Culture About Much More Than Structure

Culture About Much More Than Structure

One’s assumptions about what defines culture limits or expands culture itself. One thing is for sure, culture is about much more than organizational structures and systems.

Indeed, culture is such a wicked problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem) that defining culture structurally or systemically creates far more problems than it solves. Organisational structures are a small part of what creates culture.

When one looks at the SIA Body of Knowledge and some contemporary safety views on culture there is so much missing. If one seeks cognitivist, positivist and behaviourist research one will get definitions of culture that are burdened with the limitations of those ideologies. This is where Safety goes, to the comforts of what is known not to a broad transdisciplinary approach to risk and safety. This is what the SIA BoK offers, a very limited understanding of culture. No wonder Safety doesn’t know much about how to effect cultural change.

If one accepts a transdisciplinary view of culture then one would include aspects of: anthropology, theology, religion, phenomenology, dialectical existentialist and social psychology completely missing from the SIA BoK and other contemporary views in safety about what defines culture. Here is a list of some critical factors/ideas missing from current definitions of culture in safety.

· Religion and theologies in culture

· Semiotics

· Artefacts-as-semiosis

· Aesthetics in culture

· Critical factors in education and learning theory

· The Collective Unconscious (Jungian approaches to culture)

· Archetypes

· Social psychological dynamics

· Wickedity

· Theories of consciousness

· Critical and cultural theory

· Discourse theory

· Political dimensions of culture

· Philosophical and ideological dimensions of culture

· Phenomenological and existentialist approaches to culture

· Anthropological understandings of culture

Indeed, when one looks at the current approaches to safety conversations and incident investigations all of these vital factors in culture are missing.

One therefore gets the closed outcomes one seeks from a closed definition of culture and the simplistic idea that one can affect culture by the modification of systems, behaviours and structures.

Dr Long will be offering his three day program on culture in Canberra on 11,12,13 September 2019 – https://cllr.com.au/product/culture-leadership-program-unit-15/

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

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• Practical Case Studies in SPoR Presented at Vienna Workshops - March 21, 2023

PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.