Institutional processes of organizational culture

Queries into the creation of collective meaning through social processes arise in both organization culture and institutional theory. This paper applies DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983 DiMaggio, P.J. and Powell, W.W. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48: 147–60. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) three isomorphic processes (mimetic, normative and coercive) from institutional theory to re‐think how structural and dynamic aspects of culture become nested, taken‐for‐granted and transmitted. We consider both acquiescence and resistance to isomorphic pressures in an effort to understand cultural persistence and transmission, forms of resistance to culture, change, the role of sub‐cultures and power usage through Oliver’s (1992 Oliver, C. 1992. The antecedents of de‐institutionalization. Organization Studies, 13: 563–88. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) de‐institutionalization thesis. Our purpose in applying isomorphic processes to organizational culture is to offer another layer of understanding enhanced by the growing body of research in institutional theory, bridge one division between micro and macro theory and provide some suggestions for future research.     

Professional culture and organizational morality: an ethnographic account of a therapeutic organization

An ethnographic exploration of the social reality of a counselling and training institute points to the profound impact of the therapeutic paradigm on the 'patterned regularities', the general principles, rules and daily practices, in other words, the organizational morality. The limited house-rules or practices emerged mainly as 'enabling conditions' to let professional autonomy prevail and to maintain the game rather than to prescribe behaviour. Organizational rules, structures, mechanics served as a platform for negotiations among different groups of 'provinces of meaning'. These negotiations do not necessarily show any sense of organizational logic or administrative rationality. Perhaps the opposite is true. Loosely coupled interactions and consensual validation rather than goal-oriented thinking appeared to be the predominant organizational occupation. The irrational, at times even ironic dynamics operative in organizational morality are nevertheless meaningful. They function as 'mapping' and sense-making devices and can be seen as vehicles for reflecting and ordering underlying meanings.     

Entwicklung eines Modells zur Teamresilienz in kritischen AusnahmesituationenModeling of team resilience under exceptional circumstances

The concept of team resilience has been used in various research traditions. Therefore, fields of applications and variables are heterogeneously used in research and practice. The aim of this article is to develop a team and task specific model of resilience for teams under exceptional circumstances (TiKAS). Concepts from team adaptation and safety research have been reviewed and integrated. The model focuses on teams facing exceptional incidents by defining resilience specific individual and team based influencing factors, cognitive and affective interactions, situational coping styles as well as medium and long term consequences. Modeling team resilience in TiKAS offers a broad range of applications: developing team assessment methods, supporting team development and building research questions for empirical research.     

The hybridization of organizational culture in tokyo disneyland

Tokyo Disneyland (TDL), a licensed version of the American theme park which was re-made in Japan, is a unique cultural, organizational and consumerist junction where “Japan” meets “America.” Offering an ethnography of this meeting, I focus here on the appropriation of the “Disney Way” into TDL's socialization practices of hiring and training. TDL's organizational culture is divided between an American influence that relates to part-timers and a Japanese tradition that applies to regular workers. It is discussed how local culture facilitated the successful transfer of the Disney Way to Japan while also promoting a modification of specific elements.     

Organizational resilience and employee work-role performance after a crisis situation: exploring the effects of organizational resilience on internal crisis communication

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to explore the positive outcomes of organizational resilience to see how resilient employees can support an organization by adapting to and initiating changes during the recovery process following a crisis. This study focuses on organizational resilience generated by employees, as a resilient system, through their psychological ability and positive communication behaviors. Resilient employees can help their organization bounce back to normal functioning following a crisis. A nationwide survey (N = 830) was conducted among full-time employees in the U.S. to examine the positive effect of organizational resilience on employee work-role performance. The results indicate that organizational resilience was positively and significantly associated with: employees’ intentions for proficiency, adaptivity and proactivity of organizational members, thus contributing to organizational effectiveness after a crisis situation.     

Growth and resilience of pioneering nonprofit human service organizations: a cross-case analysis of organizational histories

Knowledge of organizational history is important for recognizing patterns in effective management and understanding how organizations respond to internal and external challenges. This cross-case analysis of 12 histories of pioneering nonprofit human service organizations contributes an important longitudinal perspective on organizational history, complementing the cross-sectional case studies that dominate the existing research on nonprofit organizations. The literature on organizational growth, including lifecycle models and growth management, is reviewed, along with the literature on organizational resilience. Based on analysis of the 12 organizational histories, a conceptual model is presented that synthesizes key factors in the areas of leadership, internal operations, and external relations that influence organizational growth and resilience to enable nonprofit organizations to survive and thrive over time. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal examples from the organizational histories illustrate the conceptual map. The paper concludes with a discussion of directions for future research on nonprofit organizational history.     

When the Lord builds the house: An autoethnographic account of working in an evangelical for-profit organizational culture

Religion is often perceived as a private topic, thus belonging outside the traditional conceptualization of a work environment. However, religion is a pervasive organizing framework and an understanding of its role in the workplace is needed from a communicative perspective. In the following autoethnography, I describe my experience working for a Christian for-profit homebuilder – starting with new employee orientation and moving through my final day at Local Homes. I focus on instances where tension emerges between expectations and reality as I learn about and interact within the overtly evangelical Christian organizational culture. The tension is illustrated through four vignettes that correspond to the traditional phases of socialization. Through writing this autoethnographic account, I attempt to move beyond my personal experience and situate my story within larger disciplinary and societal conversations about the socialization process in a religious organization. With this goal in mind, I conclude with methodological and theoretical implications.     

Oral health in long-term care: The implications of organizational culture

When an investigation designed to compare extant models of delivering oral health and dental services to the institutionalized elderly revealed that structural variables explained very little of the difference between effective and ineffective programs, secondary analytic techniques were employed to consider alternative explanations. The original study was a program evaluation based on a comparative case study of 12 long-term care (LTC) facilities. Data for each case included interviews with administrators, care providers, family members, and residents, administrative documentation, and clinical measures of oral health from the residents. The secondary analysis revealed the mechanisms through which the organizational context of each facility influenced the effectiveness of the oral health services. In addition, it revealed how administrative and leadership issues influenced the quality of care.     

Transformational leadership,organizational culture,and innovativeness in nonprofit organizations

This is an exploratory study of leadership, organizational culture, and organizational innovativeness in a sample of nonprofit human service organizations: Associations of Retarded Citizens. Although leadership has been held out as one of the most important predictors of innovation, this study found it was not correlated with organizational innovativeness. Examination of the relationships between leadership and cultural variables provided some alternative explanations for this finding. Positive relationships among transformational leadership, organizational values, and cultural consensus (degree of agreement among employees on those values) indicate that leadership practices employed in this sample created strong cultural consensus around values that may inhibit innovation. These findings suggest that examining the link between leadership and organizational culture is important for understanding how leadership and innovation are related. This article sets out practical implications, based on the results of the study, that may help nonprofit managers create workplaces supportive of innovation.     

Jokers wild: the importance of humour in the maintenance of organizational culture

Humour may have a number of different effects within organizations, but it is usually manifested in one of two major‘joke forms’: standardized/canned or situation/spontaneous. Using examples of each from fieldwork conducted in a large manufacturing bakery, it is argued that both forms depend for their effect on their appositeness to the‘joke in the social structure’Both forms share the capacity to enable the reversal, within the humorous framework, of problematic social relations, patterns of control, or customary mystifications. Humour may be used to create ambiguity or to promote closure: its impact on the organizational culture will depend on the extent to which the symbolic transformations achieved within its boundaries can be transposed into material,‘real-world’relationships.     

The impact of organizational culture on men's use of parental leave in Sweden

This article examines the impact of organizational culture on men's usage of parental leave in Sweden, a society that promotes men's sharing of childcare. Results from a mail survey of 317 fathers in six companies suggest that men's use of parental leave is significantly affected by organizational culture, including the company's commitment to caring values, the company's level of 'father friendliness', the company's support for women's equal employment opportunity, fathers' perceptions of support from top managers, and fathers' perceptions of work group norms that reward task performance vs. long hours at work. These effects were independent of the influence of individual- and family-level attributes previously acknowledged to affect men's participation in early childcare. While findings support the social constructionist perspective on gender arrangements, men's advocacy of shared parenting and perception of partners' advocacy of shared leave remained strong independent correlates of leavetaking. Fathers can become agents of change within organizations, as they become more supportive of equal parenthood and as they gain rights to longer periods of parental leave that do not need to be negotiated with mothers. Éste articulo evalúa el impacto de la cultura de organizaciones sobre el uso de la baja por paternidad en Suecia, una sociedad que promueve la involucracion de los hombres en el cuidado de niños. Los resultados de una encuesta por correo de 317 padres de familia en seis empresas sugieren que el uso de la baja por paternidad está afectado por la cultura de la organización, incluido la obligación de la empresa en cuanto a valores humanitarios, el nivel de apoyo a los padres (father friendliness), el apoyo por la igualdad de oportunidades por el empleo de mujeres, las percepciones por parte de los padres del nivel de apoyo desde la gerencia alta, y las percepciones por padres de normas de labores de equipo que recompensan el rendimiento de tareas vs. horas largas de trabajo. Estos efectos eran independientes de la influencia de atributos de individuos y familias que anteriormente han sido reconocido por influir la participación de los hombres en el cuidado de niños pequeños. Mientras los resultados apoyan la perspectiva del construccionismo social, el apoyo de los hombres a la participación conjunta en el cuidado de los niños, y sus percepciones de la medida del apoyo por parte de sus parejas acerca del compartir la baja por paternidad/maternidad quedaron en correlación fuerte con la medida de la baja por paternidad. Los padres pueden hacerse agentes de cambio dentro de las organizaciones, mientras apoyan cada vez más la paternidad/maternidad igual y mientras ganan derechos de periodos de permiso mas largos que no tienen que negociarse con las madres.     

A mixed-methods study of the impact of organizational culture on workforce retention in child welfare

The recruitment and retention of a stable, qualified workforce has been an on-going challenge for the child welfare system. Prior research has identified both individual and organizational factors influencing retention and turnover in child welfare. The current study uses mixed methods to examine the impact of perceived organizational culture on workers' intention to remain employed. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed that perceived organizational culture, as understood as being comprised of both relationships and values, could be related to worker retention. Based on the qualitative findings, the researchers selected quantitative measures to operationalize the various aspects of organizational culture. Results from the logistic regression indicated that intention to remain employed was significantly related to organizational culture. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Exploring the development of an organizational approach to media relationships

Using semi-structured, qualitative interviews with practitioners, this study explored an organizational approach to media relations. Interviewees provided insight as to how organizations and their media relations practitioners integrated principles of excellent public relations and principles of relationship management with principles of traditional practitioner–journalist relationships. Results indicated that the practice of media relations can be viewed as a theory-based organizational commitment at the meso-level, and not merely as an atheoretical practitioner skill at the micro-level.     

Leadership succession and the emergence of an organizational identity threat

Leadership succession, and the associated changes that new leaders make, can have profound impacts on nonprofit organizations. Despite its importance, there is limited research that examines succession from the point of view of employees and considers how their interpretations of organizational identity and proposed change shape their responses to leadership transitions. In this article, we examine the dynamics that ensued when the founder of Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit environmental organization, stepped down. The case shows how the succession process can expose latent disagreement about an organization's identity and give rise to internal conflict. These patterns suggest that leaders must be attentive to different and often conflicting interpretations of an organization's identity.     

Evaluating excellence: A model of evaluation for public relations practice in organizational culture and context

This paper represents the development of an innovative and comprehensive model designed to measure public relations excellence within an organizational context. Drawing on established scales of evaluation for public relations practice, researchers propose a measurement model situated within excellence Theory. Through a partnership between the research team and The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) organization, a case study approach was developed and implemented, highlighting the relationships between organizational culture and communication. The Excellence in Organizational Context model was tested within the AER, using empirical data gathered through in-depth semi-structured interviews and a self-report questionnaire survey conducted with individuals from various identified organizational stakeholder groups. This mixed-method approach was employed to explore and understand the multi-dimensional nature of public relations practice within this organization.Researchers investigated eight dimensions of excellence in this model. Initial findings indicate that the Excellence in Organizational Context model proposed here is a valid and appropriate method for measuring public relations performance when applied as a mixed-method approach for measuring practice and establishing context within an organizational culture. This indicates the need for both organizational, stakeholder, and sector/national level data in confirming relevant benchmarks.     

The retention of public child welfare workers: The roles of professional organizational culture and coping strategies

The purpose of the current study was to investigate how professional organizational culture and coping strategies (control coping and avoidance coping) related to workers' intentions to remain employed in child welfare. With a sample of 234 frontline workers employed in Department of Human Services-Division of Family and Children Services (DHS-DFCS) offices in a state in the Southeastern region of the U.S., the current study tested a model in which coping strategies mediate the relationship between professional organizational culture and workers' intentions to remain employed in child welfare. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model. Results revealed that professional organizational culture and control coping were significantly and positively related to workers' intentions to remain employed in child welfare. In addition, control coping mediated the relationship between professional organizational culture and worker retention. On the other hand, a significant relationship between avoidance coping and workers' intentions to remain employed in child welfare was not found. Implications of the findings for practice and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Ergonomic and organizational analysis of an association of collectors of recyclable waste

The managerial difficulties encountered by an Association of Recyclable Materials Collectors to organize and ensure the perpetuation of his work gave rise to this research. In order to overcome the difficulties encountered with regard to accounting, organizational and ergonomic work, we used a methodology capable of providing a greater interaction between researchers and collectors, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and the perpetuation of the techniques used. Improvements were seen in relation to screening, storage and organization of work.     

Culture and context: The differential impact of culture,risks and resources on resilience among vulnerable adolescents

Using a socio-ecological measure of resilience, this paper examines changes in resilience profiles over time for a group of over 500 at-risk adolescents (12–17 years). Increases in resilience over time are observed, suggesting a developmental component. However, absolute resilience levels are significantly lower than those of adolescents not at-risk. Family and neighborhood risks have the strongest negative impact on resilience. Ethnic minority status is strongly predictive of higher resilience. Being in an intimate relationship and being on-track with education contribute smaller, but nonetheless significant amounts to resilience, while anti-social peers undermine resilience. Findings highlight the importance of addressing contextual and relational risks, maintaining educational progress and working in culturally-responsive ways with at-risk adolescents.