Work Group Culture Research Articles

Socially constructed learning: a commentary on the concept of the learning organisation

Applies a socially‐constructed perspective on cognition and learning to learning organisations. Explains socially‐constructed cognition, learning and the concept of a learning organisation‐personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking. Based on Australian cases and research, it outlines the enterprise culture, the learning university and workplace learning. Examines the possible key role of consultants in promoting organisational learning. Argues that a major shift in thinking about HR has to take place to support learning organisations. Outlines future areas for research: redefinition of concepts such as team thinking and team learning to incorporate the study of constraints; the study of the physical environments which hinder/support learning organisations and further investigation of work group cultures.

The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (review)

Reviewed by: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA * Valerie Neal (bio) The ChallengerLaunch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. By Diane Vaughan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Pp. xv+575; figures, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95. Anyone who assumes that the voluminous Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle “Challenger” Accidentis the definitive analysis of a flawed decision to launch should read Diane Vaughan’s study. The event itself is well known: On 28 January 1986, shuttle mission STS 51-L ended in a fireball barely a minute into Challenger‘s ascent. The vehicle [End Page 816]was destroyed, and all seven crew members perished in the most visible and cataclysmic accident in the history of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This mission had received unusual publicity because the crew included a teacher, whose presence as an “ordinary citizen” was meant to demonstrate the safety of routine spaceflight. The technical cause of the Challengeraccident was traced to a seal (an O-ring) in one of the solid rocket boosters. The O-ring failed in the unusually low temperatures of that Florida morning. On the eve of launch, NASA and the booster manufacturer had held discussions about the effect of low temperature on the O-rings and the possibility of increased risk, but the decision was made to proceed with the launch. One need not be a sociologist to appreciate Vaughan’s fine detective work in probing the culture in which the launch decision was made. She spent the better part of a decade immersed in the archival records and also conducting her own interviews for an in-depth analysis of the context and behaviors that resulted in the ill-fated launch decision. She began the project expecting to elaborate the conclusions reached by the president’s investigative commission and the House Committee on Science and Technology investigation. What she found instead was a more subtle, more complex explanation of the decision that challenges some of the very conclusions she set out to validate. The official explanation of the Challengerlaunch decision is that it resulted from production pressures to launch and managerial wrongdoing by the decision makers. Seeking to find the precise connections between pressure and misconduct, Vaughan instead found people acting responsibly within a highly disciplined technical culture. Instead of violations, she found adherence to governing rules and values. Instead of driving external pressures, she found evidence of a formidable internal pressure—the “normalization of deviance”—that was virtually invisible to the people who promulgated it. To understand the Challengerlaunch decision, Vaughan not only examined data from the critical twenty-four hours preceding the launch but also probed the multiyear history of shuttle launches and solid rocket booster technology. Why had NASA launched shuttles—not once but repeatedly—with a design known to be flawed? Answering this question, Vaughan’s book does not exonerate the decision makers. They made a tragic mistake. However, it revises the standard account of what happened and makes a compelling case that the flawed reasoning was not a matter of ethical wrongdoing but of inadvertent organizational blindness to increased risk. Her analysis follows three lines of inquiry: the production of work group culture (values and norms) within the shuttle program, especially the normalization of deviance by which technology problems were rationalized and tolerated as acceptable risks; the “culture of production,” in which NASA’s mission came to be seen as [End Page 817]providing routine customer services; and structural secrecy, in which information flow and lines of communication were too indirect to bring a hidden problem to light. Vaughan tells the launch decision story twice, first in its conventional explanation and then, after laying out her investigative and analytical methods, in her revisionist explanation. This technique enables the reader to flip back and forth, comparing the official account with the richer, more convincing retelling. Following the carefully reasoned and well-supported analysis of the technical culture in which the decision was made, one anticipates an equally cogent summary in the final chapter, “Lessons Learned.” Compared to the heart of the book, however, the conclusion is rather repetitive...

The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA.

he Eve of the Launch Learning Culture, Revising History Risk, Work Group Culture, and the Norma lization of Deviance The Normalization of Deviance, 1981-1984 The Normalization of Deviance, 19856: The Culture of Production St ructural Secrecy The Eve of the Launch Revisited Conformity and Tragedy Lessons Learned Appendix A Cost/Safety Trade-Offs? Scra pping the Escape Rockets and the SRB Contract Award Decision. Appendix B Supporting Charts and Documents Appendix C On Theory Elaboration, Organizations, and Historical Ethnography.

Organizational Culture In Hospitals: Issues in Measurement

It is still not clear that organizational culture in hospitals is linked to patient or provider outcomes. However, measurement of organizational culture in nursing units within hospitals and for entire hospitals is common. Two instruments frequently used to measure hospital culture or work group culture within hospitals are the Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI) (Cooke & Lafferty, 1987) and the Nursing Unit Cultural Assessment Tool (NUCAT-2) (Coeling & Simms, 1993a). The purpose of this paper is to review selected empirical studies of organizational and work group culture in hospitals and critique these two measurement instruments. The paper discusses the issues of unit of analysis/aggregation bias and sample size when using these two instruments. It was concluded that OCI has been widely used in many types of organizations and has substantial data supporting the reliability and validity. However, the instrument does not always capture variation in nursing units. The NUCAT-2 has less reliability and validity data but researchers have reported wide variation among units. Individual items can be selected for use from the NUCAT-2 and it is less expensive to use than the OCI.

Technology Management and American Culture: Implications for Business Process Redesign

Seeing beyond corporate cultural boundaries is a necessary first step toward effective process integration and corporate transformation. But to ignore national culture is to invite failure. OVERVIEW: Culture creates barriers to business process reengineering. Three distinctive levels of culture must be recognized in process redesign-national, corporate and work group culture. American national culture has the most profound influence. Individualism and autonomy are key features of American culture that work against the logic of process integration and commonization by rewarding individuals for pursuing their own self-interests. This tendency also generates a lack of trust, which in turn creates barriers to sharing electronic data. Reengineering difficulties are exacerbated by an American fascination with technological solutions, and a view of new technology as a silver bullet that yields benefits automatically. Often, process redesign cannot be implemented without culture change. Culture can be influenced by exposing internal groups to external pressures, ensuring employee participation in reengineering, recognizing that training alone does not achieve culture change, redefining group boundaries, managing anti-champions, building trust, and leveraging the strengths of national and corporate culture. To compete effectively in world markets, many American corporations are attempting to redesign basic processes in ways that enable closer collaboration or integration of Marietta Baba is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan. She is founder of the department's graduate program in business and industrial anthropology. She has been on loan to the National Science Foundation during 19941996 to direct the launch of NSF's new industry-funded research program on Transformations to Quality Organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and an MBA. E-mail address: Internet:75031.322@compuserve.com Donald Falkenburg is professor and chair of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Wayne State University. Previously, he was vice president for research and acting president of the Industrial Technology Institute in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has a Ph.D. in systems engineering. David Hill has an executive background in information management, manufacturing and international trade obtained through a variety of operating assignments with General Motors Corporation in the United States and abroad. Most recently, he was executive in charge, Corporate Information Management. He holds an M.S. in mechanical engineering. internal functions and/or external relationships. Integration of business processes often is equated with the introduction of new information technology (IT). Investing in IT, however, does not guarantee benefits. In a review of several recent studies, Majchrzak reported failure rates for the implementation of computer-automated technology in American industry that ranged from 30 to 75 percent (1). One explanation for these difficulties is that IT is only an enabler of better business processes; as an enabler, it cannot of itself achieve process improvement. Adler and others have reviewed in detail changes in workforce skills, work procedures, organizational structure, strategy, and culture that must accompany the introduction of advanced computer-automation if corporations are to realize the full benefits of IT (2). Culture in particular is mentioned frequently as an important factor affecting redesign efforts, but its nature and implications typically are not understood sufficiently to provide a base of knowledge for planned culture change. In this article, we address this need by exploring the role of culture in business process-redesign, and by providing suggestions for managers who are engaged in implementing new information technology aimed at process change. Although cultural factors may affect virtually any element of a process redesign initiation (e. …

Work Group Culture, Stress, and Hostility

Understanding your organizational culture is necessary if you are to be successful in making and surviving the necessary changes in current environments. Although organizational culture frequently has been studied in the business community, there are fewer studies of organizational or work group culture in hospital settings at the nursing unit level. The existing studies have emphasized the need to understand the individual work group culture before successfully implementing innovation and educational programs, or hiring and orienting new employees on nursing units. This descriptive, correlational study describes the relationships among work group culture, work-place stress, and hostility and nursing unit outcomes, specifically absenteeism and turnover. Implications of the findings include the idea that increasing decision latitude in workers may positively impact absenteeism.

Understanding work group culture on rehabilitation units: the key to facilitating group innovation and promoting integration.

Understanding work group culture is essential for the smooth running of today's complex rehabilitation units. Failure to understand a unit's culture can impede necessary care delivery innovations and impair group integration. This article describes the phenomenon of work group culture and offers suggestions for assessing and understanding a given unit's culture. It also illustrates how an understanding of work group culture can facilitate innovation by reframing and tailoring a change and can promote integration by helping nurses adjust to a new unit.

Facilitating Innovation at the Unit Level Through Cultural Assessment, Part 2: Adapting Managerial Ideas to the Unit Work Group

The culture of an organization is a powerful force to contend with in transforming a healthcare system. Culture can either drive or restrain innovation: sometimes cultural values support innovation; but culture can restrain innovation when there is conflict between the culture and the innovation. Part 1 of this series (April 1993) examined the concept of organizational culture fail to materialize when the work group culture is not considered while implementing change. This article uses research data to illustrate a five-step cultural innovation process. The creative nursing unit manager can use the process to implement a variety of practice patterns to help the healthcare organization remain competitive and increase the quality of its care. These practice patterns include team nursing, primary nursing, case management, managed care, patient-centered care, assistive personnel, and computer-assisted care.

Facilitating Innovation at the Unit Level Through Cultural Assessment, Part 2: Adapting Managerial Ideas to the Unit Work Group

The culture of an organization is a powerful force to contend with in transforming a healthcare system. Culture can either drive or restrain innovation: sometimes cultural values support innovation; but culture can restrain innovation when there is conflict between the culture and the innovation. Part 1 of this series (April 1993) examined the concept of organizational culture and explained why managerial ideas for change fail to materialize when the work group culture is not considered while implementing change. This article uses research data to illustrate a five-step cultural innovation process. The creative nursing unit manager can use the process to implement a variety of practice patterns to help the healthcare organization remain competitive and increase the quality of its care. These practice patterns include team nursing, primary nursing, case management, managed care, patient-centered care, assistive personnel, and computer-assisted care.

Facilitating Innovation at the Nursing Unit Level Through Cultural Assessment, Part 1

The early hopes and expectations of organizational culture often fail to materialize because the nature of organizational culture is not understood. This article describes what culture is, explains where culture comes from, and analyzes the variety of subcultures that can exist in healthcare organizations. In so doing it explores why managerial ideas for change are not automatically implemented by organizational members. The importance of assessing a group's culture before implementing change is discussed. Tools for assessing the work group culture of a nursing unit are presented. Part 2 (May 1993) will describe a five-step process to strengthen the forces that drive cultural change and overcome forces that resist innovation.

Understanding Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is a significant element in today's health care environment. Understanding work culture can assist the nursing administrator in hiring personnel, orienting newcomers, facilitating organizational change, and promoting learning. The authors report a study that identified the work group culture of two nursing units and suggest that differences between these cultures affect a variety of nursing administration decisions.