Is it important for managers in youth work to have an understanding of Essay

Is it important for managers in youth work to have an understanding of the concept of organisation culture Why, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of th - Essay Example Taking all of the criteria into consideration, I feel that the answer to the question is yes for the reasons presented in this paper. Anderson writes about this concept and other in "Imagined Communities". He takes the premise and considers it in the context of nationalism. Anderson contends, "Nationality, nation-ness, and nationalism are cultural artifacts whose creation toward the end of the 18th C was the spontaneous distillation of a complex ''crossing'' of discrete historical forces; but that, once created, they became ''modular,'' capable of being transplanted to a great variety of social terrains, to merge and be merged with a variety of political and ideological constellations. Theorists of nationalism have encountered three paradoxes: (1)The objective modernity of nations in the eye of the historian vs. their subjective antiquity in the eye of nationalists. (2) The formal universality of nationality as a socio-cultural concepts vs. the particularity of its concrete manifestations. (3) The political power of nationalism vs. its philosophical poverty. (Anderson URL http://ssr1.uchicago.edu/PRELIMS/Culture/cumisc1.html 2005) What Anderson says that applies to management and youth work is that there are clearly defined boundaries and common interests that have been derived from common circumstances. Through a managers understanding of this and implementation of this philosophy to their youth work an organisational culture can be formed and maintained. In order to understand an organisational culture beyond the premise of nationalism takes some understanding of society and the ways that people identify themselves within a given society. The consideration we are concerned with for this discussion is managements understanding of organization culture for youth work. Youth work is the process of creating an environment where young people can engage in informal educational activities. The concept of organizational culture is an important concept in youth work and a clear understanding of it by management will provide strength to the youth organizations implemented by management. The premise of organizational culture can only enhance any management position including youth work. Organizational culture can be thought of as the values, beliefs and customs of an organization. However many managers, especially youth managers, do not understand what the actual values and beliefs of their organization is. By gaining, an understanding of the factors that encompass organizational culture an organization can only benefit from a clear understanding of it. However, if the factors that make up organizational culture are not clearly defined or understood weakness within the organization can and most likely will result. Pollitt (1993) points out that organizational culture and its tenets are especially important in public services. There are several reasons for this and the main one is that public services encompass all of a society not just one sector of it. Although the specific interest of this discussion involves youth work that type of work ultimately effects and influences society. Polit explains, a single definition of organizational culture has proven to be very elusive. No one definition of organizational culture has emerged in the literature. One of the issues involving culture is that is defined in terms of its both causes and effect. Pollitt 1993 URL