Tag: unit1

Thinking about summary and genre

Why summary is important

Summary is a task that you’ll encounter often in research-based writing–as an author, you’ll need to explain the essence of a text that you have worked with in developing your own ideas. Writing an effective summary means offering your reader a genuine understanding of the text, not just a list of its greatest hits. Your reader needs a little context–

  • what is this text?
  • what is the author doing in it?
  • what are the key ideas we should take from it?
  • and then what are you going to do with it?

Because you’ll need this skill regularly, we’re going to practice and use it regularly–we develop writing skills just like any other kind of competency, through examining models, trying it out, and repeating the drill.

You’ll find a handout on Blackboard that offers some more explanation of writing effective summaries. It’s also linked here: Handout on summary

Let’s think about this in terms of the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies article we’re reading this week. If you were going to explain this article to someone else, it wouldn’t be enough to say that Gundemir and her colleagues talk about some of the pros and cons of workplace diversity. We wouldn’t know anything about who Gundemir is and why we should take her word for it. We wouldn’t know whether this article was grounded in good research. We wouldn’t know whether the idea that there are more fruitful and less fruitful ways to frame diversity is central to her argument, or a kind of tertiary point that she mentions. We wouldn’t understand what the article is.

A summary like this, however, would offer us a lot more value: In her article…. from the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Seval Gundemir, an organizational psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, examines how companies’ diversity policies affect the way that minority employees view their own leadership potential within their companies. She reports data from 2 different studies that she and her colleagues conducted.  She finds that…..

Notice what that summary does–it offers a quick biographical blurb about the author (which tells us that she’s an academic), lets us know that this is a scholarly article (written by a scholar for other scholars in the field), gives us a window into her data set and methods, and then lets us know what she’s arguing. If we know all that, then anything else that you share with us from the article will be a lot more meaningful. We’ll get why it matters and what evidence there is to back it up.

Because effective summary is so essential to writing about research, we’ll be practicing this skill quite a bit in the weeks to come.

Why it’s important to think about genre

This is a term we’ll use quite a bit throughout the course, so it’s worth taking some time to discuss what it means. We often think about genre in relation to music or movies, where we’re accustomed to using it to refer to different ‘types’ of media. These genre labels communicate something to consumers, shape expectations for what that media will be like, and serve as handy sorting mechanisms for us (what we like, what we don’t, what we’re in the mood for, how we would describe something to another person, etc.)

When it comes to genres of writing, that same sort of understanding applies, but it’s worth pushing beyond this simplistic idea of ‘categories’ (as though they’re just sorting buckets) to understand how and why genres take shape.

image of small buckets for sorting crayons by color
crayons sorted into buckets

For starters, genres tend to responses to recurring writing situations–in other words, the same kind of need keeps popping up and we can use the same sort of text to meet that need. Let’s think about applying for a job. That’s a recurring situation, right? Lots of people find themselves having to do that. And there are ways that writing can help to make that situation work.

Now, job application materials–resumes and cover letters–didn’t just emerge spontaneously. They took shape because readers and writers found them to be useful ways of meeting that situational need–front-loaded documents that quickly communicate a job seeker’s qualifications, skills, and experiences. AND they’ve taken the fairly standard form that they do (consistent across many decades) because that pretty standard approach to organizing and formatting makes it possible for the reader to plow through a whole bunch of these documents pretty quickly, while still finding what they need.

Thus, we can think about genres as responsive and organic–developed to meet the needs of writers and readers and changeable depending upon circumstances. They’re not fixed, not static, and not simply interchangeable. We need to match genre to situation–thinking about our readers, about our purposes, about our publication/delivery venues.

Everything you do as a writer is a choice. And our choices are shaped by the situations in/for which we write. This rhetorical situation consists of a few key components, illustrated in the diagram below:

illustration of the components of rhetorical situation--author, audience, purpose, and context
Diagram showing rhetorical triangle of a text–subject, reader, writer

Understanding the rhetorical situation of texts helps us as readers understand what to expect from them and how to read them. And for us as writers, understanding our audience and purpose will help us to craft texts that work for our readers, meeting their needs and expectations and providing them a clear path to understanding.

The texts that you’re reading this week come from 2 rather different genres–Gundemir’s article is a fairly typical scholarly text, written by academics for an audience of other academics in their field and providing the sort of intensive research and analysis those readers demand. The other text by Austin & Pisano is from the Harvard Business Review, a publication with a much broader audience of professionals. They turn to HBR for quick insights into topics they might be interested in and are generally not looking for the same kind of deep-dive. When you know what you’re looking at, it’s much easier to navigate through it.

Now, because most of us are not organizational psychologists (I presume), Gundemir’s text isn’t really designed for us. We have to make our own path through it. There’s a handout on Blackboard (also linked here: Handout on Reading Scholarly Articles ) on how to wade through sometimes dense scholarly articles like this one.

Discussion Questions

Response to #1

“What is organizational culture and why should we care?” by Michael Watkins provided many viewpoints on the topic but did not bring anything into sharp focus for me. After reading the various definitions, I began to wonder if organizational culture was actually just another “tool” created by management to be used to influence employee behavior, motivate them to work, and improve their performance. Perhaps all the talk about belonging and core values is really a form of manipulation? In other words, perhaps organizational culture is nothing more than an algorithm that creates greater profit. Companies are always upgrading their technology, maximizing the efficiency of their supply chains, trying new marketing strategies, etc, constantly looking for a competitive edge and higher profits. Is organizational culture just another one of those things that companies are working on and finetuning to maximize their profits at a particular point in time? I am interested in knowing if anyone has studied this.

The statistics in “Why Diversity Matters” by Vivian Hunt, Dennis Layton, and Sara Prince are widely referenced. On the surface, it all makes sense. A more diverse workforce will help your company understand the needs of more customers and see more opportunities in more markets. Therefore, you will make more profit. But I’m wondering if there is another factor that could also be contributing to the financial results that is buried in the data. I say this because this statement from the article seems to work against the idea of diversity: “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.” In other words, companies don’t do as well if they have both gender and ethnic and racial diversity. I am curious to know more about this. Furthermore, the McKinsey study looked at the composition of top management and boards in 2014 and financial data for the years 2010 to 2013. This seems like a short time frame for the analysis. I am curious to know if diversity matters over the long term. Do companies with diversity from the start have a better chance of surviving and thriving over the long term? Does diversity make a difference all along the lifecycle of company?

Response to #2

In the article “Why Diversity Matters,” the authors state that diversity “leads to a virtuous cycle of increasing returns.” This immediately makes me think of my experiences in my high school’s vocal jazz ensemble. I was fortunate to go to a high school with a vocal music program that became a powerhouse because of the wide range of racial and ethnic diversity in our district. When I was in high school, I did not realize that so much of our success depended on our music director’s talent for selecting just the right composition of performers. Every song had complex arrangements and harmonies requiring a range of male and female voices. We also needed vocalists who could scat, beatbox and do vocal percussion, carry a walking bassline, and perform songs from different genres ranging from chamber jazz to gospel to pop. Factoring into all of that was each individual singer’s racial, ethnic, and cultural background that shaped our sound. Year after year, our jazz vocal groups would travel to competitions throughout California, and we would regularly win the top awards. We were often invited to perform at festivals like the Monterey Jazz Festival. We were named the best high school vocal jazz program in the nation by Downbeat magazine. Now that I think back to our competitions against other schools, I can clearly see that our diversity was the element that made us better performers.

Discussion 6/12

  1. Some researchable questions that the Watkins read: What is organizational culture and why should we care? personally evoked for me are mostly related to the time and data pool in which he conducted his research.  When I first started reading this article I realized that it was very outdated, since it occurred in May of 2013, more than eight years ago. This makes me wonder how different the responses would be if Watkins repeated this research more recently.  Another aspect of his research that made me a bit skeptical is that the only people invited into the survey were from LinkedIn.  So therefore that only people who heard about the survey had to already be a part of the organization, which largely narrowed down the data pool.  I also noted that out of the nine perspectives, only one was from a female.  It just made me wonder if the data in his research was slightly skewed and not completely accurate to current times and a wide range of people/genders. 

3) One aspect from the article Why diversity matters that sparked a big interest in me, was when the authors started to discuss the disparities between different countries and how diverse the executive teams are for each of them.  It is very discouraging to see that 97 percent of the United States fails to represent the racial demographic composition of the country’s population.  Even the United Kingdom, which does much better than the United States, still falls short of racial diversity with only 22 percent of companies that are racially diverse.  I think that this practice of not being diverse in companies goes back to the idea of organizational culture.  The first perspective in Watkins’ article quotes Aristotle, “we are what we repeatedly do”.  For much of America’s history, the only people allowed to hold a place in power were white men.  This practice is unfortunately still carried out often, evident in the very low statistics regarding racial and gender diversity.  The article titled Why diversity matters was written in 2015, so there is hope that the statistics have improved over the last 6 years, but no matter the improvement, there is still much to do to become truly diverse in the work field.

Discussion Questions

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.

Discussion Questions

Response to #1

The articles “Why Diversity Matters” – Vivian Hunt, Dennis Layton and Sara Prince and “Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” – Michael D. Watkins, brought to mind several questions I’d like to explore further. As a Black woman who’s been working most of her adult life in majority white companies, I pondered over the intersection between a particular type of organizational culture and effective implementation of diversity and inclusion in a workplace.

“Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” mentions values being an integral part of an organization’s culture. This made me wonder what are some specific examples of values in companies? One person surveyed in the article posited that culture is shaped by the main culture of the society we live in. So how does that bode for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) folks whose cultures and values are marginalized in mainstream society?

I also began to wonder if any best practices for organizational culture have been established since the writing of the article in 2013? Are there any companies that have a successful culture? Who are they and how did they do it? What are the distinct characteristics of successful company culture? All of these questions should be considered when tasked with implementing or improving organizational culture.

Response to #3

The statistic that jumped out at me most in the article “Why Diversity Matters”, referenced how the United Kingdom, Brazil and the United States are doing on racial diversity in corporate senior leadership positions.  According to “Why Diversity Matters”, ‘The United Kingdom does comparatively better in racial diversity, albeit at a low level: some 78 percent of UK companies have senior-leadership teams that fail to reflect the demographic composition of the country’s labor force and population, compared with 91 percent for Brazil and 97 percent for the United States’.

Research has established that ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to outperform financially above national industry medians, thus why are American companies lagging so far behind in hiring ethnically diverse executives?  This is significant and leads me to a frightening revelation. The United States prides itself on being a capitalist nation, which often leads to putting the success of businesses above the needs of the people. So, it could be argued that keeping corporate America’s leadership roles (power) in the hands of a select few white people might outweigh all else. Even making money.  Many businesses will say that there isn’t an adequate pool of qualified diverse candidates to choose from. This isn’t a sufficient reason for executives being overwhelmingly white. It only means that there needs to be a change in corporate culture.

If organizations truly desire to transform culturally, more diverse employees must be hired at all levels and should be mentored, sponsored and promoted so as to one day be a defining voice at the head of a profitable corporation.

Discussion Questions

Response to #1

In the reading “Why diversity matters”, many questions were raised for me. Something that stood out to me the most was that no industry or company is in the top quartile when it comes to attaining both racial, ethnic, and gender diversity. When looking at racial and ethnic diversity alone, in the United States, racial and ethnic diversity had a larger impact on financial performance than gender diversity because there has already been an effort in women’s representation. This seems problematic to me, and the first thing that came to mind was that businesses want to “check the box.” The reason for me saying this is due to the fact that the successful fight for women’s representation in the past had great results, but this does not mean there isn’t more to be done. Gender diversity does not only consist of women’s and men’s rights but a spectrum of genders and identities that need to be recognized and valued. Of course, I am grateful that racial and ethnic diversity is finally being recognized in the workplace, but I do believe that furthering gender diversity alongside racial and ethnic diversity would not only acquire bigger financial gains but would make companies stronger as a whole. Companies would grow, be able to educate themselves more about the injustices seen every day, and would ultimately be able to understand their customers, consumers, and employees even more. The generations to come to need to be understood and heard, especially when diversity comes in so many forms. I believe that it is crucial for diversity teams to tackle racial, ethnic, and gender diversity simultaneously in hopes of understanding “customer orientation”, employee well-being, as well as decisions that need to be made in the future. Different opinions, viewpoints, and experiences can form an array of fascinating ideas and solutions.

Response to #2

In the reading “What is organizational culture and why should we care”, I instantly resonated with the last heading. An organization is practically living and can adjust to the reality in which is placed upon it. Not only can an organization successfully adapt to external and internal forces, but it can also do it quickly. However, sometimes a goal is uncertain or seems unattainable, but growing and figuring out issues together is one step towards this “goal.” When I think of this idea, I think of our campus and how students adjusted to the pandemic over the last year. I think of our community as an organization adjusting to pressures all the time. When the pandemic forced us to go home, there were many unknowns, but we knew that by taking this step we could get ahead and maintain our “culture.” Being back in the fall, we took many precautions to continue to better our community, and through this, we grew and learned many things about ourselves and others. We never knew exactly what our efforts would create, but we knew that by making changes we were one step closer to normalcy. We still do not know, but now, looking back over the past year, I can say as a community we have grown so much and our efforts have certainly paid off. Group efforts have created more peace throughout our community, knowing that everyone has played their part in hopes of an amazing outcome. Although the pandemic was a “big shift” for us, our reactions started a continuous process. We will take everything we have learned, and still use this knowledge and practice similar efforts since we have learned they have been successful.

Discussion Questions

Response to #1

The organizational article to me was the most intriguing, as it created a sense of curiosity, which led to a variety of questions I had concerning organizations in general. Last semester, I took two management classes which focused heavily on organizations, their architecture, which was composed by the structure and culture, along with other various elements. This makes me want to dive deeper into these issues and understand how organizations or large corporations in general can create a culture where it fosters a company identity where tasks can be completed in an efficient as well as effective manner.

  1. Can organizational culture be influenced or altered to fit the needs or desires of a specific organization? For example, do office perks, monetary incentives, work schedules, HR management (acquisition, maintenance, and termination of employees) create an environment which provides for a certain type of organizational culture, or is organizational culture set in stone? Can it change over time? Are intrinsic or extrinsic factors the most influential when considering a company’s culture?

At first, I questioned the validity of what random LinkedIn users had to say about organizational culture. This is because they only represent a small population of users, where comments are often positive and uplifting. However, the authors findings made me realize a variety of different things concerning organizational culture. First, there are various components that make up an organizations culture, some people believe it is a way to control employees, others believe that it is set, while others believe that they are constantly changing to fit the needs of both the external, as well as the internal environment. LinkedIn provides for another unique opportunity that also makes me think of another question I would be interested in learning about in the future.

  • Is organizational culture different in certain parts of the world? Is this due to peoples personal beliefs and norms within that culture? What influences the different beliefs and personal cultures of people, and how does this impact a domestic organization in comparison with an international one?
  • What are some components in organizational culture which may be detrimental to the organization as a whole? What are some positive aspects of organizational culture or things that my contribute to the culture which make the organization act more efficiently as well as effectively?

Response to #2

This prompt makes me think back to being a young child and beginning to read. Everybody at one point of time did not know how to read, but little by little they built their knowledge and recognition of words to help them understand how to read. Thinking back, I started off with small words like cat, dog, and apple. Eventually from this, you learn how to read and write. Over time, especially on standardized tests, teachers teach you about a five-paragraph format to answer a prompt with evidence supporting your claim. This is in essence, one of the most important beginner templates in writing that you begin to use as a kid. Obviously being able to recognize the different components that make up essays, is extremely beneficial as you are able to recognize the structure and quickly skim over certain elements.

This is exactly what the TSIS article is trying to illustrate. By following a specific format structure, you are able to summarize other people’s opinions or statements off in a conversational manner while conveying your own thoughts afterword.  Having this format makes for a clear, concise paper which is easy to read. Much like my first five paragraph essays which had an introduction, three bodies of paragraphs for evidence, as well as a conclusion the TSIS format has structure.

Other structures that I have noticed have enabled me to save time and focus on the important parts of the writing. For example, in many of my classes and out of class work, I read 10-Ks. Each 10k that I read, I understand that there are distinct sections which include a summary of the business, risk factors, financial data, as well as MD&A.

Along with this, in the TSIS introduction it speaks a lot about having to consciously think through concepts or actions until you have mastered that task. This is just like reading in my opinion, as well as today analyzing certain documents. The more you are able to read them, the faster it is to understand the general idea and any information which pertains to the subject. I have also experienced this in sports. Growing up playing basketball, it takes countless hours making sure that your form is correct, and the only way to do this is through repetition. Growing up I always shot the ball in an underhand manner, which is extremely ineffective. After becoming more serious with the sport, I learned what you need to focus on in order to have a better shot. At the beginning of creating your shot, you have to think about making sure that your elbows are at the right angle, your wrist goes in the right direction, feet square, making you think about every time you take a shot. Eventually it becomes something that you can perform unconsciously. This relates back to the TSIS reading as it speaks that just like sports and other activities, writing takes practice and lots of thought to perform well.

Overall, I agree with the statement that the author makes concerning how writing is a process that can be learned through repetition, and it is extremely relevant to their own ideas concerning the structure and using conventional formulas/phrases when learning how to master something.

Discussion Questions

  1. The readings for this week’s class presented me with different ideas for researchable questions. The issues I am thinking about include diversity in our schools. How do we disaggregate data and the relationship to standardized tests? The pandemic has produced a lot of changes in our society and no other area has seen greater changes than our educational system.

Per our article, “An organization [is] a living culture… that can adapt to the reality as fast as possible.” — Abdi Osman Jama. My question is: did school systems (organizations) adapt to the COVID reality fast? I was finishing my associates degree and professors struggled. I self- taught statistics. It was not pretty.

I watched the news in Syracuse and our largest district struggled. Was there a rapid adaption to this new normal?  How did students perform?

There is one point I would like to make on diversity. I believe all of us need to expand our definition of diversity. Sometimes when I read articles or watch news programs on diversity the term is utilized in a very narrow context. There are many forms of diversity. We all may consider the definition from our personal experiences and that’s to be expected but I think it’s important to consider it in a larger context. Thinking of the many kinds of diversity:

Cultural diversity

Racial diversity

Religious diversity

Disability

Age diversity

Sex / Gender diversity

Sexual orientation

3. There were many statistics from “Why diversity matters,” that sparked my interest. One of my personal favorites is that “Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 30 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.” The article goes on to point out that as a society we are closely linked and a global world. Thus, the more diverse the company the better the results. Even Syracuse’s University College understands that their mission is global. Central to expanding and strengthening the University’s global offerings is the rebranding of University College to Syracuse University Global. I’m a prime example of this global diversity. Last semester I’m in Syracuse, my Russian professor is in South Africa, my classmates were in Washington state and overseas.

So, with all these statistics and all this knowledge…it begs the question “Why aren’t all organizations more diverse since it clearly results in greater profits?” If you won’t be diverse for the reasoning it’s those diverse backgrounds and perspectives lead to an array of ideas, knowledge, as well as approaches to doing things… then do it for financial reasons. The bottom line is that diverse organizational culture gives the organization a competitive advantage.

Discussion Questions

1.

These readings cause me to think more about what organizational culture is, how it affects people and the way they live their lives, and how diversity plays a role in the success of companies. Based off the reading “What is organizational culture and why should we care?” it seems like the definition of organizational culture is a spectrum and is more of an opinion. Most of the people who voiced their opinions regarding what organizational culture is have very different ideas that one who said one thing might not have even thought of what someone else had said. The definition and the way it affects people is dependent on who the person is and what they have experienced in their life. While it would be easier for most people, if not everyone, to have one main definition for organizational culture, it seems like it will always be more of an opinion of what it is and that it affects people differently depending on what they see it as.

Diversity has been a topic of conversation for decades while people have struggled with discrimination and being treated a specific way because of their gender or skin color. It is extremely interesting that the companies that have more diversity in both gender and ethnic ways have more financial returns because as stated in “Why diversity matters”, this is definitely more of a correlation than a causation. Although, this could potentially be caused by the fact that by having a diversity among the people working could cause people who think differently to be working together and coming up with new and different ideas.

3.

The statistic that “racial and ethnic diversity has a stronger impact on financial performance in the United States than gender diversity, perhaps because earlier efforts to increase women’s representation in the top levels of business have already yielded positive results” is not only an interesting fact but proves that gender diversity has already been effective for businesses in the United States. The statistics in the article makes me think that the reason diversity is so positive for businesses is because there are different people with different backgrounds thinking differently about the same things. This allows me to create my own definition of what organizational culture is just like all the people from linkedin did in 2013. Organizational culture is within a company or even group of people when there is a diversity of people working on the same thing together. This matters because it is a way for people to be working together and is a way to get different perspectives and ideas on the same topic.

Week of 6/7–overview and prompts

Weekly overview

We’ve got a mix of assignments this week as we gear up for the course and get familiar with the platforms. Please see below for a quick rundown of the week’s work.

  • by Wednesday, post a brief introduction to yourself on the blog (see this post for more details)
  • read this week’s assigned texts–a couple of brief pieces about organizational culture, and the preface and introduction of They Say, I Say
  • by Saturday, respond to 2 of the discussion prompts below (here on the blog)
  • by Sunday, submit your analysis of the introduction to They Say/I Say (in the Blackboard Dropbox)

We’ve got 2 primary goals for the week–to familiarize ourselves with the course and with each other, and to begin developing a shared base of knowledge. Each of the above activities will move us along toward those goals. Please also read through the syllabus and Unit 1 assignment sheet, linked below and also available on Blackboard.

SyllabusDownload
Unit 1 schedule and assignment sheetDownload

Discussion prompts and instructions

Discussions on the blog will serve as class discussion work throughout the summer. For this week, please respond to Question #1 and to either #2 or #3.

Create a new post for your responses. Categorize it as “Discussions,” and tag it with “unit1,” “weekof6/7,” and [your name]. Each of your responses should be >150 words. Once you have posted, please review your classmates’ posts and comment on at least 2 of them (>75 words each). You should complete this work by the end of the day on Saturday, 6/12.

  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?
  2. Anytime we learn about something new, we start from where we are.  Use your own experiences to respond to one of these articles–draw some connections between your experiences of work and/or school and the claims/ideas that these authors raise.
  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?

Remember: In order to keep our blog organized, it will be important for us to use categories and tags appropriately:

  • categories will sort posts into different locations (pages) on the blog
  • tags will make posts easily searchable.

When you click the “+” button to create a new post, your text editor window will have boxes for Tags and Categories in the right menu.