organisational culture case study - nirvana memorial garden

MANAGEMENT OF ORGANISATIONS (BMGT2002S) ASSIGNMENT 2LEE XIAO PING, RENICE WOO WAN LIN, TEE SZE MIN, XIANG JIA WEI

1. Introduction to Organisational Culture

Organisational culture has been studied in two aspects: as a substantial factor to analyse

organisational successes and cultural frameworks to explain organisational cultures. Many

academics have proposed similar definitions; Schein (2010) defines organisational culture as ‘a

pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned…that has worked well enough to be

considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive,

think, and feel’. Freytag (1990) offers a similar explanation, ‘... a distinct and shared set of

conscious and unconscious assumptions and values that bind organisational members together

and prescribes appropriate patterns of behaviour’. In general, the term can be loosely defined as

‘the values and behaviours that construct the physical and social environment of an

organisation’. Organisational culture determines attitudes, behaviours and processes in an

organisation. It, therefore, affects every aspect on the organisation’s operating processes.

Organisation leaders dictate an interpretative system of assumptions, values, norms and attitudes,

which its members further cultivate through mutual interaction. Members attribute meaning to

whatever happenings within and outside the organisation. Culture hence identifies an

organisation with a unique identity which all members identify themselves with. Besides the

above-mentioned code of conduct system, organisational culture also condenses past

achievements or whatever that have worked well in history. These practices are readily accepted

and become standard operating procedures by members of the organisation. Research further

reveals that the appropriate or ‘right’ organisational culture will ensure sustainable organisational

performance (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2015) and better financial

returns (Raduan, et al., 2008) (Dauber, et al., 2012).

In the case of multinational organisations i.e. Nirvana Memorial Garden Singapore, cultural

differences, in turn, create a third culture (Holmes, n.d.), whereby host country and home country

members come together to reconcile cultural dilemmas. This third culture replaces the uniform

culture which organisations conduct across all subsidiaries. Cultural frameworks i.e. Hofstede’s

national culture dimensions will have to be supported by organisational models not based on

nationality i.e. Schein’s and Trompenaars’ models.

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1. Company Summary

Nirvana Memorial Garden Singapore (Nirvana) is the first privatised columbarium in Singapore.

A subsidiary of Malaysian conglomerate Nirvana Asia Ltd (NV Asia), Nirvana is a part of NV

Asia’s global expansion in the year 2009. Contrary to local columbaria which are either

government-operated e.g. Mandai Columbarium or owned by religious entities e.g. Kong Meng

San Phor Kark See Monastery, Nirvana is the only commercial columbarium operator in

Singapore providing professional bereavement services (Nirvana Memorial Garden, n.d.)

(Snelgrove & Chan, 2015).

NV Asia is Asia’s largest bereavement care and services provider, with over twenty-five years of

experience. It boasts of a fully comprehensive range of bereavement services and the most

diversified offerings of bereavement products. Administration and operations are carried out by

staff members while a third party agency network sells its products and services (Nirvana Asia

Ltd, 2014).

Offering high-quality urn compartments and pedestal tablets, Nirvana’s products target affluent

ethnic Chinese who spend on bereavement services are traditionally and comparatively more

than other races, attributed to cultural and religious norms. Nirvana strongly advocates pre-

planning: the selection of services for one’s death, relieving financial burden off his/her family.

With pre-planning, the deceased are respected and taken care of, their family members devoid of

worries, therefore ‘Total Peace of Mind’. Pre-need accounts for a bulk of its revenue; Nirvana

dominates the local pre-need market by over eighty percent of the market share. (Nirvana

Memorial Garden, n.d.) (Snelgrove & Chan, 2015).

In Singapore, Nirvana has a total manpower of approximately fifty persons across seven

departments. It has two top-level executives - the branch head and general manager; and two

managerial executives. An overwhelming majority of employees are Singaporeans, but only one

top-level executive is a Singaporean; two are Malaysian expatriates and one a permanent resident

originating from Malaysia. Nirvana, hence, practises a third culture – an adaptive fusion of

Malaysian (home country) and Singaporean (host country) culture.

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2. Key Findings on Organisational Culture

3.1 Artefacts – organisational logo and corporate attire

Upon setting up an organisation, its leaders begin to apply their own philosophies consisting of

values, beliefs and assumptions onto the people they employ. This, therefore, sculpts a behaviour

whereby leaders advocate, existing members practise and new members are taught. Schein

(2010) proposed a model explaining symbolic and cognitive layers of organisational culture:

The first layer – artefacts, otherwise referred as the constructed physical and social environment

of an organisation. Characteristics include office architecture, interior design, dress code,

symbols, and prominent display of the organisational logo, vision, mission and core value

statements. Stories about organisational leaders and observable interaction between organisation

members (Lim, 1995) also tell of the organisation culture.

Nirvana’s, also NV Asia’s logo as seen in Figure 2.1 spots two colours, mainly blue with a tinge

of red. Blue expresses Nirvana’s superiority and confidence to the development of bereavement

services, echoing its vision statement ‘to be the industry leader of bereavement care and services

in Singapore’. It also represents Nirvana’s sincerity and professionalism to serve its customers.

Red, a colour deemed taboo in bereavement customs, represents innovation. It refers to

Nirvana’s innovative efforts to transform traditional perceptions of bereavement services to one

which is comforting and welcomed. This also echoes its target market segmentation and also its

market strategy of reaching out to the pre-need market, as Chinese traditionally only prepare for

bereavement products and services post-death. Religion wise, the two colours echo Buddhism,

which design elements of Nirvana’s products are greatly influenced by.

Nirvana is proud of its ornate architecture and premium products, expressed through visibly

placed vision, mission and core value statements. Frontline, service and ceremonial staff

members are dressed either in light blue and black formal uniforms pictured in Figure 2.2, or don

blue polo shirts with logo embroidery. Each staff member has their uniform tailored made;

presenting a smart, professional and alert image.

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Figure 3.1: Simplified Nirvana (NV Asia) logo (left) and plaque logo (right)

Figure 3.2: Nirvana Staff in corporate uniform (Nirvana Memorial Garden Singapore, 2013)

3.2 Espoused Values – Vision, Mission and Core Values

As an organisation grows, its founders and leaders teach to members of their organisation their

values. Espoused values – the second layer are values which the organisation swears by and

practises, becoming the code of conduct. This includes mission, vision and core value

statements. Nirvana’s core values greatly emphasise on its commitment to provide the best

customer experience. Four areas are identified in its core values: products, premises, processes

and people with the following corresponding keywords: value; comfortable; efficient and

effective; skilled, confident and caring. Nirvana has never been shy to proclaim its competitive

advantages which its competitors have failed to surpass. Each product, no matter the price tag, is

of the highest quality workmanship and value-for-money. Comfortable premises create the best

visitor experience and inculcate Nirvana’s brand exclusivity over its competitors. Customer-

oriented service is also a focus; staff members are hired through a stringent selection process.

They receive regular and extensive training to become experts who serve customers, whether

bereaved or deceased, with respect and sensitivity and can cater to the needs and concerns of

respective customers. All the above factors constitute the enhanced customer experience which

Nirvana’s customer cannot find anywhere else. This echoes its marketing tagline: to provide a

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‘Total Peace of Mind’ for the departed and their family members with the highest quality and

standards, efficient and effective processes carried out by experts providing the best advice

catering to your needs.

Vision: To become the industry leader of bereavement care and services in Singapore.

Mission: To provide a peaceful resting place for the departed and a complete peace of mind for

the family members.

Core Values

We offer products of the highest quality and value to our customers.

We maintain our premises to the highest standard so as to provide a comfortable environment

for our customers.

We ensure our processes are efficient and effective with our customers in mind.

We hire the best people and train them diligently so that they are skilled, confident and caring

in serving our customers.

Table 2.3: Vision and Mission (Nirvana Memorial Garden, n.d.), Core Values of Nirvana

(Nirvana Memorial Garden, n.d.)

Mission statements are about what the organisation does, or the core competency of the

organisation (7Geese, 2014). Currently, Nirvana only handles the repose of the dead and not the

funeral proceedings already dominated by local players, therefore, the product offerings of urn

compartments and pedestal tablets. Its duty is to assist the bereaved family members through the

grieving period with its expertise and professionalism. This mission corresponds and is in

alignment with its core values.

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Vision wise, Nirvana aspires to lead the local bereavement industry with its strong backing from

parent company NV Asia. NV Asia seeks to dominate the Asian bereavement care and services

sector through the various strategies – expand existing facilities, purchasing new land for future

development, expansion of existing businesses through the strategic acquisition of existing

players, increase numbers and productivity of sales agents, and lastly to increase and capitalise

on brand exclusivity. Following its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange earlier in 2014,

NV Asia will be progressing with regional expansion will be on a bigger scale, targeting

Vietnam, Hong Kong and China (Nirvana Asia Ltd, 2014). Local development wise, Nirvana’s

facility is set to increase four-fold its current capacity (Nirvana Asia Ltd, 2014). A later

announcement in December 2015 by Nirvana revealed its plans to develop and integrate

premium funeral packages into its product service portfolio (Nirvana Memorial Garden

Singapore, 2015).

We hereby draw a strong correlation between NV Asia’s competitive strategies and Nirvana’s

vision, mission and core values. However given future plans of Nirvana’s new business

functions, we see a need Nirvana to realign its mission statement with its additional product

offerings.

3.3 Heroes, Stories, Rites and Rituals

‘Dato Kong’ is a legendary name in NV Asia and Nirvana. Tan Sri Dato Kong Hon Kong

founded NV Asia in the year 1990. The conglomerate started with a cemetery in Semenyih,

Malaysia and expanded to today’s vast network of cemeteries, columbaria, crematoria and

funeral homes across Southeast Asia (Ho, 2014). Noted as the ‘driving force’ behind NV Asia,

Dato Kong is known for his business acumen, foresight and determination in transforming

Malaysia’s and even the regional bereavement landscape. His two sons, also serving in NV

Asia’s board of directors, are seen as potential successors to the lucrative business model their

father has built (Bloomberg, 2014) (Nirvana Asia Ltd, 2014). Other legends in Nirvana include

agency leaders of Nirvana’s third party agency network, whose entrepreneurial stories have

become the must-know case studies for new agents.

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3.4 Awards and recognition

Nirvana’s parent company NV Asia has received many accolades over the years. Accolades

include honours bestowed by the Malaysian government in tourism and landscaping (years 1995,

1996, 1999, 2000, 2009, 2013), and penned in the Guinness Book of World Records for the

largest memorial park (2005). Besides awards received in home ground, NV was first awarded

ISO 9002 in 1995 for international quality assurance and progressed to achieve ISO 9001

certification in 2005. The ISO 9001 achievement paved a way for NV Asia to become

internationally recognised for its high quality and deep expertise. NV Asia was admitted as a

member of International Cemetery, Cremation & Funeral Association in 2010.

The admittance into the Association was another historic milestone; NV Asia further progressed

to win the following awards at the Asian Funeral Exhibition (AFE Awards): Asia Outstanding

Brand in Funeral Service Industry and Asia Outstanding Award in Multinational Expansion in

the year 2012, Corporate Social Responsibility Award and Marketing Strategy Award in the year

2013. These international industry accolades affirmed NV Asia’s status as the leading

bereavement brand in Asia.

NV Asia’s substantial expertise and high-quality processes factored greatly in its Hong Kong

stock listing in the year 2014. FinanceAsia named NV Asia as the best small-cap company

(Hong Kong) in its Asia’s Best Managed Companies Poll 2015 (FinanceAsia, 2015). CIMB

valued NV Asia’s stock value to have ‘more upside potential’ than Fu Shou Yuan, its biggest

competitor in terms of scale (Snelgrove & Chan, 2015).

Local achievements wise, Nirvana has the 2015 Singapore Brands Award (Nirvana Memorial

Garden Singapore, 2015) and also the Hoffen Award from the SME One Asia Awards 2015. The

by-invitation-only Hoffen award recognises small-and-medium enterprises who contribute

greatly to society and the business community (One Asia Awards, 2015).

3.5 Corporate governance

Corporate governance in NV Asia has been extremely positive. In the year 2014, NV Asia was

listed successfully on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Three committees were established to

maintain ethical operations and transparency. The committees manage the following: to conduct

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an independent audit on finances, internal control and risk management; to review remuneration

for Top Management and Board of Directors; and to review the Board of Directors (Nirvana

Asia Ltd, 2014).

3.6 Corporate social responsibility

NV Asia is noted for its extensive philanthropy efforts to clan associations, education bodies and

charities. Dato Kong, the founder, proposed a donation drive, raising millions for the Nepal

earthquake rescue efforts (Ho, 2014).

Nirvana is also actively engaged in corporate social responsibility in Singapore. In the year 2014

Nirvana has worked with Singapore Association for the Visually Handicapped (Singapore

Association for the Visually Handicapped, 2015) and Children’s Wishing Well (Children's

Wishing Well, 2014) (Children's Wishing Well, 2014) for various charitable initiatives.

4. Observations and Conclusions

4.1 Hofstede’s national culture and organisational culture dimensions

Given the multi-nationality of NV Asia, we observe Nirvana’s culture on two Hofstede’s models:

to analyse national culture differences with five culture dimensions (i.e. power distance,

individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-short term

orientation) and the seven-dimensional organisational culture dimensions.

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Figure 4.1: National culture comparison – Malaysia and Singapore

A further analysis using Hofstede’s organisational culture model (The Hofstede Centre, n.d.)

(Waisfisz, n.d.) offers the following observations:

Culture Dimensions Ex-employee measurement of Nirvana

Means or goals-oriented Moderate; wary of changes but welcome innovation

Internally or externally driven Moderate; caters to customers with expertise

Loose or tight work control More inclined towards tight work control.

Local or professional Local culture

Open or closed work systems Open work system

Employee or work-oriented Slightly inclined towards work-oriented.

Degree of leadership acceptance Higher acceptance

Degree of identification of organisation Higher identification

Table 4.2: Hofstede’s organisational culture model analysis of Nirvana

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Hofstede et al. (2010) noted that cross-cultural problems existent in international organisations

are due to different values the respective cultures deem important. These deep-rooted values

determine attitudes and physical and cognitive behaviours. As such there is a need to reconcile

cultural dilemmas by creating a third culture where two cultures can work well in respect with

each other. In Nirvana’s case, Malaysians will be more rigid and prefer a proven structure to

work with as they do not welcome ambiguity. Singaporeans comparatively are more relaxed and

the relationship between superior and subordinate are friendlier. Singaporeans have room for

innovation and will invest long term to reap immense successes, unlike Malaysians who seek

quick results (Raduan, et al., 2008) (The Hofstede Centre, n.d.) (Cacciattolo, 2014 ). Hence, it

creates a third culture as shown in Table 4.2, which is a reconciliation of dilemmas as depicted in

Figure 4.1, particularly in terms of means-goals oriented, work control, local-professional culture

and work-oriented.

4.2 Trompenaars’ four corporate cultures

Figure 4.5: Trompenaars’ Four Corporate Cultures (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997)

As seen in Figure 4.5, Trompenaars’ Four Corporate Cultures classifies the different types of

interactions happening within the organisation. Nirvana’s culture is determined as the Family

culture. Nirvana’s culture encompasses emphasis on hierarchy, goal orientation in achieving

overall objectives, tight work control and member’s identification to their superiors/senior

colleagues and the organisation, management’s focus on employee welfare, all characteristics of

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the Family Culture. One notable point is that Nirvana also corresponds with Eiffel Tower culture,

with a firm organisational structure with clearly defined job scopes constituting its efficient

processes.

4.3 Organisational maturity

With reference to the collaborative organisational maturity model proposed by Morgan (2012),

NV Asia has reached level five of organisational maturity – ‘the adaptive organisation’. NV

Asia’s goals and objectives are continually improved and evolved, vision and mission

continually aligned to objectives. Competitive strategies are mapped out in accordance to

achieve overall objectives. Evaluation of successes and failures are carried out. New business

functions are explored continuously i.e. NV Asia’s stock listing and Nirvana’s premium funeral

packages development. Education and training are of utmost importance as illustrated in

Nirvana’s core values, to serve customers effectively. NV Asia and Nirvana continuously

benchmark i.e. ISO 9002 and 9001 certifications and evaluate their processes. Strategic planning

and management are carried out and consistently enhanced formally.

4.4 Concluding comments

Nirvana’s organisational culture is attributed to its parent company NV Asia’s matured

organisational structure and a third culture created from the reconciliation of national culture

dilemmas. Such reconciliation leads to a slightly work or goal-orientated, hierarchal

organisational culture which focuses on its people.

5. Recommendations

Despite Nirvana having measured highly on organisational maturity model, it is of utmost

importance for it to evaluate its performance regularly. Nirvana is the only player offering such

premium products and services in the local market. Therefore, it may gain complacency due to

its market dominance and superiority over other industry players. Threats exist for Nirvana; other

competitors are already working to share the big pie of the Singapore pre-need market (Hio,

2015) (Wang & Cao, 2014).

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Nirvana should, therefore, continue benchmarking with independent audits and SPRING

Singapore’s Business Excellence Niche Standards (SPRING Singapore, 2015). The niche

standards will propel Nirvana to constantly review its structure, processes and quality efforts as

required by the ‘adaptive organisation’. If Nirvana stops its efforts, it may regress to lower

stages.

With the above study on Nirvana’s organisational culture, we recommend that Nirvana can work

towards to achieve either of the following certifications in the next two years:

Singapore Service Class (S-Class) – niche business excellence standard for service;

Singapore Quality Class (SQC) / Singapore Quality Class Star (SQC Star) – holistic

business excellence standard;

People De Eloper Singapore – niche business excellence standard for people.

The achievement of above certifications paved a way and prepare Nirvana for the following

Awards i.e. Singapore Quality Award, People Excellence Award and Innovation Excellence

Award and the Singapore Prestige Brand Awards (SPBA Secretariat, 2015). Such achievements

will become Nirvana’s competitive advantage and uphold brand exclusivity.

As mentioned earlier in Point 3.2, Nirvana looks forward to include new business functions into

its product offerings. New additions and changes will be made to Nirvana’s current structure and

processes. Besides proposing to realign Nirvana’s mission statement in accordance with its new

product offerings, we also recommend Kotter’s Accelerate change management Model (Kotter

International, 2015) to facilitate the adoption process with minimised risk and resistance. Under

the Kotter model, change is self-initiated and carried out flexibly within the hierarchy. Unlike the

original 1996 model, the Accelerate model allows for all stages to be carried out simultaneously,

and change can be carried in all directions of the organisational structure. Opportunities should

be pursued actively and persistently, initiatives being recognised to fulfil these opportunities and

fully maximise their potentials for the biggest returns.

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