Head: ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES AND CAREER PROGRESSION

Organizational Cultures and Career Progression

Organizational Cultures and Career Progression

Introduction

Culture can be defined as the beliefs and norms from which a society or a community is governed. Organizational culture is no different from the culture of any community of society. The organizational culture can be defined as the criterion by which organizations operate and the authority by which each and every individual working in the organization is governed. Brief (2000) showed how the study of these myths and symbols aid in revealing the “deep structure” of an organization. This plethora of research definitions is due to the different research framework adopted by the various authors. Researchers identified four scientific lenses through which the body of culture research can be viewed (Brief, 2000, 72-97). This includes the view of culture first as an external variable. Many researchers were limited by the artificial paradigm separation between climate and culture research. For instance, he described that climate research was associated with surveys and statistical analysis while culture research was usually done through qualitative field studies. He argued persuasively that climate and culture research studies are frequent investigations of different manifestations of the same construct (Croteau, 1996, 119-124).

Recent researches by researchers contributed to the field of culture-performance studies by explicitly acknowledging that culture is being treated as variable for a specific research purpose. For instance, utilizing a more rigorous methodology, discovered that cultural strength was significantly associated with short-term financial performance (Brief, 2000, 72-97). These results suggest that culture can affect organizational performance if it is “strong” (wide consensus, deeply internalized and socialised) and appropriate to its environment (relevant to its industry and business conditions) (Croteau, 1996, 119-124). Thus, this study aims to investigate the possible relationships between organizational culture and performance among Singaporean companies. The objectives are twofold: first, it attempts to investigate whether the culture construct be operationalized along distinct, repeatable dimensions; second, it attempts to assess how culture affects organizational performance (Croteau, 1996, 119-124). In this study, culture is treated as an internal variable, and is defined as the shared values and norms of the organization's members. This is appropriate, as the study is primarily concerned with the cause-effect relationship between culture and performance.

Career Issues for the Socially Marginalized: Themes from the Literature

Looking at the career paths of the socially marginalized provides us with glimpses into their organizational experiences and the obstacles they encounter in the workplace. We can also arrive at some understanding of whether and how these obstacles are overcome, which groups have made greater inroads into organizations, and which have not. We bring these issues to the surface by looking at the more “classic” career themes, viz., gaining employment, remuneration, evaluation and advancement, mentorship and networking, and so on. In addition, we also look at the question of affirmative action because it is explicitly a policy intended to redress centuries of injustice meted out to women, blacks, and other minorities in the United States. We will also be looking at organizational cultures as ...