Talk Around the Coffeepot: A Key to Cultural Change Toward Diversity

Introduction

Leading a state Extension organization to become more relevant in a culturally diverse society is a strategic and deliberate process of organizational culture change. Organizational culture consists of the values, beliefs, principles, practices, and behaviors found in the public language of the organization. Organizational culture changes very slowly.

Extension's organizational culture can be changed by identifying and then changing the diversity climate. A conceptual framework for identifying Extension's diversity climate (published in Journal of Extension, June 2001) is a key to organizational culture change (Schauber, 2001). This article addresses research findings that define Oregon State University Extension's Diversity Climate and how these findings are used to develop a strategic plan for leading OSU Extension to become an effective, culturally diverse organization.

Background

Diversity climate is defined as organizational members' attitudes and perceptions toward people from cultural groups other than their own. These attitudes and perceptions are manifested in the practices and behaviors that get acknowledged, supported, and rewarded (Schneider, 1990). Diversity climate, integral to and only a part of organizational culture, is manifested in the organization's private language, the informal conversations such as the talk around the coffeepot in the organization.

Culture refers to cognitive, affective, and behavioral patterns that are shared by a group of people (Hall, 1959; Hofstede, 1997; Ting-Toomey, 1999). Diversity refers to differences. Thus, cultural diversity is about differing values, beliefs, norms, and traditions that exist among us as members of groups. Organizations develop their own culture that reflects the values, beliefs, norms, and traditions of the people who created, lead, and maintain the organization. The Extension Service as an organization was originally designed within a dominant mainstream culture's paradigm and generally continues to be led and maintained within that paradigm.

Diversity in an organization can have both positive and negative effects. While the possibility for increased creativity, a greater sense of satisfaction among employees, and improved outcomes exist for an effective, culturally diverse organization, so also do the possibilities for internal struggles. These may include a climate of fear and uncertainty, potential conflict among groups in the organization, challenges to organizational unity, and a view of diversity as an imposed mandate (Bruhn, 1996).

This potential for negative effects of organizational diversification speaks to the need to do an assessment of the readiness level of an organization to diversify, so as to minimize the negative effects and to promote the positive effects of diversification. As society changes, we must be ready to respond to those changes and ideally influence the direction of change. If an Extension organization can model successful ways of tapping the creative talents and abilities of diverse groups of people, the organization better serves society.

Research Design

In an effort to determine the readiness of one Extension organization, Oregon State University Extension, to become effective in a culturally diverse society, the diversity climate was studied in 1999, within the context of a theoretical framework (Figure 1) outlined in a previous article (Schauber, 2001). The tools used to uncover Oregon's diversity climate were interviews with the leaders of the organization and focus groups with county faculty. Fourteen questions with follow-ups for clarification were asked about participants':

• Definition of diversity,
• Benefits and challenges of their jobs,
• Benefits and challenges of working with people from differing cultural groups for the self and the organization, and
• Concerns they might have about working with diverse groups.

A stratified random sample of participants with replacement was selected with the use of a random sample table. The population of participants consisted of interviews with on-campus Extension leadership, known as the director's cabinet (n=16), eight focus groups with county faculty (n=45), and two regional focus groups of county staff chairs (n=16). In total, the participants comprised 49% of the population (Table 1).

All of the interview and focus groups were audio taped, transcribed, and analyzed both by hand and in the QSR Nudist 4.0 software program. The data were first sorted for key words that reflected attitudes, perceptions, and opinions of participants in regard to diversity. These key words were then clustered into themes, and the themes were then analyzed refined, and checked for inter-rater reliability.

Both the interviews and focus groups included participant summary checks as a means of checking for intentionality, correctness, and confirmation of specific points. A panel of experts reviewed both the focus group and interview guides for credibility as well as the data set for inter-rater reliability. The questions were tested in a pilot focus group of Extension specialists.

Findings

The 16 interviews and 10 focus groups were studied to identify patterns and themes of organizational climate with regard to diversity. Nineteen themes emerged based on repetition of words or a recurrence of meanings from the 26 transcripts. These themes were then sorted using the framework of supportive, defensive, and uncertain dimensions to form a picture of Oregon's diversity climate (Figure 1).

Figure 1
Organizational Diversity Climate Framework

A description of the 19 themes follows. (Also see Figure 2.)

Supportive Dimensions of the Diversity Climate

A supportive diversity climate was defined as the routines and rewards of the organization that are inclusive of cultural groups other than the dominant cultural group in the organization both as staff and clientele. The dimensions were:

1. Commitment to serve others: Faculty's perceptions that serving a culturally diverse population fits within the mission of the organization. They found it desirable to serve such a population.
   
   
2. Awareness of the need for new outreach approaches: Faculty's perceptions that new approaches to reaching a diverse clientele were necessary for success. They perceived that there needs to be more than one way of thinking in order to be successful in hiring and retaining diverse staff and in developing educational programs for a diverse audience.
   
   
3. Awareness of the need to build trust: Faculty's perceptions that relationship and trust building, which take considerable time to accomplish, were essential as a means of establishing credibility and mutual understanding, before attempting to deliver educational programs to diverse groups.
   
   
4. Openness to learn: Faculty's expressed interest and willingness to be involved in the process of on-going learning.
   
   
5. Creative work: Faculty's perceptions that they have a lot of freedom and flexibility to be creative in their work with people.
   
   
6. Awareness that diversity adds richness: Faculty's perceptions that diversity adds new learning, new perspectives, and a richer end product both for the self, the interaction of the self with others, and the organization.
   
   
7. Awareness of the need for diverse staff: Faculty's perceptions that the organization needs staff to be from and understand the cultures to be served.
   
   
8. Potential to strengthen funding capacity: Faculty's perceptions that in the long run a culturally diverse clientele will lead to continued and more stable public funding for the organization.

Defensive Dimensions of the Diversity Climate

A defensive diversity climate was defined as the routines and rewards of the organizational system that are resistant to including culturally diverse groups other than the dominant cultural group in the organization either as staff or clientele. In essence, this defensive theme was about intergroup relations. They included:

1. Language and cultural barriers: Faculty's perceptions that language and culture were a barrier to delivering educational programs to culturally diverse groups.
   
   
2. A full plate: Faculty's perceptions that their current workload did not allow the time needed to reach out to culturally diverse groups.
   
   
3. Restrictive academic criteria: Faculty's perceptions that current academic criteria were too restrictive to attract, hire, and retain faculty from culturally diverse groups. There was concern about requiring a master's degree to be considered for an Extension faculty position.
   
   
4. Lack of organizational commitment: Faculty's perceptions that the organization as a whole was not committed to reaching out to culturally diverse audiences.
   
   
5. Lack of fiscal resources: Faculty's perceptions that the organization lacked the fiscal resources needed to hire a diverse staff and adequately serve diverse audiences.
   
   
6. Power of traditional audiences: Faculty's fear of putting effort into working with culturally diverse groups, because traditional audiences would perceive that it would be at their expense. Faculty perceived traditional clientele to have the power to affect performance evaluation and ultimately affect funding level.
   
   
7. Academic vs. Community Expectations: A tension between faculty's perception of what was required to do effective community work at the grass-roots level and the demands of the academy in regard to the promotion and tenure process. There was a belief that the pressure of the promotion and tenure process did not allow the time needed to build trust and relationship in communities before educational programs could be delivered successfully. The pressure also led to a perception that the organization did not support risk-taking.

Uncertainty Dimensions of the Diversity Climate

The uncertainty dimension of the diversity climate was defined as the routines and rewards of the organization that were neither supportive nor defensive, but rather indicative of a state of hesitancy due to numerous barriers. The dimensions were:

1. Lack of Intercultural Communication Skills: Faculty's perception that they did not have the skills to communicate effectively with diverse groups. This included both culture general and culture specific skills.
   
   
2. Fear of Embarrassment/Being Offensive: Faculty's fear that they would embarrass self or offend the other in attempts to communicate both verbally and non-verbally with cultural groups other than one's own group.
   
   
3. Lack of Culturally Appropriate Educational Designs: Faculty's perception that current educational programs and methods did not transfer directly to culturally diverse audiences and that they lacked the knowledge of what was culturally appropriate educational design.
   
   
4. Quota Anxiety: Faculty's concern that any effort to include culturally diverse audiences would have to be based on a quota system. There was a strong resistance to involving diverse audiences only as a means of fulfilling quotas.

Figure 2
Dimensions of OSU Extension's Diversity Climate

Overall Diversity Climate

When the 19 diversity climate themes were considered as a whole, they became dynamic and interactive. For example, while faculty had a commitment to serving others (supportive), they also felt that they carried a full plate and that there was a lack of fiscal resources to serve diverse audiences (defensive). As a whole, the supportive, defensive, and uncertain dimensions when looked at interactively resulted in a climate that moved more toward the middle, or rather an overall state of uncertainty. An observable characteristic of this climate was inaction, or acceptance of the status quo. At the same time, the 19 themes also pointed to an opportunity for the organization to become more supportive of cultural diversity.

Implications and Use of Findings

If the organization builds on the supportive dimensions and addresses the uncertain and defensive dimensions through a strategic plan of action, the organization could create an overall supportive diversity climate. Resonating with what Extension professionals are saying, that is, the private language of the organization, a solidly supportive diversity climate becomes the catalyst that then shifts the organizational culture to create an effective, culturally diverse organization. This is exactly what is underway within OSU Extension.

After studying the organization's diversity climate, the Director's Cabinet adopted an organizational commitment to diversity to be reviewed annually for a reassessment of progress. The defensive dimension of lack of organization commitment has now become a supportive dimension of organizational support for diversity.

A diversity committee was formed to work on enhancing the supportive dimensions and changing the uncertain and defensive dimensions into a supportive diversity climate. The self-formed committee of 30 is currently revising the recruitment, selection, and mentoring processes for hiring staff, developing culturally appropriate educational materials, assessing the language capacity of staff, and providing opportunities for staff to develop intercultural communication skills.

There are many more strategies unfolding, all built around the diversity climate dimensions. Thus, articulating OSU Extension's diversity climate has become a catalyst as well as a roadmap for change. We now also have a benchmark in time, a starting place to measure organizational change toward diversity.

Conclusions

A key to Extension's cultural change to become a more effective, culturally diverse organization is the faculty's talk around the coffeepot, that is, the private language about diversity in the Extension organization. In this case study of OSU Extension, the diversity climate was identified as having supportive, defensive, and uncertain dimensions, resulting in an overall diversity climate of uncertainty.

Capitalizing on the supportive dimensions, strategies were developed to change the uncertain and defensive dimensions into a supportive climate. A clear change strategy is in place to change the diversity climate and thus change the organizational culture of OSU Extension to become more relevant in a culturally diverse society.

References

Bruhn, J. G. (1996). Creating an organizational climate for multiculturalism. Health Care Supervisor, 14(4), 11-18.

Hall, E.T. (1959). The silent language. New York: Doubleday, 1959.

Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Schauber, A. (1999). Assessing organizational climate: First step in diversifying an organization. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Cincinnati: Union Institute.

Schauber, A. (2001). Effecting Extension organizational change toward cultural diversity: A conceptual framework. Journal of Extension [On-line] 39 (3) Available at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2001june/al.html.

Schneider, B. (1990). The climate for service: An application of the climate construct. In B. Schneider (Ed.), Organizational climate and culture (pp. 383-412). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ting-Toomey, S. (1999). Communicating across cultures. New York: Guilford.

This article is online at http://joe.org/joe/2001december/a1.html.

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