PEOPLE.IDEAS.PERFORMANCE

59 &8/785( $1' 3(5)250$1&( 5LFKDUG 3(77,1*(5 UCL, School of Management United Kingdom ,1752'8&7,21 The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the relationship between organizational culture and performance, and to define and analyze the position that is played by collective and individual behavior and its development. There are some key points to address in the first place as follows: effective performance measurement is only achievable against precisely stated aims and objectives; different stakeholder and interest groups have divergent and often conflicting views about company performance in the same set of circumstances; performance management is overwhelmingly concerned with maximizing and optimizing the staff effort. It is essential to view this from the point of view that staff comprise approximately two thirds of the organization’s operationa l financial commitment. It is therefore essential that performance and its management are addressed as an organizational priority, and as a key feature of management performance in turn; effective performance is delivered through the capability and willingness of the staff to engage; and this is contingent on having the resources required to ensure that the performance required is possible in the first place. Additionally, and crucially, effective performance definition is only possible in the conditions and circumstances in which it is required (Pettinger, 1999): companies and organizations that need or want to achieve 35% returns on investment have to be willing to operate in those sectors in which those returns are possible and achievable; companies and organizations that need or want to operate in particular markets, sectors and locations must be prepared to accept the returns that are on offer. Culture, collective and individual behavior, and commitments, are therefore critical in ensuring that the required and demanded standards of performance are established, and delivered. Culture and collective behavior define how performance is delivered (Pettinger, 2002). Culture and collective behavior are factored into what can be done, aims and objectives and priorities, and the willingness with which people deliver what is required and demanded of them. There are therefore trade-offs between: what companies and organizations would like to do; how the work is allocated and structured; the willingness of staff to engage with what is required and demanded of them. Aims, objectives and priorities that would be set in an ideal or perfect world are therefore limited and bounded by the culture and behavior and attitudes and values of the people who carry out the work. What emerges as the result is what is possible in the given set