1) In the article “What is Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” I found the idea that culture is a product of compensation to be very interesting, in that paragraph it was mentioned that the best predictors of what people will do is what they are incentivized to do. I also connected this to the article “Why Diversity Matters” where it was mentioned that more diverse companies have been shown to be 35% more likely to out perform and have higher returns. The question I kept wondering about was Would companies be trying to improve their diversity if there were not statistics such as these to support the change?
3)Both articles “What is Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” and “Why Diversity matters” have provided me not only with new insight on these topics as well as allowed me to make connections to things that go on around us in the world. In “What is Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” a few definitions stood out to me. The first two were from the article “Organizational Culture is Civilization in the Workplace” in the paragraph that followed, the author went on to describe that Organizational Culture is derived from the societal norms that are behind upheld around the organization. The author writes about how the success of an organization can be determined by how willing the organization is to adapt to new cultures. It is mentioned that ” …established cultures can become impediments to survival when there are substantial environment changes.” This interested me because I believe this to be true, the more willing institutions and organizations are to rebrand their cultures, then the more successful they will be in the long run. The second was that “An organization is a living culture… that can adapt to the reality as fast as possible.” the author mentions that since the society is constantly changing it is hard to establish a set organizational culture which I completely agree with.As time passes we are changing as a society which also means that the things around us should change as well so they are able to keep up with current times. This made me reflect back on the importance of allowing room for improvements, and a large component of having this space is not to have a set in stone organizational culture.
In the article “Why Diversity Matters” It was said that The United Kingdom does better when it comes to diversity than The United States in senior leadership programs. At first I was wondering why this could possibly be but then it reminded me of something I learned in one of my college classes back in high school. In America where you live determines the types of jobs and schools you attend. Many minorities are confined to redlined neighborhoods and do not have access to the resources needed for them to leave. When they do they have a hard time finding jobs because they may not fit certain unspoken requirements. For instance a while back I read that when hiring, people are more likely to hire someone who went to a prestigious or well known university in comparison to someone who attended a community college or a lesser known university. This all can be a factor to why there is not as much diversity in senior positions in the U.S than in the U.K.
Oumou, I agree completely with the fact that things are constantly changing in society, and how essential it is to be open to improvements. I also believe that this relates back to the article on why diversity matters. The world today has a very different view on diversity and its importance than it had fifty years ago. Our views are changing, customers are changing, and people are changing in general. As a result, it is important for an organization to embrace those changes and be open to new ones. As you stated, this allows for improvements, and being open to change. An organization should never be complacent, because the minute an organization believes they are successful and do not need to change is the minute that their organization has failed.
I also thought that there was a really interesting point that you highlighted at the end, where you stated that where you live determines the types of jobs and schools that you attend. I would also like to add on that very often, what you are born into has a huge determination in where you will end up in life, which is extremely unfortunate. Prestigious schools are extremely difficult to get into, and with the wrong school system and not having enough money for tuition, it is impossible for kids to be recruited into leadership programs when attending community college and competing for spots with students from those prestigious universities. Students from neighborhoods where resources are not available to them, such as internet, or even a safe, quiet place to study. This leads to them having to attend a lower grade university, or community college, in turn not being recruited to large companies with extremely competitive programs. I think this is an issue that needs to be spoken more about overall, and maybe look into how the United Kingdom is successful in promoting diversity in senior leadership programs.
I think that raising the question if any companies are actively trying to improve their diversity just because it is the right thing to do or strictly because there are statistics proving that the diversity in their company is lacking is something that I had not thought of and is very insightful. It is very scary to think that if there were no statistics holding these employers accountable there might not be any diversity at all. I also really like how you tied the issue of redlining into reasoning why the United Kingdom has more diversity in executive positions compared to the United States because your logic makes a lot of sense.
It’s worth questioning companies’ motives for adopting Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that in many places this D&I work happens in response to a lawsuit or to a change in business regulations. In other places, it’s driven by the promise of potential economic benefits. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with social justice objectives. To wonder at their reasons is just pragmatic, not cynical.
And, as you point out, it’s essential to consider these moves in context, thinking about the history of race relations in the United States, for instance, and about the current social climate. We don’t make decisions in a vacuum. Our plans and goals take shape within a Big Picture.