Assignment

You will explore some aspects of an organization's culture, at least as you see it. (Select an organization you have worked with, if possible.) Since the concept of organizational culture is open to many interpretations and classifications, this assessment offers a slightly different approach from your background reading on organizational culture.

Required Reading

Debra Woog McGinty and Nicole C. Moss have compiled a short corporate culture survey aimed at identifying characteristics of workplaces. The categories of workplace description that it generates are fairly self-explanatory.

http://www.inc.com/articles/2001/08/23312.html

Assignment

When you have completed the assessment think about it for a minute, and how it compares to the Academy, Baseball Team, Fortress, and Club cultures described by McNamara in the Background reading. Then prepare a 2- to 3-page paper addressing:

• Your scores on the McGinty/Moss assessment and whether or not they fit your general expectations or constitute a surprise in some ways. Interpret the results of the assessment in terms of your own experience, either to confirm or to question the results. Compare your findings with the McNamara categories.

• The degree to which the McGinty/Moss assessment and the McNamara information tell you similar or dissimilar things about your organization.

• Do the assessment and the McNamara categories help improve your managerial understanding and/or skills? What can you infer from the assessment results about how your organization's culture fits or doesn't fit with you? What (if anything) can you do to make your interaction with the culture more effective?

• Provide your opinion on whether or not the questions asked help you understand the organization and how you cope with it. Do they accurately assess what is needed to analyze a company's culture?

• Include the actual results to the survey in an Appendix section in your paper.