Working with Culture by Khademian Book Review - 1232 Words

Khademians book, Working With Culture, is similar to Selznicks Leadership in Administration, in that both focus on the less technical aspects of public administration (structure and hierarchy) and instead look at problems that arise between the lines so to speak - that of people within the organization, and more specific to her work; the idea of culture within an organization. While this is not something that has been unknown, in fact it has been brought up in almost all of the works we have read so far, what is specific to the work we previously read, by Selznick, and Khademians is an understanding of culture as something that does exist, not by mere chance as Cook and Wilson took it, but as something that should be acknowledged,†¦show more content†¦But this would be more likely the case, due to a neglect of organizational culture. One of the main ideas that Khademian develops is the role of culture over a period of time. The extent to which it can be managed is also due t o the amount of time that culture has been able to grow, that allows for its strength and influence (Khademian, pages 16-20). This is similar to Kaufmans ideas in the Forest Ranger, where we saw the building of culture through the Forest Service as something that grew from the start of the organization. While this is a positive example of organizational culture, it is certainly a clear example of the ideas that Khademian speaks about in regards to collaboration and the influence of culture with policy. Similary, with the Forest Ranger, Khademian develops an idea that what shapes culture is both internal and external. In Kaufmans work we saw that rangers could be influenced by their external and internal forces: for example, their ties to their family and also their neighbors in a community could influence their decisions (that is something of the culture of rangers that the Forest Service realized could become a problem) so they accepted this fact and created a policy that rangers would be mobilized and would switch districts periodically to sever such ties, and keep the Forest Service culture intact. This is very similar to the groups she focuses on, such as FEMA. But, not all organizationsShow MoreRelatedHow Change Is An Tool For Organisational Development And The Pace Of Change Essay9720 Words   |  39 Pageschange resisters in the organisation and finding ways to win their loyalty when the need for change arise. 5. To win the trust of change agents or managers in the change process thereby leading ascertaining turnover intentions of employees. LITERATURE REVIEW Change is certainly among the most frequently used words on the business pages of every newspaper in the world (Gibson et al., 2010). Not only have countries and empires undergone major dramatic and wrenching changes, but so have great companies such