Organizational Culture: Management, Gender Differences

Organizational Culture: Management, Gender Differences and Navigation of the Public Sector

The success of a business depends largely on the tenor set by its ownership, management and personnel in concert with the goals of its mission and the administrative nature of its operation. This shapes what is known as a company's organizational culture. Such is the general tone in which communication, production and innovation are fostered, either to the achievement or failure of desired outcomes. A positive organizational culture is one which thrives on the strength of a shared motivation, an evident team effectiveness and a core of leaders that is qualified and respected. These conditions make a company both a functional business and a potentially rewarding place to work. For its employees, the opportunity to work in an environment where learning new things is essential to the process of conducting day-to-day business is often a significant driving force. These conditions describe what is referred to as the organizational culture, a somewhat abstract but omnipresent concept defining the behavior, expectations and experiences of all who operate within and come into engagement with an organization. The research conducted here reveals that organizational culture is impacted by a broad array of factors, including the orientation of management, the accommodation of diversity such as gender differences and the reflection of positive rather than negative aspects of the general culture. Indeed, we find that first and foremost, managerial orientation will play a substantial part in defining this culture. To this point, "the managerial function finds its only outlet through the members of the organization (body corporate). Whilst the other functions bring into play material and machines the managerial function operates only on the personnel." (Shafritz, 48) Without question, this is a defining aspect of an organization's culture, with the managerial orientation impacting the experience of personnel, directing the activities of teams and guiding the organization through its own ups and downs. Moreover, the manager is the channel through which the administrative goals and visions are passed to the rest of the organization, meaning that in this position is vested a significant degree of influence with regard to the realization of a desired organizational culture. One of the keys to a positive orientation in the managerial role is the capacity to delegate responsibility and simultaneously establish a consistency in the company. Indeed, this consistency is a key outcome of a positive organizational culture, with roles, goals and procedural norms defined to a degree that reduces confusion, frustration or disagreement. Again, this is something which begins at the managerial level, where, the Shafritz text finds, "the object of division of work is to produce more and better work with the same effort. The worker always on the same part, the manager concerned always with the same matters, acquire an ability, sureness and accuracy which increase their output." (Shafritz, 48) Creating an environment where these conditions are present will contribute significantly to the sense of personnel that they are part of a functional entity that values their respective contributions and uses them to a consistent and organized end. Still, it is important to observe in the context of this discussion that the features defining organizational culture extend well beyond the simple importance of conducting responsibilities and defining roles. The human elements of organizational culture are most central, with issues such as diversity, multi-cultural communication and gender differences impacting the makeup of a company and, in turn, the capacity of the company to accommodate and treat with sensitivity all comprising this makeup will be a defining part of organizational culture. For the purposes of this discussion, we consider gender accommodation as a determinant of organizational culture. Accordingly, we consider the observations provided by Stivers (2002), who recognizes that "while much gender-oriented research has documented perceived differences in male and female behavior as well as men's and women's expectations about how each sex will behave in particular situations, relatively little thought has been given to what difference these differences may: what they imply for women's careers and organizational experiences versus those of men." (Stivers, 24) This is a factor which does significantly impact organizational culture, as the degree to which gender realities are accommodated or disregarded will play heavily into the experience of both men and women in the workplace. Here, we are introduced to the distinct challenges of managing diversity in the workplace, both relating to women and to the general premise of contending with distinguishing cultural features and ideals. Fitting these within the context of an overarching company culture can be challenging, contributing to the need for such a culture that is welcoming and comfortable for all. The concept of the glass-ceiling, which still persists today, is one that challenges workplace administrators to find ways to bridge gaps created by gender expectations, social inequalities and the presence of sexual harassment. These are all symptoms of the glass ceiling which either institutionally detain women from opportunities equal to those of their male counterparts or which actively intimidate women from pursuit of advancement. In all of these is the culprit of gender role expectation in an imbalanced context. Even today, we find that social and cultural expectations are often inextricable from that which we perceive to be particularly male or particularly female in quality or characteristic. As Stivers claims on the subject, "both men and women professionals in organizations seek to deny the existence of sexual harassment. Nevertheless, her research suggested that such incidents are widespread and that most go unreported, frequently because women are apt to blame themselves when men at work make overtures." (Stivers, 25) Where this occurs, there is clearly a dual cultural conflict for the organization which correlates both to a company-wide culture of denial and, worse, to a culture which inherently allows the type of treatment that renders the workplace hostile and discomforting for women. We may trace such a cultural problem to the failure of administration and management to encourage a positive culture, to establish a way of diminishing or removing this negative presence from the company and to accommodate the needs of those who have experienced unwanted sexual or gender based harassment with co-workers. Still, in many ways the conditions of women in the context of organizational culture and directly tied to a broader cultural reality. Indeed, patriarchy in the workplace is a prime function of patriarchy in a larger society, with the historical inaccessibility of the business or working worlds to women today being manifested as a more muted but certainly still-present expectation of a power-scheme which fundamentally disadvantages women. Gender objectification and social expectations of that which it means to be a woman are both elements of this imbalance, with this business framework operating on the basis of an intent to subjugate the ascendancy of women. The result is a negative organizational culture situation in which women must often abide social gender stereotypes and behavioral or aesthetic expectations simply to be accepted into and to succeed within a business world that has essentially been guarded as a man's realm. The glass ceiling, in this case, is reinforced by the divided interest of women. Where it appears that men are socially valued in an intertwined sexual and professional way, for women, the expectations of femininity seem to undermine this relationship. This perspective has in many regards been encouraged by a historical tendency away from female leadership in the business context. In fact, it must be acknowledged that, due to literally centuries of imbalance, we are as yet a nation still dominated by the power of men. This is especially in the corporate world, where though women have made significant inroads, they are as yet underrepresented and under-supported. The discussion here, which touches upon gender expectations and the impact of sexual roles, is indicative of the challenges still faced by women in the workplace, which is in many ways governed by the emotionally aggressive proclivities of the male engagement strategy. This is demonstrative of the relationship between organizational culture and organizational crisis. The text by Van Mart (1998) also contributes to this discussion by providing us with a discussion of negative organizational culture in the context of the public sector. This is a useful point of reference because it recognizes the correlation between negative organizational culture and a culture of general failure. One of the key reasons for the general public perception that government employees and government agencies are less-productive is the pervading cultural sense of all 'politicians' as being corrupt, self-interested or disingenuous. The conflation of the grandstanding career-politician with the wage-earning public servant is often responsible for the public suspicion of government agencies as a whole. There may be the belief that even if a specific public agency or confronted employee is not responsible directly for misappropriation, it serves as a channel for the misappropriation of officials higher up on the chain. From the perspective of a public manager, this is suggestive of the difficulty of exacting cultural control over large public agencies. As opposed to the singular or industry-based focus of a privately owned organization, the public sector is a very diverse range of interests and responsibilities. It is therefore extremely difficult for the government to rapidly achieve its proposed initiatives. A lack of resources also plays into this problem, suggesting that it is not appropriate to judge the effectiveness of public officials according to the private sector standards. Still, it might be possible to improve the impression which the public holds of its officials by placing a greater emphasis on efficiency, customer service, cleanliness and accessibility in public facilities such as the above-mentioned. Devoting greater care to those aspects of government responsibility that establish organizational culture, it may be possible to alter the way that such agencies are immediately experienced by the public, thus causing less suspicion or mistrust for the legislative activities which take place behind the closed doors of a council. It is not uncommon for organizational culture to reflect the cultural identity of the sector or national culture in which it practices its trade. As the discussion here denotes, this is true in the United States, where an ideologically informed hierarchy creates a business atmosphere in which status elevation may often beget a hard-won sense of personal achievement. Within the context of business though, it is crucial that this sense not be distorted to suggest that any one individual can alone make decisions impacting an entire organization. It is, in fact, the organizational structure which is responsible for facilitating the desired culture.