The role of organizational climate and culture in the school  (Page 4/17)

Organizational culture embraces such organizational needs as common language, shared concepts, definedorganizational boundaries, methods for selecting members for the organization, methods of allocating authority, power, status, andresources, norms for handling intimacy and interpersonal relationships, criteria for rewards and punishments, and ways ofcoping with unpredictable and stressful events (Schein, 1985a). This shared culture helps to create solidarity and meaning andinspire commitment and productivity (Deal, 1985).

Culture may operate both consciously and sub-consciously in the organization (Rousseau, 1990; Schein, 1984,1985a, 1985b; Wilkins&Patterson, 1985). At the surface level, culture can be observed through examination of behaviors andartifacts, including such things as the physical setting, rituals, languages, and stories. At a slightly deeper, less conscious level,organizational culture is defined by the unwritten rules and norms of behavior, often conveyed by stories, rituals, language, andsymbols. At the deepest levels, often totally sub-conscious, lie such things as the fundamental assumptions and core values ofindividuals, groups, and the organization (Connor&Lake, 1988). It is at this deepest level that the organizational culturecan be most tenacious and most powerful (Wilkins&Patterson, 1985).

Culture is experienced differently by members of the organization (Rousseau, 1990). Sub-cultures may arise withinan organization as small groups share values, perceptions, norms, or even ceremonies that differ from those of the wider organization(Cooper, 1988; Louis, 1985; Thompson&Luthans, 1990). For example, in many high schools, coaches of male athletic teams forma sub-culture within the faculty; they typically sit together at faculty meetings, generally at the back of the room. They oftenmiss faculty meetings and are unable to participate in general faculty activities due to their coaching obligations immediatelyafter school. They can often be observed commenting and joking among themselves at times when other faculty members are moreattentively engaged with the content of the faculty meeting. Similarly, new faculty members may form a sub-culture somewhatdistinct from those who have been in the school for a prolonged period of time.

Culture is also contextually influenced. It is the interaction of an organization’s people variables with physical and structural (ecological) variables (Hall&Hord, 2001). For example, many high schools are built in a design in which hallwaysradiate from a central hub; in these schools, it is very common for the teachers in each hallway to build a culture slightly differentfrom the culture of teachers in hallways with whom they have less personal contact. School culture can be influenced by such physical surrounding variables as noise, heat, and light (Thompson&Luthans, 1990). The open classroom designs popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s promoted more sharing and contact amongteachers than fully-walled individual classrooms. Learning cultures among students in the Southern and Southwestern United States havechanged significantly with the addition of air conditioning to classrooms.