by managers, consultants and academics alike after the publication of Peters and
   Waterman’s (1982) ‘In Search of Excellence’ (Brown, 1998). Culture is one of the important sources of
   competitive advantage and will always be as it affects organisational behaviour and performance either
   positively or negatively (McDermott & Sexton, 1998). According to Senior and Fleming (2006), organisational
   culture will continue to remain a source of competitive advantage as it has come to embrace much of what is
   included in the hidden part of the organisation and plays an important role in enhancing or hindering the process
   of change. Organisational researchers have addressed the relationship between cultures and the functioning of
   human groups (Wilkins & Ouchi 1983; Barney, 1986; Barley, Meyer & Gash, 1988; Saffold, 1988; Ott, 1989),
   but have seldom developed explicit theories of organisational culture (Seihl & Martin, 1990). Cole (2002)
   believes that the purpose and goals of the organisation initially trigger the kind of culture that the founders or
   their successors want to see (their vision). Organisational culture has a significant effect on employee morale and
   retention. It is not just about being a good employer, but about having an employee committed to the vision,
   mission and the strategy of the organisation, and possessing the will and means to make these a reality. Effective
   corporate culture therefore engages employees at the fundamental level and translates that engagement into high
   productivity.
   Both research and practical observations of successful companies have established a direct link between strong
   corporate cultures and high employee commitment and retention (Denison, 2010; Schein, 2001). According to
   Brown (1998), the concept of organisational culture covers every aspect of an organisational life and affects
   everything an organisation does, but unfortunately has not been given the needed research effort as required.
   Looking through literature, it is evident that progress has been made in related areas such as organisational
   socialisation (Chatman, 2001; Van Maanen & Schein, 2002), organisational change (Kotter & Heskett, 2002;
   Schein, 2001), employee commitment (Hansen, 2001; Manuh, Gariba & Budu, 2007), organisational climate
   (Schneider, 2009), organisational leadership (Schein, 1992) but with few exceptions for example, O’Reilly
   (2008) suggests that little attention has been given to the issue of organisational culture in relation to retention.
   Again, one limitation of previous research is that organisational culture is regarded in general sense and little
   attention has been directed at differentiating between the different kinds of cultures within a functioning
   organisation (Hansen & Wernerfelt, 2009; Knowles, Michael, Morris, Chi-Yue, Yin-Yi & Hong, 2001).
   Private universities of Ghana which contribute greatly to the training and development of the nation’s human
   resources also face a great challenge in retaining valuable employees (Adams, 2010) and a study conducted by Price and Muller (2007) reveals that approximately 90% of academic staff usually leave one private university only to join the other. The increase in number of private universities might have come as a solution to the problem of the inability of public sector universities to admit all qualified applicants. The private sector universities however stand to lose their credibility and continuity if there is the lack of fit between their appropriate level of cultures and the values held by their employees. It is in view of these that the present study focuses on using the structural model of organisational culture developed by Harrison (1972) and modified by Handy (1985) to assess the culture of private universities in Ghana in order to determine the level of correspondence between their cultures as well as measure the influence each of the four kinds of culture has on employee retention among these private universities. The remaining parts of the study therefore capture the following: theoretical and empirical literature, methodology, data analyses, results, discussions, conclusions and implications of the study.