5: Organizational Culture

Background

In his book Defining Organizational Culture, Edgar H. Schein, a prominent researcher of organizational leadership and culture, points out that culture is what shapes the behavior within an organization (1). Exploring organizational culture is important for organizational management because according to Chris Argyris, a distinguished researcher of organizational development and learning, organizational change is “incomplete” without a cultural change (2).

Analysis

Looking back at NCRIC’s culture, the organization has strengths and weaknesses in terms of culture that are affecting the its capacity to accomplish its mission. The main strength of NCRIC is its light atmosphere and various opportunities to interact with staff members of other divisions in the organization. For example, once in a while, interns are invited to a lunch meeting where they are given a chance to network and talk to the president of the organization or other people in leadership positions.

When examining NCRIC’s weaknesses, these two characteristics come into the picture--tardiness and noisiness. Due to the “light” atmosphere of the organization, staff members come into the office late; in other instances, people talk and laugh loudly, distracting other staff members’ ability to work. I believe that these weaknesses prevail because of the absence of explicitly deciding/stating organization’s vision statement and core values. According to Argyris, there is a productive learning when things are stated and explained explicitly rather than implicitly. Furthermore, when everyone shares organization’s core values as well as understands what NCRIC wants to achieve, the organization is one step closer to change its negative behavior, thus, changing its culture.

Another reason behind this negative culture is because the staff members are given much autonomy and independence, and because there is an underlying assumption within the culture that being tardy and noisy is acceptable, the negative behaviors are not changed. Therefore, there needs to be a system in place that would keep everyone accountable; this can be a combination system of penalizing and incentivizing staff members. There are limitations in changing culture, as Dr. Beryl Levinger says, a change in knowledge does not equal to a change in behavior. However, when a system of accountability is in place and when everyone begins to understand and embrace organization’s vision and its values, change comes much easier.

Recommendations

• • USCRI and/or NCRIC should develop a system that incentivize people who come early or on time and penalize people who come in late often.

  • USCRI should create an anonymous survey evaluating the organization’s overall culture and atmosphere.

  • NCRIC and USCRI should use orientation methods to change the negative norms of the organization.

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(1) lecture slides week 7 Tuesday, p. 21

(2) Ibid. p. 22