Organizational Culture

How do diversity and individual differences impact your organizational culture?

The 21st century is being described as the age of equity that recognizes and values ethnocultural and racial diversity. Today's organizations are discovering that to be successful in the current environment, they need to align their corporate cultures with a multicultural world. To maximize the potential of every individual, organizations must increase their awareness of culture and diversity issues and learn how to manage them appropriately. Opportunities for individuals to shape organizational culture are increased because certain personality types tend to cluster into disciplines and fields of employment. For example, a disproportionate number of extroverts are found in the fields of marketing, public relations and acting; while a disproportionate number of introverts are found in the fields of engineering, library work, and computer programming. This homogeneity provides increased impetus and decreased resistance to the shaping of a desirable culture. Changes in organizational culture can be brought about by: 1. replacing highly visible employees, 2. reorganizing, 3. establishing new reward and recognition systems (including changes in the behavior that is rewarded), and 4. changing management processes, including meeting frequencies, attendance, and agendas.

Question 2: What are the traits of an effective organization?

The traits of a successful organization are the following:

successful organization should be able to identify and define the key competencies for organizational success based on the organization's vision, values, and goals. It should be able to express the key competencies as attributes against which participants can be assessed.

It typically uses a number of peers, customers, subordinates for evaluation of the results and provides feedback to the individual about their performance. It creates an action plan to improve the individual's performance. The other trait for the success is it ensures that the right people are selected to provide the feedback. In all a successful organization should communicate organizational vision, values, goals, and rules of behavior frequently. In addition, the organization should make efforts to reduce interpersonal conflict between the individuals through diversity training, personality assessment, and coaching.