- This week’s readings have me eager to learn more about organizational culture and its impact in our society. It seems to be a blueprint for some, and a cancer to others. In what ways does organizational culture help success in an institution? In what ways does it harm success? Does it cultivate success for only some and the opposite for others? I’m interested in learning more about how an organizational culture came to be in our society, and how it didn’t in other societies. What is t that has society suddenly questioning our organizational default, and is it good or bad to begin to move away from it?
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“Organizational culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve as ‘glue’ to integrate the members of the organization.” — Richard Perrin
Culture is a carrier of meaning. Cultures provide not only a shared view of “what is” but also of “why is.” In this view, culture is about “the story” in which people in the organization are embedded, and the values and rituals that reinforce that narrative. It also focuses attention on the importance of symbols and the need to understand them — including the idiosyncratic languages used in organizations — in order to understand culture.
This definition can be misleading because it relates to the bad realm of organizational culture which attempts to force its parts in line and make them all similar, taking away their individuality. This goes away from a newer call for diversity within organizations, which has proven to bring great success. The idea of “reinforcing a narrative” does the opposite of this.
Unit 1-5/18 (Mikayla)
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- 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.
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
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.
Unit 1 Responses
- 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.
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.
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.
Unit 1 Response Questions
- From the reading entitled “Why Diversity Matters” many questions surrounding diversity arise for me. The first one being why do gender and ethnically diverse companies produce better results financially. Because of this, how do we further diverse companies so that most companies are outperforming and doing better financially than they did in the past. Although this is a hard task to do, it can be done over time. According to the article, for every 10% in recital and ethnic diversity, the company sees a 0.8 in earning before taxes and interest. This number should catch the eye of a lot of companies and as a result, hopefully diversify not only the workers, but leadership as well. In the other reading talking about culture, I noticed that using the quotes of various people, culture plays a huge role in our everyday lives. Katanga’s quote stood out to me which read “culture is how organizations do things.” I thought this was interesting because there are a bunch of different cultures in companies so I was wondering how do organizations go about this.
- In the article “Why Diversity Matters” there were a lot of intriguing quotes. The one I would like to talk about is “Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.” This statistic raises a bunch of questions for me. One being why don’t more companies diversify their organizations if the numbers show drastic improvements? In addition, what do people outside of these companies think? all these statistics show that with less diversity, it is harder to succeed and the same amount of financial returns. In a lot of companies, you need people of many different backgrounds and cultures to connect to all the customers which is why these diverse companies show such an improvement. Although it may be difficult and take more time, these statics show that is is well worth it and companies should be changing their hiring.
Week of 5/18 – Discussion
- 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?
- 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.
Benjamin Fisch, 5/18 week responses
These readings make me wonder about a few issues. The reading suggests that “culture is powerfully shaped by incentives.” After reading this, this reminded me of capitalism, and the issue that the system of intense capitalism can sometimes lead to greed and abuse of power. This raised the issue for me that a culture of incentives can lead to a culture in an organization of greed. A culture of a greed is an issue to a business for example, because this culture will promote individuals under the organization to work towards their own selfish goals rather than work towards the agenda of the organization. I would be interested in exploring further the question of deciding whether or not the culture of incentive is the best option that an organization has. Although, capitalism and working towards and incentive is flawed its the system that we use, because we decided the capitalism is better than socialism or communism. I would be interested in exploring whether a culture of incentives or capitalism is better than a culture of socialism.
2. When reading “culture is consistent, observable patterns of behavior in organizations,” I am reminded of many of my own personal connections that relate. Aristotle said, “we are what we repeatedly do.” The first connection that comes to my mind is the mentality of my high school basketball team. We had a strong culture, and that was a culture of winning. We very rarely lost a game, and a lot of this stemmed from the mentality that we had of never giving up and our culture of winning. Another connection that I made after reading was that my family has its own culture as well. My family is small, but it can still serve as an organization. My family had a culture of togetherness and love. If one of us was having an issue, then we were all having an issue. On the other hand, if one of us was thriving we were all thriving. My family exhibits consistent, observable patterns of organization, which defines it as a culture.