The typologies section of the reading this week really got me thinking about my organization and how I am going to go about writing this paper. Schein talks about Etzioni’s 3 types of organizations, coercive, utilitarian and normative. I know Schein says that in some organizations you may see all three of these in operation in some form or another, but I guess I am wondering if I do see all three should I try and caputure those differences when I choose who to interview. I was going to do three different levels and longevities of employee, one new employee who is hired as a supervisor, our manager who has been here about 10 years but not all as manager and one general employee who has been here for 40 years. With those three I don’t think I am going to get a feel for the different typologies evidenced in the lab and its administration. There are only a few people in the organization that fit into the coercive typology and I really only notice it since the downturn in the economy. These are employees who want to leave but can not due to an inability to find a comparable position elsewhere. Quite a few of our employees fit into the Utilitarian typology; they are here to do a job and get a paycheck. One woman I work with even goes so far as to say that she is a worker bee and only wants to be a worker bee, she doesn’t want any extra responsiblities and does not want to advance in the department. We do have several employees that fit into the normative typology and I feel that I belong in this typology, but when writing my paper I am afraid that my bias will show through. So I was thinking that I should interview others who I feel fit into the 3 typologies but then I worried that I was showing bias by putting them in those categories. I don’t know, I am still chewing on that problem.
I think it would be neat to talk to the employee who has been here 40 years and see if he thinks the organizational typology has changed since he has been here or if his view of the typology has changed would probably be the case. I definitely think a person view of the organization’s typology can change depending on the internal and external circumstances. I think I want to follow this line of thought in my paper and see how it has influenced the overall culture throughout the years.
I am also having a hard time figuring out where we are in relation to our maturity. If I go by how long the hospital has been around then it out dates blood banking technology. Blood banking came about slowly and little bits at a time as discoveries were made and discoveries are still being made so how do I handle this question?
I want to end my blog post talking about a quote that really hit home for me. “By itself “raw experience” does not make sense, but our own cultural upbringing has taught us how to make sense of it through conceptual categories that are embedded in our language.” Schein
This reminded me of the first time I really understood how people learn differently depending on their experiences. I remember sitting in class when I was still in the Master’s program for Secondary Education and the professor gave us the example of a child sitting in science class. The teacher was camparing the structure of DNA to a spiral staircase and the child did not understand because he was from a rural area and had never seen a spiral staircase before. This was such an ah ha moment for me and I never forgot the lesson it taught me.
« Leadership and culture
April -
Could you look at the three different employee’s views on the artifacts and underlying assumptions of the culture in your department? Maybe this would help to clarify/explain biases?
I think it would be interesting to talk with the person with 40 years of experience to see how technology and new practices/advances in the field have impacted the culture of the deparmtent.
-Andrea
Oh I am definitely talking to him and I already know some of his views on technology because he is very vocal about it, but in a good way.
Andrea
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