LawStudy 7 | - Student
Sep 23, 2019 | #1
Pittsburgh Technical Institute (PTI) is a two year Middle States Accredited career college that has its main branch location in Oakdale, Pennsylvania and a satellite campus in downtown Pittsburgh. This particular cultural audit will focus on the main campus Oakdale location. Presently, the organization offers training for students to land careers in technology, business, criminal justice, design and building technology (PTI). The school has recently earned middle states accreditation, is continuously expanding its curriculum offerings and the enrollment is at a sound level. While these dimensions would suggest that the organization is achieving its goals, an internal audit reveals many problems that are affecting the efficacy of the organization. In this regard, the student satisfaction level is mediocre and the staff are not united in a common cultural direction. Staff turnover is quite high and staff members generally operate in constant fear of losing their jobs. In addition, though the school seeks to attract teachers with high education that would make them qualified for a regular university position, these people generally do not last long as they feel the curriculum offerings at the organization are substantially lower than what they are used to at a four year university. Their insights into these deficiencies are generally viewed by senior management as them not being a team player.
The school considers itself a student centered organization. Students are considered to be customers and their satisfaction is put at the forefront of the decision making process. The school has what they consider to be an open door policy. Whereas other schools like their competitors at The Art Institute (AI) only take the top 20% of graduating seniors or people that pass an equivalency exam, PTI accepts anyone who has a high school diploma or equivalent and the money or financial aid to attend the school. Students are generally walked through every step of their education process to the extent that absences from school are approved if the student calls in sick to their department's student coordinator. In addition to the organizational focus on the student as a customer, the organization also places a high value on many layers of tiered management and staff conformity. Employees who question decisions or offer insights and alternatives to senior management decisions do not generally last long in the organization. They either quit or are terminated at the end of the semester. Decisions are made from the top down with very few decisions being made by those closest to the students. There is a focus on classic methodologies and bureaucratic structures rather than a results oriented atmosphere with staff freedom. Based on Acona et al's assessment of modern organizations, the values, beliefs and assumptions held by PTI are consistent with the Old Organizational Paradigm that was popular in the industrial age but is generally acknowledged to be a weak model for a Twenty First Century Organization. Despite the challenges, PTI does graduate many students and has consistent placement in certain industries. In addition, there is no shortage of new staff to come in to replace the high turnover rates as they offer good benefit packages and competitive salaries for staff members.
The dominant values of the organization can be seen on a number of levels. In the first regard, the strict focus on formality and bureaucracy are reflected in the staff dress codes. Aside from Friday's which are business casual days, staff are expected to wear formal business attire. For men, this includes shirts and ties and for senior management this often includes full suits or sport coats. Woman also have a clear formal business attire code so essentially, at any time it is clear who the staff are at the organization. Rather than a typical feel of a university or typical college, there is a business oriented feel throughout all transactions. In addition, the student centered environment is seen by teachers not having their own specified personal offices but open departmental areas for all staff members and bulletin boards with student success stories and other PTI related success stories. Faculty meetings and training also reflect the formality of the institution. Meetings are led by either department heads, senior management or the human resource department. Meetings are not open forums for discussion, instead, they are information dissemination exercises for the managerial hierarchy. Staff are sometimes asked to participate in discourse but these are still management led controlled discourses. Typically, dissension related to opinions is frowned upon and information being presented is done with the intent of staff to follow rather than to get their reaction. Participative management is not emphasized and is seldom used in favor of rigid authoritative structures.
The culture of the organization is emphasized from the onset of getting hired. All staff members are required to participate in a two day orientation where the entire handbook is taught to the new team members. During this time, new staff are allowed to ask question and gradually get familiarized with the organizational expectations. This perspective, however, is fully management oriented and does not focus on staff to staff cultural interaction. At the onset of joining the team, the new staff have no exposure to the actual morale or true attitudes of the general staff members. As will be further examined in the organizational culture effectiveness portion of the discourse, the culture perpetuated by the senior management is not embraced by the general staff and members follow protocols based on fear of termination. The overall morale of the organization is quite low. The management consistently mistakes conformity and following orders with a smooth running organization. They access staff compliance as being demonstrative of an efficacious environment for their customers and a unified work direction. In reality, neither are actually true. With staff members fearing candor, the organization has no successful tools for accurate self evaluation. Rules and new directions are based on theoretical ideas rather than what is actually occurring on the staff level operation.
Holistically, the organization is trying to elicit a formal, customer focused learning environment where the best decisions are regarded as being those by the top down management communication flows. The emphasis is on protocols and following instructions rather than a results oriented atmosphere. While what the organization wishes to be on the cultural level is what is seen by those first entering, by those who are only viewing on a cursory glance and by the outside world, a cultural audit of anyone on the staff or customer level of the organization quickly becomes aware of the strain between what values are expressed by the organization and how those values manifest on the staff levels. There is an obvious tension between the two structures. This fact alone means that there are organizational culture problems present within PTI that are keeping it from being the best that it can be.
The organizational culture effectiveness is compliance by fear based and therefore does not lead to voluntary group cohesion. Staff members around the water cooler typically referred to Friday as Black Friday. They have noted that Friday is often the day in which staff members are fired. A common conversation amongst staff is concern over who will be fired next. Those members who question decisions, even poor decisions, by management or that are more vocal than normal during staff meetings are typically acknowledged as being in danger of losing their position on a Friday. Rather than coming together to support one another, this environment has led most people who have been in the organization for a long time to keep to themselves and stay below the radar as one staff member explained during the audit. Most staff, even though they are committed to helping students to the best of their ability, are not loyal to the organization. When many advanced degree hires get job offers at more traditional universities or colleges they typically leave with very little notice. Some of the standards by which staff are evaluated are generally considered to be unfair and few expect to get raises or promotion based on merit. There is also a noted issue related to student and staff conflict. Staff members generally have observed a trend of management taking the side of the customer over that of the staff or teacher. As a result, rather than one cohesive unit, several subcultures are present that all operate in their own self interests. These competing paradigms can be classified as: the student group, the manager group, the staff group and the teacher group. Only the management considers the mission unified amongst the cultural groups, the cultural audit reveals different however.
The way in which the various cultural attributes manifest into subcultures is holistically problematic for achieving the aims of the organization. It is clear that a unified culture that is more appropriate for the Twenty First Century would better serve the students. Though the organization is profitable and successful, it is obvious that it could be more so if the staff and management were unified and more collaborative team oriented leadership approaches were embraced. If the organization wishes to be regarded on the same level as traditional universities or colleges and respected by its staff members, a major cultural overhaul has to occur form the top down. The culture of fear that is present amongst the staff is quite damaging to the overall direction of the organization.
References
Acona, et al. (2005). Managing for the Future. Canada: Thomson.
Pittsburgh Technical Institutes. Official Website.
Dominant Values, Beliefs and Assumptions
The school considers itself a student centered organization. Students are considered to be customers and their satisfaction is put at the forefront of the decision making process. The school has what they consider to be an open door policy. Whereas other schools like their competitors at The Art Institute (AI) only take the top 20% of graduating seniors or people that pass an equivalency exam, PTI accepts anyone who has a high school diploma or equivalent and the money or financial aid to attend the school. Students are generally walked through every step of their education process to the extent that absences from school are approved if the student calls in sick to their department's student coordinator. In addition to the organizational focus on the student as a customer, the organization also places a high value on many layers of tiered management and staff conformity. Employees who question decisions or offer insights and alternatives to senior management decisions do not generally last long in the organization. They either quit or are terminated at the end of the semester. Decisions are made from the top down with very few decisions being made by those closest to the students. There is a focus on classic methodologies and bureaucratic structures rather than a results oriented atmosphere with staff freedom. Based on Acona et al's assessment of modern organizations, the values, beliefs and assumptions held by PTI are consistent with the Old Organizational Paradigm that was popular in the industrial age but is generally acknowledged to be a weak model for a Twenty First Century Organization. Despite the challenges, PTI does graduate many students and has consistent placement in certain industries. In addition, there is no shortage of new staff to come in to replace the high turnover rates as they offer good benefit packages and competitive salaries for staff members.Organizational Cultural Artifacts
The dominant values of the organization can be seen on a number of levels. In the first regard, the strict focus on formality and bureaucracy are reflected in the staff dress codes. Aside from Friday's which are business casual days, staff are expected to wear formal business attire. For men, this includes shirts and ties and for senior management this often includes full suits or sport coats. Woman also have a clear formal business attire code so essentially, at any time it is clear who the staff are at the organization. Rather than a typical feel of a university or typical college, there is a business oriented feel throughout all transactions. In addition, the student centered environment is seen by teachers not having their own specified personal offices but open departmental areas for all staff members and bulletin boards with student success stories and other PTI related success stories. Faculty meetings and training also reflect the formality of the institution. Meetings are led by either department heads, senior management or the human resource department. Meetings are not open forums for discussion, instead, they are information dissemination exercises for the managerial hierarchy. Staff are sometimes asked to participate in discourse but these are still management led controlled discourses. Typically, dissension related to opinions is frowned upon and information being presented is done with the intent of staff to follow rather than to get their reaction. Participative management is not emphasized and is seldom used in favor of rigid authoritative structures.
The culture of the organization is emphasized from the onset of getting hired. All staff members are required to participate in a two day orientation where the entire handbook is taught to the new team members. During this time, new staff are allowed to ask question and gradually get familiarized with the organizational expectations. This perspective, however, is fully management oriented and does not focus on staff to staff cultural interaction. At the onset of joining the team, the new staff have no exposure to the actual morale or true attitudes of the general staff members. As will be further examined in the organizational culture effectiveness portion of the discourse, the culture perpetuated by the senior management is not embraced by the general staff and members follow protocols based on fear of termination. The overall morale of the organization is quite low. The management consistently mistakes conformity and following orders with a smooth running organization. They access staff compliance as being demonstrative of an efficacious environment for their customers and a unified work direction. In reality, neither are actually true. With staff members fearing candor, the organization has no successful tools for accurate self evaluation. Rules and new directions are based on theoretical ideas rather than what is actually occurring on the staff level operation.
Holistically, the organization is trying to elicit a formal, customer focused learning environment where the best decisions are regarded as being those by the top down management communication flows. The emphasis is on protocols and following instructions rather than a results oriented atmosphere. While what the organization wishes to be on the cultural level is what is seen by those first entering, by those who are only viewing on a cursory glance and by the outside world, a cultural audit of anyone on the staff or customer level of the organization quickly becomes aware of the strain between what values are expressed by the organization and how those values manifest on the staff levels. There is an obvious tension between the two structures. This fact alone means that there are organizational culture problems present within PTI that are keeping it from being the best that it can be.
Evaluation of Organizational Culture Effectiveness
The organizational culture effectiveness is compliance by fear based and therefore does not lead to voluntary group cohesion. Staff members around the water cooler typically referred to Friday as Black Friday. They have noted that Friday is often the day in which staff members are fired. A common conversation amongst staff is concern over who will be fired next. Those members who question decisions, even poor decisions, by management or that are more vocal than normal during staff meetings are typically acknowledged as being in danger of losing their position on a Friday. Rather than coming together to support one another, this environment has led most people who have been in the organization for a long time to keep to themselves and stay below the radar as one staff member explained during the audit. Most staff, even though they are committed to helping students to the best of their ability, are not loyal to the organization. When many advanced degree hires get job offers at more traditional universities or colleges they typically leave with very little notice. Some of the standards by which staff are evaluated are generally considered to be unfair and few expect to get raises or promotion based on merit. There is also a noted issue related to student and staff conflict. Staff members generally have observed a trend of management taking the side of the customer over that of the staff or teacher. As a result, rather than one cohesive unit, several subcultures are present that all operate in their own self interests. These competing paradigms can be classified as: the student group, the manager group, the staff group and the teacher group. Only the management considers the mission unified amongst the cultural groups, the cultural audit reveals different however.
The way in which the various cultural attributes manifest into subcultures is holistically problematic for achieving the aims of the organization. It is clear that a unified culture that is more appropriate for the Twenty First Century would better serve the students. Though the organization is profitable and successful, it is obvious that it could be more so if the staff and management were unified and more collaborative team oriented leadership approaches were embraced. If the organization wishes to be regarded on the same level as traditional universities or colleges and respected by its staff members, a major cultural overhaul has to occur form the top down. The culture of fear that is present amongst the staff is quite damaging to the overall direction of the organization.
References
Acona, et al. (2005). Managing for the Future. Canada: Thomson.
Pittsburgh Technical Institutes. Official Website.