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When I was an MBA student, as part of a management course I had the opportunity to conduct a “culture assessment” at the organization where I was working. The organization was somewhat new to me–I had been hired as a senior manager only a year before–and the ability to quantify and analyze the organizational culture was a new concept to me.

As an employee in any type of organization can attest, organizational culture is as prevalent and as varied as individuals themselves. Organizational culture is enduring and complex, and may have both a positive and a negative effect on the staff and the workplace. In many ways culture will determine the survival of an organization over the long term, especially in volatile industries.

Cultures that can be a liability to an organization include those that create barriers to change, create barriers to diversity or barriers to mergers and acquisitions. (Stephen P. Robbins. Organizational Behavior, 8th ed., 602-603.)

Understanding the organizational culture can help you to understand why change does not take place, or why a project fails. It will also help you to determine where to strive to make changes to the culture.

As managers and library leaders, why do we need to get a sense of the prevailing organizational culture? It is essential to understand the organizational culture if you want to make changes to how work is done, what type of work is being done, or at the broadest level, to affect the organization’s standing in its industry. Understanding the culture and, as required, changing it, can mean the difference between attracting and retaining good employees and driving away the best employees with an environment that doesn’t encourage, challenge, or reward them.

The organizational culture assessment that I participated in didn’t provide any surprises regarding the existing culture–most people with any level of sensitivity can get a sense of what type of culture is prevalent in an organization. What was surprising were the results from the survey to determine what type of culture staff would prefer to see the organization develop.

As background, the organization had just gone through a major change. The executive director had departed after 20 years; there had been a period of several months with an acting ED followed by a new, external ED appointment. The assessment took place only a month after the new ED was in position.

Types of Culture

The assessment we used to assess the organization’s culture used questions that sought to determine and enumerate such organizational traits as symbols (such as images, things, events), organizational-espoused values and beliefs (for example, the mission statement, constitution, espoused goals of the ED, slogans). Then the espoused beliefs and values were compared with the symbols and culture identified through the written survey and staff interviews.

The written survey asked staff to answer questions related to the current culture and then asked how they would like to see the culture change. Responses were tabulated to determine which type of culture existed among the four metrics of organizational culture: hierarchy, adhocracy, clan, and market.

The hierarchy aspect of an organization refers to how structured, inflexible, and process-driven an organization is in the way it operates. At the opposite end of the scale, adhocracy refers to how flexible, informal, innovative, and dynamic an organization is. A clan culture supports a very friendly and social environment in which to work, while a market culture is often found in organizations that are results-oriented and sales-driven.

The assessment determined that the existing culture was very hierarchical and quite clannish. The staff also indicated, through the anonymous written survey, that they would prefer the culture to be more adhocratic and less hierarchical, while at the same time being slightly more market culture and clannish. This showed the positive and optimistic view of the staff towards change.

The process I used for assessing the culture involved conducting group employee interviews and written staff surveys, followed by analysis of the information. Staff responded to a series of prompts and questions regarding organizational symbols, organizational-espoused values, and beliefs. These responses were analyzed, creating a pattern showing comparisons between espoused belief/values (in the form of phrases or statements) with their associated symbols (both positive and negative), and related culture types (hierarchy, adhocracy, clan, and market).

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For a new leader or manager, understanding the organizational culture that is in place is essential for success in providing direction, especially when the direction is different from what has come before. Are staff willing and eager to take on new challenges and to follow a new direction, or will they provide passive or active resistance to any changes? What is important to people today, based on their view of where the organization is and where it should be? Where are there disconnects between espoused values, such as the mission statement, and the over symbols and culture type?

The report that follows, prepared by a subcommittee of the Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, was approved in June 2007 by the committee for publication. Comments are welcome and should be sent to the Washington office by ground mail or e-mail (academicfreedom@aaup.org).

I. Introduction

The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure affirms that “teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject.” This affirmation was meant to codify understandings of academic freedom commonly accepted in 1940. In recent years these understandings have become controversial. Private groups have sought to regulate classroom instruction, advocating the adoption of statutes that would prohibit teachers from challenging deeply held student beliefs or that would require professors to maintain “diversity” or “balance” in their teaching.1 Committee A has established this subcommittee to assess arguments made in support of recent legislative efforts in this area.
II. The Contemporary Criticism

Critics charge that the professoriate is abusing the classroom in four particular ways: (1) instructors “indoctrinate” rather than educate; (2) instructors fail fairly to present conflicting views on Read the rest of this entry »

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In March of 2006, while on one of our daily two-hour hikes through the landscape and villages surrounding the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, El Anatsui stopped mid-stride atop a crumpled, dusty, plastic tablecloth lying in the middle of the dirt path. He wanted to come back with the car to retrieve the “road sculpture” that reminded him of debris assembled by the Nigerian police at driving checkpoints. He often and half-jokingly conceived of the twisted log and metal heaps as sculptures and the law-enforcement individuals as installation artists. While we never did drive back to pick up that piece, the incident was the impetus for several discussions on the idea of transformation.

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Our winter mystery aircraft was the one-of-a-kind Convair XC-99 cargo aircraft, based on the B-36 bomber.

Designed in 1942, the XC-99 was powered by six 28-cylinder Pratt &Whitney R-4360-35 radial “pusher” engines rated at 3000 horsepower each.

The XC-99’s cavernous double-deck interior was designed to carry 400 combat troops or 101,000 pounds of cargo. Only slightly smaller in some dimensions than today’s C-5 Galaxy, the XC-99 was the largest aircraft in the world in the 1950s and is the largest piston-engine aircraft ever built.

The repression and fear that accompanied the first years of the Islamic Revolution in Iran have abated, but it seems no one is fully convinced that there is smooth sailing ahead for Catholics in that country.

Coalfield Jews: An Appalachian History. By Deborah R. Weiner. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. viii + 234.
Representations of Appalachia make it difficult to imagine Appalachia as anything other than a culturally and ethnically homogeneous place where, it has often been claimed, time stood still.

Jonathan Gold is not your average restaurant critic. His LA Weekly column, Counter Intelligence, is testament to that fact, featuring reviews not only of five-star, obscenely expensive, impossible-to-get-into restaurants, but also of ethnic, hole-in-the-wall eateries: the push-cart vendors, the tiny taquerias, the street-side quesadilla stands. His latest accolade further separates him from the crowd: a Pulitzer Prize, the first for a restaurant critic in the award’s 90-year history.

Recent decades have seen the rising of a vital, multifaceted politics in Canada, focused on the future relations between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state. While there are many debates about specific arrangements, there is consensus that the negotiated establishment of Aboriginal self-government constitutes a major piece of unfinished business for the Canadian federation.

Byline: Joe Agron jagron@asumag.com Tragic violence once again has hit America’s schools. With the shooting deaths last month of 32 students and faculty by a deranged gunman, Virginia Tech joins an infamous list of education institutions forever scarred by a horrendous act on campus. As the university’s students, parents, staff and others affected by the violence continue the painful process of healing, the event was another stark reminder that no place is immune from the possibility of such a tragedy.

Byline: Mike Kennedy More schools and universities are designing their learning spaces to take advantage of daylight, but they still need electric lights to provide illumination when the sun doesn’t. As education institutions determine what kind of electric lighting is needed in their facilities, “the principal objective …