Assessing Culture - Essay Example

Assessing Culture Introduction Organizational culture is becoming increasingly understood as an important element inthe establishment of high performance workspaces (Carroll, 2010). The organization’s prevailing behaviors, artifacts, beliefs, attitudes, as well as values all make up its culture and help in the creation of a sense of commitment, continuity, and order. Culture is applicable to an organization in its entirety as well as numerous subcultures within the departments. Development of a diagnostic instrument with demonstrated reliability and validity has been done to classify organizations into different cultural types. The four types of organizational culture developed are collaborate (clan), control (hierarchy), compete (market), and create (adhocracy). They have varying characteristics in terms of operation, which correlates with different qualities and features of the organization’s environment. Assessing the culture and subcultures of an organization provides the designers and planners of the workplace with a foundation on which they can structure an environment that supports its expression and function. The role of culture in the educational sector is to determine the effectiveness of institutions within the sector (Carroll, 2010). An appropriate, unique, and strong culture accomplishes several things for the institution. First, it reduces uncertainty of institutional performance through the creation of a common way of interpreting issues and events. Second, it creates a sense of order, where members awareness of expectations placed on them is high. Third, it creates a sense of continuity. Fourth, it provides a unity of commitment and a common identity. Finally, it provides vision for the future behind which, the company can rally. The first step in implementing meaningful change and making the best of organizational culture as an asset to be leveraged in support of the institution’s goals is in diagnosing its present cultural condition. This can be achieved through conducting analysis such as PESTLE and SWOT to gauge the current positioning of the institution. Corporation for National and Community Service CNCS is a federal agency, which helps over five million Americans to improve the lives of fellow citizens through serving them. The corporation works hand-in-hand with local partners to tap into the can-do spirit and ingenuity of the American people in tackling pressing challenges that face the nation. This is done through investment in thousands of faith-based as well as nonprofit groups geared towards making a difference across the country. The aim of the corporation is to serve, build, and make an impact, which changes individual lives and communities. In matters education, the corporation strengthens education from pre-school upwards. The Foster Grandparents is a program aimed at sparking a love for learning in children and the AmeriCorps members help in keeping students on track to succeed and graduate. Other services are geared towards preserving natural resources, helping communities hit by natural disasters to recover and rebuild, improving health, building economic opportunity, as well as standing behind veterans and military families. CNCS respects and values the diversity in the community it serves. In this sense, the organization seeks to ensure that human rights and equality are an integral part of delivering its vision. The culture embraced at CNCS at the organizational level is that of equality and diversity. This falls under the type of organizational culture defined as collaborate or clan. As a strategy, the culture at CNCS works to ensure that there is adherence to human rights principles of autonomy, dignity, and respect. The culture has helped the organization to value diversity, remove barriers such as language, race, age, disability, religion, transgender, sexual orientation, gender, or economic, educational, and social status, as well as tackle inequalities. This organizational culture of diversity and equality has enabled CNCS to perform its mandate optimally with the volunteers being drawn from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. SWOT Analysis for CNCS For any change in organizational goals as well as strategic planning, a simple and useful tool known as the SWOT analysis is used (Wofford, 2009). It works to identify and narrow down on the strengths, opportunities, threats, and weaknesses used to strategize and plan more efficiently. A SWOT analysis mainly functions to help the organization look into is strengths and weaknesses as well as the extrinsic factors including opportunities and threats for identifying different ways that it can improve and set achievable objectives and goals. Strengths are organizational characteristics that give it advantage over others. Weaknesses are the characteristics, which, place the organization at a disadvantage in comparison to others. Opportunities are elements that an organization could exploit/use to its advantage. Threats are elements in the environment of the organization that could occasion trouble for it. CNCS has an advantage in its volunteer programs of acceptance in the community because it helps to fulfill a void that exists in one aspect or another (Wofford, 2009). The organization has a wide range of original, innovative, and high quality products and services such as the AmeriCorps, Social Innovation Fund and RSVP volunteers, which guarantee improved academic achievement by students. The organization has a strong and proven leadership with commitment to the mission of building capacity, serving the community, and affecting the nation. In this aspect, all projects are accorded due seriousness and expertise in order to succeed. The organizational culture of equality and diversity serves as a strength on which the organization draws its sense of purpose. The organization has some disadvantages such as funding for the activities it carries out. Limited sources of funding and fundraising initiatives result in under accomplishment of set out goals and projects (Wofford, 2009). The organization serves a disproportionate section of the nation and needs to expand its reach to be very effective in its mandate. Lack of proportional motivation and morale for volunteers in terms of more recognition and appreciation packages in relation to the work done hinders involvement or weakens volunteer base. CNCS lacks enough programs to cater for children’s needs other than education, which raises the issue of wholesome child development. The non-profit sector poses many opportunities for CNCS to improve on its service delivery (Wofford, 2009). The needs of society are increasing day by day making the programs to be implemented diversified for any non-profit organization. Areas of education, health, sanitation, and food are vast and CNCS can increase its programs to serve the community better. The other opportunity for CNCS would be in collaborating with the many corporate companies seeking to fulfill their corporate responsibilities. These companies provide funding for activities, which can be under the umbrella of CNCS projects. The professionals who seek better recommendations for jobs tend to offer their skills voluntarily and CNCS would benefit from such. The changes in demographics pose an imminent threat to the volunteer program at CNCS (Wofford, 2009). With the nation tending towards a more mature population, the organization lacks many young people who have the vigor to accomplish some voluntary tasks. Competition among non-profit organizations and the trend towards capital gains is a major threat facing the industry’s sustainability of programs aimed for poorer/needy populations. The drain of professional skills from the non-profit to the profit making organizations because of better terms of service poses a disadvantage for CNCS in its mandate to offer quality services. Economic recession leading to inflation as well as government legislation towards non-profit organizations means reduced funding and contributions making it difficult for CNCS to operate effectively. Strategic change CNCS as a non-profit organization depends largely on volunteer services (Eisner & Grimm Jr et al., 2009). The leaders of the organization need to expand vision concerning volunteering, reinvent the way CNCS manages and supports volunteer talent, as well as integrate volunteers into strategic planning. The organization has a chance to expand opportunities to serve, encourage innovative approaches towards addressing challenges faced by the community, and build individual as well as community capacities. CNCS has an opportunity to invest more in effective local initiatives, supporting evidence-based programs, increasing the number of Americans in service, and leveraging partnerships between the public and private sectors. Conclusion The current organizational culture at CNCS serves in the advancement of the vision and mission established in the organization in addressing a variety of needs within the society. Equal opportunity is a concern for everyone, from the volunteers to the beneficiaries in society (Eisner & Grimm Jr et al., 2009). The culture of appreciating diversity and equality at CNCS leads to efficiency in executing different programs aimed at community development. This organizational culture helps to address some of the challenges faced by CNCS such as willingness of volunteers by making them feel included in the noble cause of championing equality and human rights. References Carroll, G. (2010). Group savvy module 3, activity 1: diagnosing organizational culture. Emotionally Intelligent Leadership for Students: Workbook, 4 p. 16. Eisner, D., Grimm Jr, R. T., Maynard, S., Washburn, S. & Others (2009). The new volunteer workforce. Retrieved October, 3 p. 2011. Wofford, H. (2009). Promoting intergenerational strategies: the role of the Corporation for National Community Service. Generations, 22 (4), pp. 88--93. Read More