Category: Discussions/Homework

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Unit 1, week of 5/18, Mikhail

1)The question that immediately arises from reading “diversity matters” is how does gender and ethnic diversity affect the performance of companies from different national backgrounds. In the report, the countries of Canada, the UK, and the USA all share the cultural and historical ties of the Anglosphere. Although the broad category of “Latin America” was included, it would be interesting to research how diversity affects the performance of companies primarily based in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Continental Europe.

Another possible research question would be, how does ethnic and gender diversity affect small localized companies? Because intuitively, it does make sense that a large international conglomerate would benefit from increased diversity, as it operates in many different cultural markets. However, this rule does not seem to hold up when considering the performance of some small company. But, this is conjecture and the answer could be completely different from the prediction.

The final question would be on why does ethnic diversity benefit the performance of some industries while gender diversity benefits the performance of other industries?

 

3) Organizational culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve as ‘glue’ to integrate the organization’s members.”—Richard Perrin

 

How does an organizational culture remain itself while integrating people from different backgrounds? Any culture must always have at least some element of discrimination in it, or else it would become an amorphous blob full of contradictions. However, if an organizational culture remains stiff in its “sum of values and rituals” the culture would not be able to adapt to changes in the environment. Also, what is the purpose of organizational culture? The most straightforward purpose for organizational culture is to imbue the employees with a mutual understanding to make the company process run smoothly. But, that is simply the means of organizational culture and does not answer the ends. Is organizational culture meant to generate the most profit? Is it meant to better the community around it? Or is it merely the amalgamation of both? More simply, what is the end goal of organizational culture?

 

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Unit 1-5/18 (Mikayla)

    1. The modern world is encompassed by a vast majority of different languages, cultures and ideas and they affect the way we live and the way we learn. Different backgrounds and perspectives allow us to be more multi faceted and diversity within communities allows us to relate to larger groups of people. The chapter readings expose us to some of the truths of the world and generate the idea that the more knowledge and experience we have, the more we can change the systems and structures within the world. Culture to me is  the traits and ideas a society is encompassed of and how they use their knowledge to create a way of being for the whole. The more exposure it has and the more diverse it is directly correlates to the way changes are made within it. After reading these papers a question that arose is whether having a diverse community and culture will truly make an environment more structured and more likely to succeed?

2. Whenever I am exposed to a new environment or community I ask myself what I have to offer or what I can bring to the table. When an opportunity to make a change is presented you begin to assess your knowledge and your experiences. Whether it can offer a new idea or a different way of seeing something and make the whole more likely to succeed. When I first arrived on the Syracuse University campus I viewed myself as an outsider, someone who had a different culture and background than the rest of the students. Although I had a hard time adjusting to the environment I soon learned that the only way to succeed was to use the things I already knew. My culture and my background were not a hindrance but a tool I used to push myself ahead. The skills that I developed, although they were different from the rest allowed me to not only push myself forward but build on the community around me.

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Responses – week of 5/18 – Toni

1) As I published in my response to Dan’s response (albeit in too lengthy of a post–due apologies) about Why Diversity Matters; I want to be thrilled about all those numbers,  I truly do.  However, I would be very interested to research the “minorities” or the “diverse groups” that represent their statistics, to see what their quality of life is.  How they think and feel about representing that for that company “doing that for them”, and how diverse are the actual environments they are in every day?  Not just how many of each “minority category” works for the entirety of a company, but also where they fall in salary brackets; how fulfilling is their work; do they feel challenged enough or too challenged;  are there hierarchy regimes despite the diverse numbers, or even within the diverse numbers?  Diversity is never as simple as numbers to me, and I feel it’s better to have truthful discrimination than false diversity so we can appropriately scope the root of the problem of discrimination.

3) Addtionally, I’ve been fascinated by the term “organizational culture” for most of my professional life, so I really enjoyed the direct quotes and how they display it to be such an interpretive phrase. When I look at the word “culture” itself, it seems organizations want it to mean both the noun and the verb of itself at the same time.  Unfortunately, I would likely argue that this has become problematic.  I’ve seen it all too often used to discriminate rather than include.  If you don’t “fit in” with the culture of a company, usually you must leave.  This makes me ponder the theory of culture, not culture theory.  That, isn’t it true, that when you introduce something new to any “culture”, there will always be change?  Isn’t that how culture is defined as healthy, by its progression (change)?  Is organizational culture just the biases of a company? Do we really need this idea of “organizational culture”? Does it actually work? And finally, what does it even mean for it to work

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Discussion Responses

1) What are some of the researchable questions that this week’s readings raise for you? In other words, what issues do these readings make you wonder about? What questions would you be interested in exploring further?
Both the readings definitely brought up some interesting questions from both. The first, focusing on organizational culture, had be wanting to look more into “Who were the people responding to this question?” Although a broad question to research, I was initially curious how these individuals were creating their rendition of the definition for ‘organizational culture’; that maybe influences of their education, work place, and status may have a reflection on the answer they provided. For the other reading, focusing on why diversity in the workplace matters, I was curious to then further research what some of the companies I support have to say about their workforce diversity. Thinking about different brands and labels I buy into; how many of those companies advertise the diversity they have within their business, and is it features like these that make the company more appealing? I would be fairly curious to look further into both of these questions, as I believe that by doing so it would reveal more about each of the conversations both aim to start.
3) Select one of the definitions from “What is organizational culture and why should we care” OR one statistic from “Why diversity matters,” and discuss what questions this sparks for you? What do you think is interesting or significant about this idea?  In other words, how does your look at this article open up questions about what organizational culture is and why it matters?
Focusing on the ‘Why diversity matters?’ article, I found that the most eyeopening statistic was that, “while certain industries perform better on gender diversity and other industries on ethnic and racial diversity, no industry or company is in the top quartile on both dimensions”. This was a statistic that really started to jog my thinking about both demographics. I immediately questioned: Which of these two demographics – racial or gender diversity – matter more to a company and why? Clearly there was no company that was able to secure top rating for both, so I wondered why exactly. Could some companies value the gender diversity of their company with little regard as to what is to be said about the racial diversity – and vice versa? Connecting back to organizational culture, this statistic in a way shows that there is no equal representations for all demographics within a given company. Furthermore, I think that this, at least for myself, confuses the definition and idea of organizational culture because there is no company that is able to identify and support all cultural backgrounds their employees may stem from. 
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Unit 1 Responses

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
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Organizational Culture and Diversity

As I read Michael Watkins’ article, I began to think about the various organizations of which I am a member. What sort of cultures do they have? How do I contribute (or not) to the fostering of that culture? What do I like and dislike about each? I have been reflecting lately on how lucky my wife and I both are to have jobs which allow us to work from home during the pandemic. While both jobs have their fair share of stress, I find that my company has been much better about establishing a work/life balance. This comes directly from the CEO, who has been an advocate for such a balance prior to the pandemic. Moreover, since the beginning of self-isolation, he and the rest of the leadership team have been emphasizing the importance of self care during this time. This includes taking time away from work to focus on one’s physical, emotional and mental health.

The McKinsey report on diversity immediately reminded of the diversity discussions we’ve had at work. In particular, during the last several IT leadership conferences, there have been presentations and discussions around the company’s efforts to improve diversity at every level of the organization.

I found one such presentation particularly memorable. The speaker acknowledged that while most discussions on diversity focus on such important areas such as race and gender, diversity of thought and experience are equally critical to an organization’s success. To illustrate his point, he displayed a diagram representing a small team. The team was made up of six boxes. He then told us that leadership were interested in adding some diversity to the team. On the screen popped up a number of circles, triangles, rectangles, ovals, etc. This represented the candidate pool. Leadership decided to hire the triangle, and a new team diagram was displayed. This time there were six squares and the triangle.

The next slide simply said “One Year Later”, before switching to another featuring seven squares. The speaker then shared a warning. It was of course wonderful to strive for diversity. However, without an openness to different perspectives and a willingness to try new ideas, organizations run the risk of converting triangles into squares.

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Responses – Week of 5/18

This week’s readings made me think about culture and diversity in the workplace which I’ve never really considered, but it’s interesting. The article about why diversity matters made me question how an organization would even achieve diversity in the workplace, do they stop hiring people of certain genders or ethnicities once they reach a set amount? I’m definitely in favor of diversity in the workplace, and it doesn’t surprise me that more diverse companies are financially more productive, but I question how companies become diverse. The article about organizational culture made me think about just how different every organization’s culture is, and how it’s constantly changing because of new employees, locations, and acquisitions. I was curious about the relationship between organizational success/productivity and organizational culture, but the other article suggests that a more diverse organization and, as a result, a more diverse organizational culture typically means more success/productivity.

There are a handful of definitions and explanations in the article about organizational culture that lead to me think about what organizational culture really is and what it means. The definition “Organizational culture [is shaped by] the main culture of the society we live in, albeit with greater emphasis on particular parts of it,” from Elizabeth Skringar isn’t farfetched, but what is the society “we” live in for a multi-national organization operating in the context of many different cultures? The author, Michael Watkins, mentioned that “a company’s history of acquisition also figures importantly in defining its culture and subcultures,” which would also make it difficult for an organization to identify with a specific society or culture. The last definition of an organizational culture where Abdi Osman Jama calls it “living” is close to what I would’ve said. I hadn’t heard of the phrase “organizational culture” until I read the article this week, but I’m fascinated by its ambiguity. I’d definitely be interested in exploring this topic further.

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Week of 5/18 – Discussion

  1. One topic I instantly became attracted to came after reading the title of one of this weeks required readings. ‘Why diversity matters’ unlike the other readings, makes a direct claim shy of any open question or neutral position. It exploits the sum saying “We know intuitively that diversity matters.” While we can agree that there is undeniable research benefits brought by diversity, I would argue that its subject title and opening statement suggest no room for counterargument value. Throughout the entire article it implies diversity is always correspondent for the subject. What I would be interested in finding out are cases where diversity rather is not always relevant– areas where diversity might actually bring more harm then good, inside and out of business. Ofter time organizations that are tailored for minority populations such as Black and Latino communities reserve themselves from other cultures. Why is it that diversity, in this case, may implicitly or explicitly exclude Caucasian or Asian races? Equally, why or why not would it be important to celebrate only one ethnic or one gender population? Why might diversity not always matter?
  2. I found the article written on organizational culture rich in its elaborative ability to aggregate multiple voices (over 300) and relate them back to the value of what ‘they say’. It shifts the over-arching complicated nature of culture with smaller scale supporting claims inviting one to feel apart of an overall discussion. The question “why we should care” I would add unavoidably becomes the most important part of the article. Understanding how far one sees an organization fit requires putting yourself in the shoes of someone else. Being apart of the university-student culture, for example, required I work and continue pursuing academic studies. Being apart of the Latino community meant having this pre-determined characteristic I was born with because of my Hispanic upbringing. Being somebody who lived abroad influenced my will to learn and become apart of that areas cultural surroundings. Culture, from what I’ve come to learn, is something we are forced to accept, reject, or try and sublime into. This, I would contend, should be another another universal agreement. Regardless of whichever above positions we take, we will all fit on some side of the spectrum.
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2 blog responses

  1. Some of the researchable questions that this week’s readings raised for me is wanting to know which other companies in the US stand at being the most diverse, like McKinsey, and how they can further set examples of expanding diversity in the workplace. While I completely agree with putting race, ethnicity, and gender aside when hiring someone because I do think the decision should be based on an individual’s skills and knowledge for that position, one statistic in the “Why Diversity Matters” caught my attention. The article says that “the unequal performance of companies in the same industry and the same country implies that diversity is a competitive differentiator shifting the market share toward more diverse companies.”  As I read this, I came to understand how diversity is a strong component to making up a company. At the end of the day, it’s the consumer’s choice whether or not to purchase from a business or invest in them. I feel as though if consumers notice that a company is lacking in diversity, for this reason they may not choose to not give them any business. So while it gives me hope that more diversity in a company may equal more success for that business, it will be interesting to see how long (will it be years and years?) other companies will take to become accustomed to this new change in the work space.
  2. In the article, “What is organizational culture and why should we care?,” Richard Perrin writes that “Culture is a carrier of meaning.” This sentence alone intrigued me because it reinforced the thought that everything we do, we do for a purpose. In this definition, he puts emphasis on the “why is” and on having a story. I think this idea is very significant because it can help employees understand their importance in a company and how they’re so much more than just a worker. I feel as though having values and rituals create a routine, so I really like the glue analogy. That without these values and rituals, cooperation and strategy in a business would not be as successful. I understand that culture is how we communicate, as Richard explains the importance of understanding language and symbols. A question that this definition sparked within me though is how opened to accepting other values and rituals would leaders need to be while also making sure they do not lose sight of their own narrative and original culture?
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Unit 1 Question Responses

  1. One question that this week’s reading has raised for me is, what can we do as a society to add more diversity to different businesses? I understand that it is in a company’s best interest to hire qualified people who also have diverse backgrounds. However, I wonder if there is a way to go about diversifying without making it too difficult. In Watkins article, “What is organizational culture and why should we care?”, the author talks about culture and how it is shaped by stating that “Culture is powerfully shaped by incentives. The best predictor of what people will do is what they are incentivized to do” (p. 1). In this case, the incentive is money. According to the article, “Why Diversity Matters”, companies will gain more money if they have more diversity in their staff. So, why does it seem like there is still not enough diversity in many companies and businesses?
  2. In the article, “Why Diversity Matters”, there are many important and interesting statistics included. The main purpose of this article is to get readers to understand that diversity matters in business One of the statistics that struck me was “In the United States, there is a linear relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and better financial performance: for every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior executive team, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rise 0.8 percent” (p. 2). This is important to know because it shows that without diversity, it is difficult to succeed. This statistic was interesting to me because I did not realize that this was a fact. However, it makes a lot of sense because companies need all types of life experiences and backgrounds in order to reach others with whatever they are doing. At the end of the article, the author says that achieving more diversity is not going to be easy. However, it is extremely important that we do our best to include as much diversity as possible.