Not Off the Hook: Relationships Between Aid Organization Culture and Climate, and the Experience of Workers in Volatile Environments (From Workplace Violence: Issues, Trends, Strategies, P 141-159, 2005, Vaughan Bowie, Bonnie S. Fisher, et al. eds. -- See NCJ-213221)

• NCJ Number: 213227
• Author(s): Barb Wigley
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 19 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter examines how the organizational characteristics of international humanitarian relief organizations can be more detrimental to their employees' well-being than the crises in which they work.

Abstract

Organizational culture is associated with features of language, power, beliefs, attitudes, and philosophies and how they are expressed in employer-employee interactions. These factors in turn shape employees' understanding of the work task and how to perform it. In addition to organizational culture, organizational defenses also influence employees' work attitudes. Organizational defenses are the methods used by employee groups to defend its members against the conscious experience of emotions that are too threatening or painful to manage consciously. These defense mechanisms typically limit a group's capacity for problem solving based in realistic assessments and creative solutions. After identifying the characteristics of organizational culture and organizational defenses and their impact on organizational functioning, the chapter examines the distinctive features of these factors in humanitarian organizations. The discussion focuses on the external environment, bureaucratic organizational structures, motivations and characteristics of aid workers, relationships with beneficiaries, and relationships between organizational culture and stress. Other factors addressed are incident-related employee stress and organization-related stress (administration and leadership). The chapter concludes with a discussion of the factors in humanitarian organizations that require attention in order to prevent organizational culture and defenses from undermining productive and satisfying work by employees who deliver aid in crises. The focus must be on leadership at the highest levels of the organization. Senior managers as individuals and as a functioning group must constantly examine their attitudes, behaviors, philosophies, and ways of analyzing and handling problems. This is the primary way of ensuring that a dysfunctional organizational culture and stifling organizational defense mechanisms do not become embedded in employer-employee interactions. 31 references