The impact of organizational culture on the perceived quality of service delivery

Over the years the perceived level of service provided by the public sector in Jamaica has deteriorated and the level of citizen satisfaction has declined substantially. To address this situation, the Jamaican government has undertaken a major reorganization of the public sector through a modernization program. This program is geared primarily to improve service quality delivery through the establishment of a performance culture in the public sector (Government at Your Service, 2003). The study was conducted at the organizational level of analysis and used two models, SERVQUAL and the Competing Values Framework (CVF), that have both been applied to the public sector in previous research.; The purpose of this research was, first, to advance the understanding of organizational culture and perceived service quality delivery in a public sector context; second, to provide empirical evidence of the relationship between organizational culture and service quality; third, to identify the organizational culture types present and determine whether a dominant culture type exists in the public sector; fourth, to determine whether an organizational culture type influences the quality of service delivery; and fifth, to determine if there is a difference in the perceptions and expectations of service quality delivery between customers of central government and executive agency public sector entities.; The findings from this study should serve to assist government and public sector managers in developing an understanding of how organizational culture impacts the perceived quality of service delivery and the resulting implications. Specifically, exploration of this relationship should appeal to practitioners as well as academics since it provides empirical data and expands the body of knowledge of service quality and organizational culture in Jamaica and should prove instructive for other developing countries.