Managing governmental business relationships: The impact of organisational culture difference and compatibility

• We studied the impact of organisational culture difference (OCD).
• We investigated the role of organisational culture compatibility (OCC).
• We highlighted the negative relationship between OCD and OCC.
• We collected data from the Australian public service.

Public administration requires close cooperation between many actors within a network of governmental departments, agencies and external stakeholders. Reflecting on these critical interrelationships, we investigate the impact of the related yet under-researched concepts of organisational culture difference and organisational culture compatibility on relationship outcomes in a public sector setting. The research hypotheses draw on the prolific relationship marketing and organisational culture literature streams and an exploratory study. Data gathered on the relationships between public sector agencies and their business partners show perceived organisational culture difference negatively influences relationship performance, with perceived compatibility directly and positively impacting both performance and the certainty of the relationship future.

Chinese Abstract公共行政需要在政府部门、代理机构及外部利益相关者之间进行多方密切合作。回顾这些关键的相互关系，我们研究了与此相关、但甚少被探究的组织文化差异及包容度这一概念对公共部门中关系结果的影响。研究假说借鉴了众多市场营销和组织文化方面的文献，并采用了探索性研究。对公共部门代理机构及其商务伙伴之间关系的数据收集显示，对组织文化差异的感知对这一关系有负面影响，对包容度的感知对多方关系及其在未来的确定性具有直接而正面的影响。