The Study of Relationship between Organizational Culture and Organizational Belonging in Employees of Varamin County Office of Education

The purpose of the present research is to study the relationship between organizational culture and organizational belonging among employees of Varamin County ministry of education. This is a descriptive-survey study. The statistical population is consisted of all 274 official and contract employees of ministry of education in Varamin County of Tehran province with high school diploma, associate or bachelor’s degree or higher. Sampling has been done using relative stratified method. Measurement instruments are: A) organizational culture questionnaire, and B) organizational belonging questionnaire. To assess the validity of the questionnaires the content validity method has been used. To assess their reliability, the questionnaires have been tested on samples of 30 individuals and the Cronbach’s Alpha for the questions has been calculated. Cronbach’s alpha is 0.91 for organizational culture questionnaire, and 0.85 for organizational belonging questionnaire. These values indicate high reliability for both questionnaires. The results indicate that the prominent dimension of organizational culture in Varamin administration of education is control, and that the employees have moderate organizational belonging. Study of the relationship between dimensions of organizational culture and organizational belonging reveal that there is a significant correlation between organizational belonging and variables of personal innovation, responsibility, leadership, coordination and managerial support. However, no significant correlation has been observed between the variable of control and employees’ organizational belonging. Also there is a positive correlation between organizational belonging and variables of organizational identity, reward and punishment system, opposition, and communication pattern in employees of Varamin office of education.


Introduction
Organizational culture is a set of shared concepts and values which inter-connects members of an organization.It is in fact a factor which determines how things are done.Organizational culture is an atmosphere which is instantly felt by any new-comer in the organization; and it is so powerful that un-seemingly infiltrates the conscience of the members.
Studies by Suthe suggest that culture can be an either an asset or a burden, because shared beliefs make communications easy and efficient and facilitate decision-making.Although a powerful culture can increase efficiency and productivity, it also can be ineffective if beliefs and values contradict the needs of organization, members, and founders, and hence becoming a debt or burden.A basic issue which has attracted the attention of many comparative management researchers such as Hofstede is how organizational culture affects employees' behavior.Hofstede found out that organizations are highly affected by culture.Not only does this factor affect intra-organizational behavior of the employees, it also contributes to successful transfer of organizational theories and management styles from one culture to another (Ahmadi et al., 2004).
Organizational culture should be designed and developed in a way that increases the belonging of the employees to the organization.In a situation like that, employees' satisfaction along with powerful management leads to enhancement of employees' spirit, motivation and devotion and consequently improves organizational performance and effectiveness (Ahmadi et al., 2004).
Employees of an organization with a powerful culture feel they belong to the set of organizational values and goals.Organizational belonging can be defined as employees' connection and dependence on the organization which covers the feeling of occupational involvement, loyalty, and belief in organizational values.There are three stages in organizational belonging: acceptance, conformity, and internalization.At the first step, a member acquires a satisfactory relation by accepting the influence of others over himself and thus highlighting his presence.In this stage, one feels proud of belonging to the organization.In the next stages the organizational members finds organizational values to be essentially and internally satisfying and in alignment with his own values.When the process of organizational belonging reaches its final stages, the organizational member becomes a trusted individual who would not think twice in protecting the organization.
Organizational culture should be designed and developed in a way that increases the belonging of the employees to the organization.As the organizational culture becomes stronger, more employees become familiarized with organizational objectives, accept organizational values, and feel responsible and committed toward them.In a situation like that, employees' satisfaction along with powerful management leads to enhancement of employees' spirit, motivation and devotion and consequently improves organizational performance and effectiveness (Ahmadi et al., 2004).
Organizational culture can increase employees' feeling of belonging and dependence and therefor improve organizational performance and effectiveness.It seems that understanding organizational culture and its relationship with organizational belonging in Lorestan ABFA Company is highly crucial.That is because through accurate understanding of the prominent organizational culture in ABFA Company and by determination of its characteristics and identification of its relationship with employees' organizational belonging, authorities and planners can consider these factors in their programming, and thus increase employees' organizational belonging and improve their behavior and performance by maximizing positive elements and minimizing negative elements.
According to Robbin's model, organizational culture is explained by ten features, namely creativity, risk-taking, leadership, coordination, management support, control, identity, reward system, tolerance and opposition, and communication pattern.This research first tries to identify and assess organizational culture and organizational belonging in ABFA Company, and then study the relationship between organizational belonging and the mentioned features of organizational culture.

Research Goals
Major objective: To study the relationship between organizational culture and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin County ministry of education.2) What is the extent of organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?

Minor Objectives
3) Is there a relationship between personal creativity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?4) Is there a relationship between risk-taking and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?
5) Is there a relationship between leadership and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?
6) Is there a relationship between coordination and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?7) Is there a relationship between managerial support and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?8) Is there a relationship between control and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?
9) Is there a relationship between identity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?
10) Is there a relationship between reward system and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?
11) Is there a relationship between tolerance and opposition and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?
12) Is there a relationship between communication pattern and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?

Research Method
This is a descriptive-survey study.

Statistical Population
All 274 official and contract employees of ministry of education in Varamin County of Tehran province with high school diploma, associate or bachelor's degree or higher

Sample Size, Sampling Method
To determine the sample size Cochran's formula has been used.The sample size has been determine considering 95% confidence level (α=0.05).With 95% confidence level, the z value and t value in Cochran's formula has been considered to be 1.96.The d value (acceptable margin of error) is considered 0.2 or less so that the test power would not fall under 80%.Here d value is considered to be 0.05.The values of p and q for calculation of sample's maximum size are considered to be 0.5.Using Cochran's formula, the sample size of employees has been assessed as below.
Since the population is consisted of different class of people with different levels of education, the stratified relative sampling method has been used.This means that first the share of each class in the population has been determined, and then the number of members in each class of the sample has been calculated.This way, the population is divided into sub-categories called classes, and independent sample members from each class are selected (Delavar, 2001) In order to prevent experimental mortality, the sample size has been increased.Therefor some 128 individuals have been selected as sample members.Table 2 demonstrates the size of sample in each cluster for different classes.

Measurement Instruments
In order to measure the variables of this study, the following instruments have been used.
A. Organizational culture researcher-made questionnaire which has been designed by Ghamarian in 2004.Based on Robbins' model, this questionnaire examines 10 features, namely creativity, risk-taking, leadership, coordination, management support, control, identity, reward system, tolerance and opposition, and communication pattern.
B. Organizational belonging questionnaire which has been designed by Ali Ahmadi et al.This questionnaire examines the extent of organizational belonging.

Data Analysis
In order to classify and analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistical methods along with SPSS software have been employed.

Results
How is the condition of organizational culture in Varamin ministry of education?
www.ccsenThe obtained value of chi-square with 2 degrees of freedom is 295.692 which is significant with p<0.001; therefor with 99.9 percent confidence it can be said that there is a significant difference between observed value and expected value.Therefor it is inferred that the level of organizational belonging in Varamin ministry of education is moderate.
Employees of an organization with a powerful culture feel they belong to the set of organizational values and goals.In a situation like that, employees' satisfaction along with powerful management leads to enhancement of employees' spirit, motivation and devotion and consequently improves organizational performance and effectiveness (Ahmadi et al., 2004).Organizational culture can increase employees' feeling of belonging and dependence and therefor improve organizational performance and effectiveness.
Is there a relationship between personal creativity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?
If two variables are measured on an interval or ration scale, Pearson's correlation test is used to determine the relationship between them (Sarmad et al., 2004).Based on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.542, which is significant with p<0.000, it is concluded that there is a significant correlation between personal creativity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.
This conclusion corresponds to that of Ghamarian (2004) who found out that there is a direct relationship between teachers' creativity and innovation and their participation in school's affairs.This conclusion is also in alignment with the results of the study by Sardari (2004).
Is there a relationship between risk-taking and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?Based on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.536, which is significant with p<0.001, it is concluded that there is a significant correlation between responsibility and risk-taking and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.
This result corresponds to result of the study by Ghamarian (2004) who concluded that there is a direct relationship between teachers' risk-taking and their participation in school's affairs.It is also in alignment with the results of the study by Sardari (2004).
Is there a relationship between leadership and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?Based on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.582, which is significant with p<0.001, it is inferred that there is a significant correlation between leadership and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.
This conclusion is in alignment with that of the study by Ghamarian (2004) who concluded that there is a direct relationship between managers' leadership and teachers' participation in school's affairs.It is fair to say that competent and efficient management has a great role in changing, normalizing, and improvement of organizational conditions and can provide grounds for increasing organizational belonging among employees.
The results of present study also correspond to the results of the study by Sardari in 2004.Is there a relationship between coordination (cooperation and organizational unity) and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?Based on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.614, which is significant with p<0.001, it is concluded that there is a significant correlation between coordination (cooperation and organizational unity) and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.
This conclusion corresponds to that of Ghamarian (2004) who concluded that there is a direct relationship between teachers' participation in school's affairs and their cooperation, coordination, and unity.
Is there a relationship between managerial support and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?This conclusion corresponds to result of the study by Ghamarian (2004) who concluded that there is a significant relationship between support and cooperation by managers and teachers' participation in school's affairs.This is also in alignment with the results of the study by Sardari (2004).
Is there a relationship between control and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?Based on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.603, which is significant with p<0.001, it is inferred that there is a significant correlation between organizational identity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.
This conclusion is in alignment with that of the study by Ghamarian (2004) who concluded that there is a significant relationship between identity and teachers' participation in school's affairs.The results of present study also correspond to the results of the study by Sardari in 2004.Is there a relationship between reward system and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?This corresponds to the results of the study by Ghamarian (2004) who concluded that there is a significant relationship between reward system and teachers' participation in school's affairs.This conclusion also corresponds to the results of the study by Sardari (2004).
Is there a relationship between tolerance and opposition and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?Based on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.460, which is significant with p<0.001, it is concluded that there is a significant correlation between opposition (openness to criticism) and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.This conclusion corresponds to that of Ghamarian (2004) who found out that there is a direct relationship between freedom of criticism and teachers' participation in school's affairs.This conclusion is also in alignment with the results of the study by Sardari (2004).
Is there a relationship between communication pattern and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education?Based on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.545, which is significant with p<0.001, it is inferred that there is a significant correlation between communication pattern and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.This conclusion is in alignment with that of the study by Ghamarian (2004) who concluded that there is a significant relationship between appropriate pattern and teachers' participation in school's affairs.Moreover, the results of present study also correspond to the results of the 2004 study by Sardari.

Suggestions
1) Managers and authorities in Varamin ministry of education should support their employees and accept their shortcomings and minor mistakes.
2) Through timely rewards and moral and financial support in the time of need and crisis, organizational managers should increase the employees' belonging and reliance on the organization.

Research limitations
1) The variable of organizational culture is circumstantial and affected by organizational structure; it must be noted that the results of this study apply to the conditions in Varamin ministry of education.
2) Another issue which poses a limitation is that the individuals with lower education than high school diploma were omitted from the studied population; this may affect the results in some ways.
3) Lack of similar studies on organizational culture in other organizations and administrations in the province is also another limitation of the study.
culture in ministry of education 2) The extent of organizational belonging in Varamin ministry of education To determine the relationship between: 1) Personal creativity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 2) Risk-taking and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 3) Leadership and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 4) Coordination/consistency and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 5) Managerial support and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 6) Control and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 7) Identity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 8) Communication pattern and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 9) Reward system and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 10) Tolerance and opposition and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education 3. Research Questions 1) How is the condition of organizational culture in Varamin ministry of education?

Table 1 .
. Table 1 demonstrates population and sample size for each class.Classification of population and sample based on education

Table 2 .
Sample size in each cluster based on education degree

Table 3
According to the above table and chart, 2.2 percent of employees of Varamin ministry of education have low organizational belonging, 93 percent have moderate organizational belonging, and 4.4 percent have high organizational belonging.

Table 5 .
Observed and expected values of organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 6 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between creativity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 7 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between risk-taking and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 8 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between leadership and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 9 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between coordination and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 10 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between manager's support and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of educationBased on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.603, which is significant with p<0.001, it is concluded that there is a significant correlation between managerial support and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.

Table 11 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between control and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 12 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between organizational identity and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 13 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between reward (encouragement) and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of educationBased on the table above and considering the obtained Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.675, which is significant with p<0.001, it is concluded that there is a significant correlation between reward encouragement and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education.

Table 14 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between reward (encouragement) and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education

Table 15 .
Results of Pearson's test of the correlation between communication pattern and organizational belonging in employees of Varamin ministry of education