Employee Perceptions of Cultural Wants and Barriers to Affordability in an Organization

Affordability has become an objective for organizations to provide products and services with accurate positioning in the target market, with profitable pricing containing a value proposition that meets customers’ expectations, needs, wants, and requirements, that is delivered as fast as required, and containing excellent quality and reliability. The aim of this study was to understand employee perceptions regarding cultural wants and barriers regarding affordability. A survey was distributed to employees of an aerospace organization to gain insight into employee perceptions of affordability characteristics. Moreover, a qualitative thematic analysis was performed to analyze why employees may want an affordability culture and potential cultural barriers to affordability that may exist within an organization. Upon preliminary analysis, several categories were identified when prompted regarding why an affordability culture is wanted, including financial factors, business factors, image management factors, and factors of effectiveness and efficiency. Categories identified when prompted regarding cultural barriers included organizational resistance, workforce and workflow barriers, organizational culture barriers, process barriers, and financial barriers. Future research directions should continue to refine overall survey design, research methodology, and consider external factors such as respondent occupational role status on perception. The generation of these coding schemes may aid in identifying areas of opportunity for organizations in terms of overcoming cultural barriers to affordability as well as benefits of having an affordability culture. This contributes to a growing body of knowledge surrounding affordability culture within organizational settings.