Workplace Culture: Chapter 7

1. Workplace Culture: Chapter 7

2. Workplace Culture: Developing a shared value and normative system. Cultures emerge organically and often cannot be forced. Cultures emerge from interactions among the people at the paid workplace.

3. Functions of Workplace Culture • 1) Socializes new workers to formal and informal work codes. • 2) Help preserve workers’ rights in the face of hostile customers and managers. • 3) Protect workers from outsiders.

4. Workplace Cultures are often Gendered/Racialized, etc • 1) And are created by employers by: • Intentionally or unintentionally hiring groups based on stereotypes • For example: marines make men out of boys, cocktail waitresses. • Hooters: Imagine a restaurant called Cocks, with a rooster shaped like a penis and bare-chested men serving food.

5. Workplace Cultures are often Gendered/Racialized, etc • 2) And are Created by workers: • WOMEN: • Celebrate private life at work: birthdays, engagements, etc. WHY? • This can be resistance by creating community, avoiding high productivity and denying bosses’ or male co-workers perception of women’s work as menial.

6. Workplace Cultures are often Gendered/Racialized, etc • 2) And are created by workers: • MEN: • Like women, cultures created by men foster solidarity and hence resistance to exploitation.

7. Men continued • Some cultures created by men, however, can create detrimental exclusions that foster racism and/or sexism • For example, white males resisting African American males in the early twentieth century.

8. Men Continued…. • Stan Gray’s article shows what about workplace culture? • How can workers and managers use this information to build an “inclusive” workplace culture?