- The readings from this week about culture and diversity made me question many factors. The reading on organized culture piqued my curiosity because it never gave one definition of culture. We are used to having one definition in mind for a word so seeing many variations made me think about what my definition of culture was. When I thought about it I wasn’t sure about how I would define it. The different discussions about what culture was also made me think about who the people writing the responses were and why they each had such a different definition of culture. Another question that I would like to further explore is how do companies that are racially and ethnically diverse describe their culture vs how companies who are gender-diverse describe their culture. The article “why diversity matters” talk a lot about how companies that are diverse in race, ethnicity, and gender are more likely to be successful but they never mention why. I would like to research more as to why that is.
- After reading “culture is consistent, observable patterns of behavior in organizations,” I began to think about culture in organizations that I am involved in. One organization I am apart of at college would be my major. As a Communications Design major, I have been in class with the same teachers and students since my first day of freshman year. That has created a culture between us in the classroom. The classroom culture reminded me of Robbie Katanga’s response titled “Culture is how organizations “do things.” My experience relates to his response because as a class we have developed patterns that are as Katanga states “consistent, observable patterns of behavior in organizations.” Every year I take classes for my major and have a very similar experience to the year prior. I think that is because the teachers create a structure that stays the same along with the people that are in the class, therefore, creating a pattern. I think that the pattern created and the behavior that comes from it creates our culture.
Writing and organizational cultures
Wow I definitely agree with your response to the first question and this indeed made me become more aware of culture as well. To not have given a single definition emphasizes how broad of a term “organizational culture” is and the various meanings associated with it. I personally view culture as my beliefs, values, and rituals that make up my everyday life. Perhaps the different definitions by the several writers, specifically the comparison between those who view organizational culture as unitary and static versus those who see it as overlapping and dynamic suggest they all came from different lifestyles, backgrounds, work experiences, etc. so it would be interesting to explore this more!
Hi Michaela,
I was also intrigued by the various definitions given in the article about organizational culture. I personally found truth in all of them though I wouldn’t fully agree with one in particular.
Defining something like culture seems to be very challenging as there are so many thing that affect it and not everyone has the same opinion of their workplace.
I too would be curious to learn more about some hypothesis that may explain why gender-diverse and ethnically-diverse companies are more likely to outperform their industry averages.
Michaela, I found that article defining culture equally interesting because it too made me reflect on the organizations I am apart of. As an architecture major I completely understand the feeling of being apart of a ‘studio culture’ environment thats surrounded by the same peers and professors you start out with in freshman year. A question I would like to add onto the discussion of how organizations “do things” would be why we choose do it. I think being apart of a culture should make one reflect on the norms or abnormalities were chosen to be surrounded by. I find community forums, for example, support a continuously thriving and dynamic culture.
The idea that there are many different ways of thinking about and understanding organizational culture is an important starting point for us–there isn’t just one definition, but rather many possible ways of understanding this. Knowing something about who these folks are, how they’re situated, what their backgrounds, etc. can give us some insight into why they think as they do.