Abstract
Social Service Organizations (SSO) play a fundamental role in national welfare systems. The peculiarity of this type of organization is that they are usually financed by the state and that they do their service in co-production with their clients. Historically and theoretically, questions about social justice, normativity, diversity, and inclusion are fundamentally for SSO. These issues and questions are primarily related to the clients and not transferred to the SSO itself. In this context, it remains unclear how diversity and inclusion are interpreted in organizational-cultural relationships. Within a current study about organizational diversity we became able to describe the prevailing organizational culture in context of diversity within an SSO. Qualitative and quantitative methods (expert interviews and social statistics) were combined and the study took place at an youth welfare office. The organizational culture at this youth welfare office may be considered as “normativity plus”, which is to be interpreted as an intermediate step between diversity and inclusion. Though notions of normality are reproduced, at the same time “being different” is heard and seen and not being excluded. In a sense of diversity management we can show, that the organization takes advantage of social difference categories. But what about differences that do not directly relate to an advantage for the organization? In my paper, I theoretically, with help of the empirical data, show what exactly “normativity plus” means and how it shapes organizational culture.
Presenters
Timo SchreinerScientific Assistant, Department of Organizational Pedagogy, University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Bayern, Germany
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Organizational Culture, Diversity, Inclusion, Diversity Management, Social Justice
