Subculture by autonomy and group cohesion and its effect on job satisfaction of RD professionals in an RD organization

Abstract

Professional research and development (RD) organizations typically employ highly educated professionals to work on a range of creative, intellectual projects in their chosen fields. In these organizations, organizational culture and subculture are critical factors connected with project success. This paper explores the existence of subcultures and the factors that contribute to subcultures within a professional RD organization, and examines subcultural effects on the job satisfaction of RD professionals to suggest a suitable cultural type for professional RD organizations. Autonomy and group cohesion are considered, so grid-group theory is applied to measure RD culture. The subjects were 285 full-time researchers who had worked at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, an international IT institution, for over 5 years. Differences were found in organizational culture according to the research fields and types (applied and developmental research). The egalitarian culture type (low grid, high group) is found to be suitable for improving job satisfaction in RD organizations.