Facilities Management ‘Cultural Fit’ and the Socialisation of External Service Provider Employees in Client Organisations
This thesis’ original contribution to knowledge is creating the awareness that facilities management (FM) departments and organisations do not consciously socialise external service provider staff into the client workplace and the development of a framework that can successfully achieve this integration. To provide a solid theoretical background for this framework, it reviews current literature on FM, outsourcing, organisational culture, and organisational socialisation. The aim of this study was achieved with the development of the ‘Cultural Fit’ framework which should go a long way in solving the research problem and answering the proposed question.The study was conducted as a qualitative multi-method design. This was selected because there were obvious gaps in socialisation especially in the FM industry. Qualitative methods are believed to provide richer data and this was adopted to begin closing those gaps through the provision of literary data. The research was conducted using the ethnographic approach because of the focus on culture and to maximise the qualitative approach. Interviews and focus groups are the qualitative methods used to collect this data.Reliability and validity are not always easy to verify but researchers have proposed several methods to improve them. This study employs the triangulation of more than one method of data collection, peer debriefing with colleagues, member checks by confirming the initial results during subsequent data collection and a rich, thick description.The major findings of this study are that organisational socialisation can be successful in socialising external service provider staff into the client workplace despite a current unawareness of its use. This study has developed a framework and guide that can be used to achieve this integration if client organisations and service providers work together to socialise external service provider staff.
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