Connecting Key Organizational Dimensions for Creating Value Focused on Service in the New Era

Abstract

This is an era of profound changes in the businesses management and in people’s life. Many companies need to survive, recover and find new ways to create value for stakeholders. A focus on service is an imperative for that purpose, but it is necessary to harmonize this focus with a right understanding about the creation of value in the organizational reality according to the new era. As new technologies are replacing, facilitating and complementing the work of service employees more than ever, it is crucial reorienting the value that service can add. Our task is rethinking the main forces for establishing a focus on service in order to create consistent value. We focus on service culture and climate as the forces that need to be integrated for conveniently connecting with the organizational dimensions for creating value. Through an anthropological analysis and the case methodology we can understand the connection among the key organizational dimensions and the value they create: (a) to obtain sufficient incentives and resources-economic value, (b) to develop the organizational capability-social value and (c) to forge trust and commitment to the mission-ethical value. We extend current conceptualizations about climate and culture focused on creating value and share our reflections about the required connections for consolidating an integrated value, suggesting some managerial implications for that purpose.

Keywords

Value in service integrated value value creation culture of value

Introduction

We believe that the way to establish a focus on service implies an appropriate culture as a foundation, a climate focused on service and a convenient business strategy, all of them solidly integrated in order to create value for stakeholders (Lescano Duncan, 2012, 2017). At the same time, we consider that it is necessary to amplify our understanding about the influence of climate and culture for creating value and the connections they generate for that purpose. Schneider et al. (1998) defined a climate focused on service as the meaning employees develop and share about the policies and practices and the behaviours expected and rewarded that emphasize excellence in service. Other researchers have also contributed to this study through the link between service climate and customer experience/satisfaction (Cooil et al., 2009; Dean, 2004; Yagil, 2008). On the other side, a service culture is a natural way of life in an organization with service as one of the most important values by everyone (Grönroos, 2001). In a wider view, organizational culture has been studied by researchers through different elements and considerations (Alvesson, 1993, 2002, 2011; Alvesson & Empson, 2008; Martin, 1992, 2002; Schein, 1991, 2010; among others). A relevant aspect about the essence of culture is the pattern of shared assumptions and only understanding those it is possible to understand the other cultural levels (Schein, 2010). An important suggestion for understanding organizational culture is to avoid the superficial models and build on the deeper, more complex anthropological models (Schein, 2010). So, through a systemic anthropological analysis we focus on the connection between climate and culture that in turn connects with the organizational dimensions: strategic, operational/technological and human.

Schneider et al. (2011) proposed the need to integrate climate and culture through their ‘clim-cult’ model and emphasized how culture can both provide a foundation for strategic climates and create an environment that improves attraction, socialization and retention of key talent. Other studies have showed that culture is objectively manifested in the policies, practices and procedures that form the foundation for climate and the culture and climate work together to influence employees’ attitudes and behaviours (Ostroff et al., 2012); and climate is established through the enacted values and priorities that are contrasted with the cultural espoused values (Zohar & Hofmann, 2012). However, this integration has not sufficiently been analysed, and its progress has been limited (Schneider et al., 2013). Thus, it is necessary to amplify this analysis according to this era that shows the use of new business models based on disruptive technologies increasing every day. But also considering that this pandemic has resulted in significant changes in how and where we work (Vaiman et al., 2021). Therefore, organizations redesign their strategies, policies and reorganize their processes and practices, but at the same time they should rethink the main assumptions/values and real behaviours needed for a new organizational functioning. It is not only redesigning strategies and adapting operations, but it also requires a deeper understanding about the human reality in a new powerful technological environment that generates profound and continuous changes in their functioning.

At the last E-world Marketing Summit-2020, Philip Kotler proposed several strategies for business recovery in the coronavirus era and included the need to increase customer service as an important initiative. Service is a key discipline to deliver quality and satisfy customers as relevant studies have demonstrated (Berry, 1999; Lovelock & Wirtz, 2016; Schneider & Bowen, 1995; Schneider & White, 2004), to add value for customers (Heskett et al., 2003) and to improve quality of life for people worldwide (Bitner & Brown, 2008), among others. To us, service needs to be renewed as an essential, noble and excellent human activity considering that new technologies are changing the way to interact, satisfy and relate with customers. We agree that there is a risk of focusing attention exclusively on the technological dimension, underestimating the dimension concerning people, the system of relationships, the social and cultural context (Mele et al., 2018). It is imperative to use new technologies for competing, but it should be conveniently guided. We believe that it will depend on whether the human being is considered as an end or as a resource, and how employees and technologies are combined for creating value. Recent studies have analysed some important issues as innovation in order to promote that practice for rethinking and renewing services (Heinonen & Strandvik, 2021), the implications of using robots to complement or replace service employees (McLeay et al., 2021; Yoganathan et al., 2021; Paluch et al., 2020; Figueiredo & Pinto, 2020), how organizations can use artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence (HI) for operational issues (Huang & Rust, 2021), the differentiation between service employees and service robots, and the prediction that in the future hybrid human-robots teams will be the service model for many more complex service contexts (Wirtz et al., 2021). To us organizations should reorient the way to prepare a solid terrain to create and sustain value, taking into account the role and contribution of humans as noble ends and technologies as powerful resources: a renewed basic assumption is needed.

New machines and systems can replace service employees in many tasks, especially cognitive and analytical. A study explains that as a result of that people are becoming more sensitive and emotionally oriented, so they are expecting positive social interactions, empathy, genuine care and personal recognition (Huang et al., 2019). The combination of advantages from AI and human employees will increase productivity and service quality (Wirtz et al., 2021). It is important to learn how to guide the functioning of this new organization in order to renew and strengthen the way to serve customers. It does not mean the sum of strategic, technological/operational and humanistic organizational dimensions. It implies a consistent and profound connection of these dimensions for forging a new vision and spirit of service. To do that, it is necessary to develop coherent criteria for conducting the main guidelines for creating value. Therefore, our goal is to amplify and highlight the main connections among the organizational dimensions: strategy to create economic value, operational to create social value and humanistic to create ethical value, in order to refocus on service for creating integrated value and considering the organizational culture as the terrain where these connections germinate. Then, we propose that (a) an organization uses to focus their main efforts and resources on designing strategy and implementing new technology for its processes, but insufficient effort for understand and sustain their culture and climate as the unified terrain for their functioning and (b) an organization needs to relearn how to intertwine and balance their dimensions through the cultural terrain. In that line, we have analysed through the case methodology how companies in relevant service sectors are focusing on service for creating value. That way, in the second section we present the literature reviewed, in the third section the methodology used, in the fourth section the main considerations of the study cases, in the fifth section the discussion and in the last section our conclusions and implications.

Value Focused on Service

Diverse studies have analysed various organizational/managerial elements for creating value based on service quality and a service system: (a) through an integrated vision among marketing, operations and human resources, Schneider and Bowen presented an interesting and profound look for delivering service quality understanding the reality of customers and employees, designing a service system and creating a service culture (Schneider & Bowen, 1995). (b) Through a study about the variables in marketing and strategy, operational elements with emphasis on productivity and quality improvement, technology and people (i.e., job satisfaction, retention, empowerment, leadership), Lovelock and Wirtz proposed diverse specific strategies for creating value through a service management in competitive markets (Lovelock, 2002; Lovelock & Wirtz, 2016). (c) Through the Ikea study case, a detailed analysis showed the importance of a strong and dynamic service culture for market and business success (Edvardsson & Enquist, 2002). These authors mentioned the importance to integrate various organizational elements, including strategy and ethics from a social perspective, and focused their study on shared values and shared meanings. In that illustrated case, we see a lack of attention on the assumptions that are the foundations of a culture and to the top and middle manager relationship that we consider a pillar to connect culture-climate and strategy. (d) A study analysed the relationships between internal service, work facilitation, climate for service, service quality and customer satisfaction (Schneider & White, 2004). These researchers put the core of their study on the concepts of climate and climate for service and the crucial role of human resources management. They focused on climate as an important element for organizational performing and delivering service quality that in turn generates satisfaction and then the achievement of strategic results. (e) Others have explored the challenges in value creation through service (Edvardsson et al., 2006), analysing how companies create new and unique customer value through service and favourable experiences, and thus differentiate their markets, offerings and relationships. They also remarked that companies need to develop a service culture focusing on corporate values through the Ikea case. (f) Other study explored the relationship between the concepts of value-based service, service quality and sustainability (Enquist et al., 2007), proposing a model built through a stakeholder perspective of leadership, responsibility and ethics, with an economic, social and environmental view. They presented an empirical study, arguing that the shared corporate values are the cornerstone for the functioning and success.

Studies about value creation through a service focus have mainly been oriented from the interrelation among the functions of marketing, operations, human resources, technological systems and management practices. They have been analysed from an economical, psychological, social, technological and environmental field and include a cultural analysis essentially based on values and norms but lack of an integral view about the human reality. We consider that there is a need to analyse the internal human reality of the organization since a wider perspective, and so we include an anthropological analysis for understanding the integrated organizational functioning focused on service for creating value, especially in this new technological era with radical and continuous changes for human beings. The issue is to forge an integrative study. That is the reason why we analyse the connection between culture and service climate through this deeper vision that amplifies our understanding about the connections of the organizational dimensions related to the creation of value, as the solid ground for a consistent and sustainable organizational performance.

Methodology

We applied an anthropological model (Figure 1) for analysing the way that the selected companies are focusing on service for creating value. This model lets us to analyse in a systemic approach the connections among economic issues, psycho-social factors and anthropological and ethical aspects and identify the real functioning of the organization. This model was applied through the case methodology for studying two companies, as it is adequate for analysing case by case and to better understand its functioning considering that each company has its own history and identity as unique aspects of its culture and reality. Therefore, here are not general statements or standard recommendations but reflections and criterions that can be useful to understand other realities. Obviously, through two cases we cannot infer general conclusions, but as they are two big and important organizations, our study was useful for identifying relevant factors about the way they are functioning for creating value, enrich the existing theory, and propose some implications for improving managerial practice. We chose particularly telecom and healthcare sectors as they are fundamental for the economic activity and quality of life in society, as we have verified during this time of crisis.

Figure 1.

Source: Lescano Duncan (2019).

We analysed the way each company operates for delivering its services and concretely how manage its customer service. That way we identified the main aspects of their strategy, organizational operation and institutional mission in order to evaluate their organizational dimensions and the route they follow for creating value.

Study Cases

In that line, in an international telecommunications company we corroborated that there is not equal treatment when customers call to buy a product/service than when customers ask a solution to a technical or administrative problem. This company showed that is organized for selling through technological systems and employees, and basically for delivering a technical service following operational procedures.

On the other side, they demonstrated that are not ready for creating positive emotional experiences and for quickly solving new customers’ problems. Now customers are spending much more time at home and they have new requirements, it requires new ways to interact and to be agile for responding. We noted that when customers ask something that is not related to buy a product/service there is no priority for the employees to respond. Also, when they make a mistake that affects customers, it is difficult to get the correction rapidly. As this company is implementing strong changes faster than ever employees can make some operational/administrative mistakes, but they didn’t show quick and opportune reaction. They are not sufficiently prepared for unexpected requirements from customers and for working with other internal areas to analyse and solve new problems or situations that arise in the new context. Our evaluation about its internal operational environment concluded that they basically work independently and areas are weakly connected and not integrated.

Their interest to solve customers’ problems is poor, but their interest for offering and selling products/services is significantly strong and continue. Thus, this company is mainly using technology for selling their products and providing an operationally reliable service. Its strategy and communications therefore are oriented for selling but not for creating solid experiences and building strong relationships with customers. Its mission clearly declares what customers can obtain everything what they want through technology, but they did not include a compromise for serving them consistently. That way, they are not rightly connecting its forces and combining its resources to orient customer service for adding value. It demonstrates an isolated focus on economic value and operational/technological dimension without the right connection with the social and ethical aspects for creating value. That way customer value use to be dissolved.

In healthcare sector we evaluated an important chain of clinics and corroborated that the majority of appointments are scheduled and executed through online systems, and its processes are mainly implemented with new technologies. The procedures to provide its services follow specific operational standards but lack of a clear connection with new patient’s concerns, expectations and behaviours. Probably they assumed that new technology by itself solves all their problems, and patients in general correctly follow those procedures and feel comfortable with new technologies. Evidently, the use of technology (AI, cha-bots) is the priority for this clinic in order to ensure the functioning of its operational/administrative processes and improve productivity. Although these are positive practices, these lack of convenient orientation and right complement for the human interaction. Thus, its processes are basically oriented to operational/technological issues but not connected to a consistent service focus for adding social value. It is clear that its interest is strongly manifested in efficiently operating for delivering services without robust connections with the other organizational dimensions. That way they do not facilitate the task that patients and employees should do to co-create value. Therefore, it generates more patient efforts, human errors, discomfort, and as result, delivered value use to be reduced. Its mission declares that they provide an excellent service with passion for the healthcare, so the question is how managers and employees think and feel about excellence in service and how it should be reoriented with new technologies.

Discussion

The anthropological analysis lets us connect three key dimensions through culture and climate focused on service: (a) the amount of wealth that organization creates through its strategy—economic value, (b) its capability to operate and do things for satisfying people—social value and (c) its ability to know what things should be done to meet the real needs of customers and stakeholders, that is the organizational mission—ethical value (Lescano Duncan, 2019). This mission has two sides: external for serving customers and internal for developing motivation and commitment of its members. The fulfilment of these missions asks managers to consider some essential assumptions and superior values when making decisions in order to contribute to the organizational unity, which means to forge identification of the members with the organizational mission/objectives. The challenge is to learn how to promote unity for connecting the dimensions according to the particular situation. In that line, integrated culture and climate orient and facilitate unity through the shared assumptions and values and aligned behaviours that favour convenient connections and an adequate organizational balance.

The studied cases showed that customer value is weakening as they are focusing on technological dimension without a consistent connection with the human reality: psychological, social, cultural and ethical. This situation occurs as a consequence of the urgently accelerated technological transformation in these organizations produced by this pandemic and the uncertainty and complexity that it has increased. The economical and operational issues become now a priority but they require an adequate connection with the other organizational dimensions. Companies assume that new technology is going to increase customer service but if there is not a right complement among employees and technologies it will not sufficiently contribute to deliver value. Then, it is crucial to be aware about the purpose for using technologies and how to apply and connect it, especially with the human reality.

We have identified four main breaches for creating customer value in these cases:

The lack of convenient connection among three dimensions for running the business: economic, social and ethical. Companies use to be focused on strategic elements and technological implementations for selling/operating their services. That way, economical dimension is not consistently sustained through social and ethical dimensions, and social dimension is not consistently sustained through the economic and ethical dimensions. That is a top management’s myopia.

There is weak relationship between top management and middle management. Therefore, it is difficult to build a culture that unifies the three dimensions for creating value. Value creation requires a harmonized vision but also effective performances/behaviours according to an attractive climate along and around the entire organization.

Each area uses to be focused on its particular issues and not aligned to a big vision and superior values. Then, each area is basically interested in its goals without understanding the complementary effort that value creation needs. Usually it is a middle management’s failure caused by the lack of a consistent culture.

The value for employees is not really forged. The cause is that middle managers, bosses and supervisors need a reorientation in their competencies. They are in charge for creating employee value which includes new tools, new facilities and concretely new orientation and support: a new leadership.

These cases demonstrated: (a) the poor connection of the strategy with the social dimension that causes the lack of positive learning about the new customers’ concerns, and to conveniently respond when a customer requires a solution to a problem or requirement and (b) the weak connection between technological/operational dimension and human capability for selling/providing/recovering services. Thus, when each dimension is not harmonically connected with the others, customer value uses to be reduced or dissolved, that in turn affects the value for stakeholders.

It also demonstrates that these organizations are not focusing coherently on the effort they need to do for transforming their formal structure and informal reality, and concretely the culture they require for a new functioning. The organizational culture is the base to create a climate focused on service and middle managers’ leadership focused on service are the main, not the unique, influencer (Lescano Duncan, 2012, 2017). It means that top management’s assumptions about a new service focus are required. These are the pillars for a service leadership that promotes unity that in turn generates the development of the organizational capability that in turn facilitates the execution of the strategy and, as a consequence, the achievement of specific results. Thus, culture is a decisive force and leadership its crucial component to connect the dimensions: strategic-economic objectives with operational/technological-processes-social aspects and commitment/mission-ethical issues. In the literature reviewed researchers indicated that service culture is driven by inner convictions of managers and employees (Edvardsson & Enquist, 2002), but they did not explain what means those convictions and which is the route to spread them. Also they did not analyse the role of climate that is crucial for executing a service strategy (Schneider et al., 2011). Assumptions could be translated as convictions, but it depends on the type of each analysis and explanation. The source of the assumptions comes from leaders (Schein, 2010), and mainly from the top management, but middle managers assimilate or not those assumptions, that way share them or not. The type of relationship is a key aspect for internalizing assumptions. Values are related to assumptions but are not the same, only some values are coherent with real assumptions and other values are just aspirations. Assumptions are the guide for really understanding the culture, and for creating, developing, renewing/refreshing or paralysing it. The essence of culture is paved through assumptions, and its role is to integrate the diverse reality of an organization. It is the ethos that provides solid criteria with service as a superior and real value to its members for fulfilling mission/objectives. Organizational culture is not for specifying an effective performance for achieving expected results, but orienting the way to think and understand the sense of that performance by everyone. That is crucial for creating value in an integrated way. The companies we studied lack of unity sustained for assumptions and values coherently, so it is difficult to integrate and maintain the value they create.

For diverse reasons, the organizational culture has not concretely been analysed as focused on a particular issue (Schneider et al., 2013). A culture can favour some focused climates but also orienting the organizational priorities and provide an amplified vision for the functioning. So, culture is a harmonizer and balancer among the diverse organizational elements. Culture should facilitate the balance among the different organizational dimensions and initiatives guiding people’s thoughts and decisions. Then, a culture that favours a service focus is based on a philosophy sustained by assumptions related to a service vision that forge commitment for serving customers and collaborators, and therefore influence directly in creating value and fulfilling the mission. The mission requires an identification of people involved and the enough effort for developing the organizational capability. That way culture connects with a service climate that in turn promotes the application of determined policies, execution of processes and practices that facilitates the organizational effectiveness for achieving strategic results. Be aware that culture influences not only on this formal aspect but also and strongly on the spontaneous or informal reality (Schein, 2010). That is crucial for orienting determined attitudes and behaviours especially in critical, unexpected and experimental situations, as this technological era requires. This spontaneous reality is a key aspect, usually overlooked, in an uncertain world that asks new and different responses and initiatives every time.

Culture does not primarily depend on the other dimensions but is reinforced and validated or not for them. The other dimensions do depend on culture. This dependency has not sufficiently been understood by organizations, and maybe not sufficiently clarified by researchers. A convenient strategy and a service climate specifically contribute to create value focused on service but their influence for integrating although useful is not decisive. The road to integrate is through unity that is forged by leaders with consistent assumptions and values. The first step for building unity to connecting all the dimensions to create an integrated value is a top management’s issue, but to spread it along and around the organization is a middle manager’s effort (Lescano Duncan, 2017). As each organizational unit creates its particular sub-culture (Schein, 2010) we have learned that middle managers can connect it with the organizational culture and promote a service climate. It implies a previous connection between top and middle managers’ assumptions/values that in turn favours the creation of an integrated value: economic, social and ethical (Lescano Duncan, 2019). This reality lets us see the relationship between top and middle managers as a crucial issue, frequently overlooked.

A common assumption of top managers is the priority to maintain the financial health of the organization, then they see people as a resource like other resources to be acquired and managed, not ends in themselves, other common assumption particularly from engineers’ sub-culture is that technology means that solutions can be implemented with systems that are free of human foibles and errors (Schein, 2010). We corroborated the influence of these assumptions in the studied companies; thus, it is difficult for them to orient new roles and competencies for managers and employees. They are mainly focused on technology and resources, not on people. An amplified assumption about service, technology and human nature is needed to clarify how all dimensions can be connected to adding value for customers. Human errors and heterogeneity in service employees’ performances are disappearing through AI and robots, but it cannot really include the emotional human side, the spontaneous anticipation or reaction, and precise and unique behaviours that are required according to complex service contexts and changing situations. In general, companies need more than ever: flexible, creative, emphatic and ethical employees’ behaviour for adding value to internal/external customers. Then, it is important to see people like an end that needs not just focusing their organizational activity on objectives effectiveness, or on tasks efficiency, but also on a new way of thinking and feeling for responding according to each complex situation with consistency. It implies new criteria and new attitudes with special care about the emotional, social and ethical aspects. Then, beyond to acquire analytical skills, service employees require a new empowerment focused on the imaginative and affective sides for adding value. Robots can solve many cognitive and logical tasks and follow routines as the left human brain can does, but they cannot provoke and express real feelings and imagine situations as human beings. They do not have a will that is a powerful human force for spontaneously desiring, choosing and decide behaviours. It implies that organizations, concretely managers, learn how to understand and orient employees as ends and prepare service teams in a new collaborative and integrated way with people from distinct generations, fields and roles.

It is important to analyse how robots and technologies can reinforce the organizational culture or sub-culture in each area. It can basically be centred on some cultural artefacts as symbols or other tangible elements that can be reinforced through those technological elements. It would be useful for reminding and showing some aspects about the institutional style. But how to think and feel spontaneously facing changing and unexpected situations according to key assumptions and superior values is a complex human reality that demonstrates the need to identify roles and conveniently reorient people. The social experiences that allow the development of a culture in a group imply a profound human interaction that forges emotions, feelings, attitudes and that is a crucial action that managers should reorient according to new shared assumptions and values.

The climate of a group is a manifestation of the culture (Schein, 2010). Climate is the environment perceived by the members as the appropriate terrain to execute determined policies/practices/procedures but also for manifesting spontaneous behaviours for collaborating, experimenting and relating one to each other. A climate shows concrete behaviours and performances adopted by the members of the organization. The challenge is that members not just know and can adopt those behaviours but really want to adopt them. It is viable if there is a commitment and sense of belonging with a clear intention to embracing a mission. Service demands not just operational tasks but also, according to the context, contingent behaviours and emotional/social/ethical manifestations, therefore it implies a new and particular orientation. Then, commitment promoted through the cultural dimension is a decisive connector for the action and execution and reflects the way to do things according to an institutional style. Obviously that connector is not required for robots as they are concretely programmed, but they are focused basically on a formal task and operational procedures, not really on the emotional and spontaneous aspects. So, technological systems and human talent require a right combination for adding value, depending on each experience, and considering that a personalized treatment is what every customer finally expects. Robots can do some specific operational tasks/procedures that could contribute to reinforce a service climate in an organization; it requires more specific research about the creation of service climate through the presence of robots and hybrid teams.

The concept of unity contributes to foster a group’s manifestation by an attractive environment where people develop intrinsic motivation through the matching between organizational and personal objectives (Lescano Duncan, 2109). Thus, a solid connection between culture and climate favours a higher organizational capability through professional and technological development that is decisive for fostering organizational effectiveness and to promoting a social value for employees that in turn forges social value for customers. An important aspect for creating value for employees that favours service climate is the way how they are guided and supported for their bosses/supervisors not just by the benefits that they receive from the organization (Lescano Duncan, 2020). To create a service climate is necessary to enhance employee value through the style of middle managers, and it should mainly be oriented to generate a continuous employees’ learning and development through positive experiences (Lescano Duncan, 2018), then a renovated effort from managers is needed for generating learning and development with and through new technologies.

A service climate needs to be nurtured by the organizational culture through shared assumptions/values but also promoted through adequate and concrete styles aligned with the policy/strategy and mission. So, the connection culture-climate is facilitated through those assumptions/values and styles that are crucial for guiding and forging specific performances, but at the same time for provoking spontaneous behaviours that contribute to establishing a focused on service climate and add the required value in different situations. If service employees are seen as the cause of errors and foibles and technology as the panacea for solving this problem, obviously it will not be possible to conveniently connect both forces. As researchers have considered that more empathy, compassion and emotional aspects are required for service quality and customer experience, then it claims a new type of social environment-climate and a different orientation for guiding the learning of service employees. The connection climate-culture is crucial for forging positive learning in two aspects: (a) operational/technological/formal and (b) spontaneous/committed/informal, for serving customers (Lescano Duncan, 2012). If companies are focused fundamentally on operational learning and economic value, neglecting the social/cultural/informal reality, their people cannot co-create a consistent integrated value.

As culture provides a way to think and feel for working, climate contributes to put in practice that thinking and feeling through concrete behaviours, formal and spontaneous. Then, it requires, on the one hand, to know how to complement and combine efficient machines with employees’ formal work, and on the other hand, to take advantage of human talent and the free/spontaneous contribution that employees can do, especially for fostering a culture and climate that promote experimentation and entrepreneurship as the new digital organization demands. That facilitates a convenient execution of the strategy and constant performance improvement in order to get organizational effectiveness. Thus, the strategy depends on a focused climate, a service climate sustained by the culture in our study. It implies for middle managers to clearly understand the strategy in order to facilitate the generation of adequate and attractive climate, and that way to operate with the collaboration among functions and areas for the achievement of strategic results. That reality demonstrates that culture as a solid terrain forges unity that makes viable to strongly connect climate with strategy, but at the same time that climate generates the positive environment for learning, developing and applying the capabilities to create social value that in turn favours the creation of economic value. The studied companies try to create economic value through strategic and technological dimensions without a consistent connection with human talent and its commitment, then they weakly fulfill external/internal mission/objectives that finally impede the creation of an integrated value that in turn affects creation of value for stakeholders.

A service climate requires guidelines of an organizational policy and the specific results formulated through the strategy. So, climate focused on service depends on both: culture and strategy. If one of them is weak, it will be difficult to create and strengthen that climate. But also a service climate is based on a molar climate, or climate of well-being, as a foundation (Schneider et al., 2013). So, managers have to build this base first but commonly do not appropriately connect it with focused climates (Lescano Duncan, 2018). In addition, there can be also various focused climates in an organization: strategic and related to processes (Schneider et al., 2013), as each unit creates its own focused climate, the manifestation of its sub-culture. This is the reason why normally each unit is focused on its particular issues and not aligned to a stronger thinking and superior values. Then, each unit is basically interested in its goals or processes/technologies without clear understanding about the complementary and interdisciplinary effort that creation of value focused on service needs, as we noted in the studied cases. Thus, it implies that organizations forge a shared effort for promote new projects and generate fluid communication across all areas and levels, which means that middle managers connect those focused climates distinguishing the right path to harmonize them in order to put each task and effort in the correct direction. The culture for the digital organization should facilitate the connection among different climates for promoting an attractive and integrated work that in turn facilitates service employees’ performances and behaviours for adding the value that is required. When companies do not conveniently connect their different climates there is a weak contribution among areas that reduces or dissolves the value that the organization is creating.

Conclusion: Connecting the Organizational Dimensions for Creating Value

In telecom case, company uses to put its strongest efforts on organizational strategy based on new technology for creating economic value but shows a weak connection with organizational capability that should be promoted through a positive and focused climate and sustained by a consistent culture. Thus, it produces a clear obstacle for generating convenient employees’ and customers’ experiences for positive learning and satisfaction.

In healthcare case, company uses to put efforts mainly on organizational capability but essentially focused on operational standards, not on the spontaneous human reality, and without a clear connection with its organizational mission and strategy. Thus, it affects the humanistic dimension: social, psychological, emotional, of both employees and patients.

Through our study we validate that, in these cases, companies frequently tend to put their main efforts and resources for designing and executing strategy and/or for implementing and executing operational/technological processes, but lack of complete understanding about the key connections for creating value and how to forge them through a service vision. It does not allow to consistently foster social value, and it is a serious risk for sustaining ethical value as solely produces economic value.

Both cases demonstrate the lack of intertwined and balanced organizational dimensions that is imperative for creating value. A solid integration between culture and climate and its right connection with the organizational capability, strategic objectives and mission-internal/external is the cornerstone to create an integrated value, as we describe in Figure 1. It fosters a convenient balance among dimensions through an attractive and challenger environment to create social value and forges trust and identification with mission/objectives to create ethical value. That way economic value is coherently achieved. To wisely connect dimensions, it is required a solid understanding about the human reality in this new era in each organization and it is not possible through isolated knowledge as it demands an interdisciplinary study.

In these cases, organizations are unable to intertwine and rightly connect their dimensions for creating value, so they have troubles for functioning through a consistent strategic and operational way, also for avoiding negative consequences as unethical issues that people and new technologies can produce. A main assumption in a renewed service focus is that managers and employees understand the role of technology and how they can create value beyond what can be done through systems and machines. It implies for managers the need to develop a new mindset for facing the technological context and new leadership for forging human talent and commitment. It is a decisive issue that requires a wider understanding through an anthropological analysis that facilitates the integration of the economic, social and ethical concerns in order to consistently unify strategy, climate and culture, as one of them cannot exist without the others.

The relationship between top and middle managers is crucial for creating value in an integrated and sustainable path. This relationship has not sufficiently been analysed, and the new radical organizational changes through the use of new technologies demand a wider study about it. For managers it implicates to build a solid and trustworthy relationship between them as it has a tremendous repercussion about how the essential assumptions and values are considered, which in turn produces a significant effect on a new organizational/technological functioning and how each teamwork is guided. It also implies that the way to implement and use new technologies should facilitate and enrich the organizational learning, which in turn requires that managers recognize, develop and promote diverse and specific talent among collaborators.

The new way for working brings new risks and challenges in order to integrate culture and climate and forge the right organizational connections. This new reality requires an amplified revision about the integration of climate-culture and its influence and impact in the new organizational context with many employees work at home and other places, which is a different environment. It implies for top and middle managers two concrete challenges: (a) how they can re-create a culture for building unity through a strong commitment to the mission and strategy and (b) how they can foster a climate for creating an environment that promotes convenient spontaneous manifestations for generating an attitude of experimentation learning and entrepreneurship.

The new digital era does not mean that technology is the end but a crucial element to create value for human beings. There is no magic formula for all organizations but each has to discover how to foster a right connection among its dimensions in order to sustain an authentic collaborative environment. An essential implication for companies is to define the particular route to solidly connect shared and consistent assumptions and values-that forge its Culture, with aligned and appropriate management’s styles-that shape its Climate, and with adequate management’s policy and systems-that pave its Strategy, in order to build unity and attractiveness that in turn favours effectiveness for a coherent value creation.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Lucio R. Lescano Duncan

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