Organizational Behavior Terminology Organizational Culture and Behavior:

Organizational Behavior Terminology Organizational Culture and Behavior: Author Edgar H. Schein, professor of management at the Sloan School of Management, MIT, believes that organizational culture has in the recent past embraced themes from a number of disciplines, including sociology, social psychology, anthropology and cognitive psychology as well. And although all of these fields of study feed into today's concept of organizational culture, Schein asserts that organizational culture "has become a field of its own" (Schein, 2010, p. ix).

In order to stay focused on the evolving field of organizational culture -- without feeling "overwhelmed" by the "mass of research" that has been "spawned" in the field -- is a challenge the author is up against (and no doubt he's not alone).

Schein nevertheless believes the way to stay zeroed in on "organizational culture" is to assert: a) leaders "as entrepreneurs" are "the main architects of culture"; b) once cultures have formed -- and established behaviors in response to the values and strategies -- in a workplace environment "…they influence what kind of leadership is possible"; and c) when and if elements and behaviors of the workplace culture "become dysfunctional, leadership can and must do something to speed up cultural change" (p. xi).

Schein explains that there are three levels of culture: a) artifacts (all the phenomena that is seen, heard, and felt when a new culture is encountered; the "visible products of the group…its language…clothing…emotional displays"; b) espoused beliefs and values (the ideals, goals, values, ideologies and aspirations); and c) "basic underlying assumptions" ("unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs and values -- these determine "behavior, perception, thought, and feeling" (p. 24). Organization Behavior: Authors O. Jeff Harris and Sandra J.

Hartman explain that behavior within organizations is related to the quality of people that management hires and how management presents the ethical values it expects to see from employees. Of course of those values are ignored or thwarted, the company loses its grip on the culture. Research reflects that it is "advisable" for companies to put its code of ethics (i.e., expected behaviors) in writing.

Still, even when those codes are communicated, older workers are more likely to "interpret ethics codes more stringently than do younger workers" (Harris, et al., 2001, p. 7). Workers in smaller companies tend to adhere to ethics codes more so than workers in larger companies and self-employed individuals tend to hold values "similar to employees in small organizations," Harris explains.

Diversity in the Workplace: A careful review of existing academic research on the topic of "diversity" -- published in the Journal of Diversity Management -- brings a wealth of good information to the reader. Diversity basically means hiring individuals without regard or preference to one specific ethnicity over another.

One of the issues presented by McMahon, et al., is that in the recent past, companies gave attention to diversity because of "equal opportunity" issues -- including labor laws and a general sense of social justice and fairness that hastened the hiring people of varying cultural and ethic origins. The "observable" aspect of diversity in one's place of work was (and is) important to the modern manager. But moreover, "now-a-days" alert modern companies provide training programs "that emphasize acquisition of diversity competencies necessary for effective business strategy" (McMahan, 2010, p. 37).

Indeed, diversity "competence," as McMahon puts it, at the individual level and the organizational level, is viewed as "critical" in order to stay competitive "in an increasingly global marketplace and in diverse employee labor markets," McMahon asserts on page 37. The authors posit that diversity in a business environment helps the bottom line, and they use empirical studies to back up their beliefs. "Diversity in business," the authors insist, helps in "pooling the best talent" and it reduces the "gap between increasingly diverse customer bases" (p. 40).

Beyond that, creating a diverse workplace "unleashes creativity, promotes innovation and thereby enhances the competitiveness of the organization," McMahon explains (p. 40). As an example of the empirical studies that provide the basis for their assertions, the authors reference an empirical study of the U.S. banking industry (63 banks were surveyed) done by Richard (2000). The bottom line for this research showed that when a firm "pursued a strategy of growth there was a positive relationship between racial diversity and firm performance" (McMahon, p. 39).

A second empirical survey referenced by McMahon and colleagues (Richard, Murthi, and Ismail, 2007) that included a "range of other industries" besides banks, revealed that "Racial diversity…exhibited a positive correlation to long-term firm performance" (p. 39). (Organizational) Communication: Scholars tend to view organization communication both broadly and narrowly, according to an article by Feldner and D'Urso.

The broad view looks into the ways in which organizational communication / discourse "contributes to the construction of an organization's culture"; the more narrow view that scholars take looks at "discourses surrounding particular issues" (like gender fairness, affirmative action, or leadership) (Feldner, et al., 2010, p. 9).