Introduction
The Youth Support and Advocacy Service will hereafter be referred to by the pseudonym XYZ to safeguard its identity. XYZ is an organization established in 1998 and is committed to offering detailed support to young individuals and families grappling with mental health challenges, substance abuse, and criminal justice programs. Through services such as outreach programs, education, advocacy, and counseling, XYZ seeks to establish a deep commitment to creating conditions that empower youths and their associated support networks.
As part of its efforts to realize its vision of creating a community where every youth is valued, involved, and has all opportunities to prosper, XYZ embraces core values such as respect, empowerment, honesty, and accountability. The organization aims to establish a supportive, safe space where all young people are respected and treated with dignity, regardless of their situation or background. Success in handling the transition to adulthood is anchored not only in the youth’s emerging capabilities and motivation, but also in the family’s capacity, culture, and community to give meaningful guidance and much-needed resources. Therefore, XYZ practitioners strive to create opportunities and build resources for youths and their corresponding families.
Structure
XYZ embraces a traditional organizational structure that depicts roles and their connections. A detailed assessment of the organization reveals a hierarchical structure. Top management comprises the chief executive officer, the deputy, the chief financial officer, and various departmental heads who help implement the core mandate. Therefore, it is described as formalized, tall, and centralized with a narrow span of control (Gardner, 2016). The departments provide expertise in advocacy and communication, quality and service development, and primary care services, reflecting the organization’s dedication to supporting youth in addressing mental health challenges, substance abuse, and criminal justice issues.
The structure of XYZ portrays the beliefs and values regarding specific roles and responsibilities enshrined within the organization. Gardener (2016) argues that an organization’s structure reveals its beliefs and values regarding responsibilities and roles, how decisions should be made, and the standards upheld. In XYZ, it is apparent that the hierarchical structure shapes and prioritizes expertise and specialization, with the designated team responsible for supervision, decision-making, and resource allocation.
Moreover, the hierarchical order shapes power distribution, as the centralized approach concentrates decision-making authority at the top of the management hierarchy. The structure is conducive and underscores XYZ’s dedication to ensuring teamwork and collaboration to address substance abuse, mental health challenges, and criminal justice programs in a more coordinated manner. This shows XYZ was consciously established to attain its goals through collective means (Thompson and McHugh, 2009). This underscores the meaning of organization as depicted in the literature.
Culture
The culture at XYZ is profoundly rooted in its core mandate to support youth, reflecting a set of shared fundamental assumptions that guide organizational behavior, beliefs, and decision-making. Tylor (1871) described culture as the complex whole encompassing law, morals, art, belief, custom, and knowledge, or any habits and capabilities learned by man in a society. The organization’s strong belief in giving youth opportunities to thrive shows a robust culture and a commitment to supporting.
Moreover, Schein (2010) defines culture as the pattern of shared assumptions acquired by a group while addressing the challenges of external adaptation and internal incorporation, and has worked effectively to be regarded as valid, meriting teaching to new members as the appropriate way to think, perceive, and feel such problems. At XYZ, one of the key assumptions in its culture is the strong belief that young people have the inherent capacity to overcome challenges, shaping how staff perceive and interact with young people. New members are taught this assumption as they are introduced to XYZ, while emphasizing respect, empowerment, honesty, and accountability in every communication.
XYZ has a strong focus on teamwork, believing that collective effort is fundamental to addressing the issues faced by youths. New members are inculcated into this transformative culture through mentorship and training opportunities. The youth learn the significance of collective effort to attain common goals. Kluckhohn (1949) asserts that culture is a set of practices for adjusting both to the outside environment and to others. Regarding behavioral trends, the organization believes in open communication and preparedness to adapt to the growing requirements of youth.
Training sessions and meetings act as the platforms for strengthening collective assumptions and promoting solidarity among staff. An evocative phrase to describe XYZ culture is “youth-focused empowerment.” This is reinforced by Geertz (1973), who interprets culture as a historically transmitted system of meanings exemplified in symbols. It is a structure of inherited concepts, expressed in figurative terms, by which men communicate and develop their knowledge of attitudes toward life. Therefore, the organization dedicates every effort and strategy to ensuring that young people are supported in realizing their full potential and thriving.
The culture sustains the organization and enables it to continue exerting its influence toward attaining the shared goals. Wallace (n.d.) shows that culture is not only invisible but also serves to sustain a group. He emphasized that individuals can run automatic beliefs without noticing, and that culture helps spread unconscious assumptions, leading to a self-centered view of the world.
However, there are circumstances when culture contradicts practical realities. For example, bureaucratic constraints and limited resources can create tension between practical considerations and idealistic aspirations. From this perspective, Wallace encourages conscious responsiveness, challenges prevailing assumptions, and affirms the liberty to select one’s perspective.
Espoused Values vs Practice
Empowerment is the core value at XYZ, emphasizing the need to value young people and their families and to provide opportunities for them to succeed. This core value, together with others, is shaped by the belief that youths are neither children nor mini-adults but are still developing; hence the need to improve their health and make a revered contribution to the community. However, there is a disconnect between the organization’s actual practices and its espoused values.
Whereas XYZ values youth empowerment, the organization does not allow young people to co-design services, which originates from top management. Argyris’ models of theory-in-use and espoused theory provide a detailed perspective of this disconnection. XYZ espoused theory emphasizes empowering youths, but the theory-in-use shows a tendency toward non-involvement in co-designing services.
The inconsistency in espoused and practiced values in the organization results in single-loop learning, defensive routines, and double-loop learning. In single-loop learning, XYZ responds to concerns with remedial measures, emphasizing control rather than addressing the problem’s main causes. Initiating minor modifications to existing programs might not address the major cause of the lack of co-designing services, missing the fundamental issue. This makes the company deploy defensive issues such as training and stressing solidarity, silencing the youth who might otherwise want active involvement in the organization’s main activities. In addition, the double loop entails investigating the major assumptions in service design and exploring the reluctance to embrace the practice.
Power and Governance
The major faces of power in XYZ are through decision-making and agenda-setting. Weber (1978) describes power as the possibility that a given actor in any social relationship will execute his will despite opposition, irrespective of the foundation on which the probability rests. At XYZ, the centralized decision-making structure vests power in top management. Foucault (1995) also emphasized that power is exercised rather than possessed.
While Foucault’s concept asserts that power is pervasive and always imperceptible, entrenched in standards, practices, and expertise, Hobbes (1985) argues that power is an individual’s present means to acquire a future apparent good. Conversely, Taylorism stressed task specialization and efficiency before disciplinary power was exercised through the concept of invisibility. In XYZ, Taylorism is exemplified through operational procedures and division of work to enhance efficiency.
Managerialism and Motivation
The belief that empowering young people to be valued in society and acquire opportunities to thrive requires a certain level of motivation among implementing staff. At XYZ, dealing with the youth daily to ensure mental health issues, substance abuse, and criminal justice programs are addressed is challenging. The issue of staff motivation is a significant concern for management, and managers should strive to achieve it, even if it requires overt power (Taylor, 2012). Self-determination theory and Theory Y can be explored to achieve maximum staff motivation at the XYZ organization.
Reference List
Foucault, M. (1995) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. 2nd edn. New York: Vintage Books.
Gardner, F. (2016) Working with human service organisations. 2nd edn. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Hobbes, T. (1985). Leviathan. London: Penguin Books.
Kluckhohn, C. (1949). Mirror for man. New York: Whittlesey House.
Schein, E. H. (2010) Organizational culture and leadership. 4thedn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Taylor, F. W. (2012) The principles of scientific management. New York: The Floating Press.
Thompson, P. and McHugh, I. (2009) Work organisations: a critical approach. 4th edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tylor, E. B. (1871) Primitive culture. London: John Murray.
Wallace, D. F. (n.d.) This is water by David Foster Wallace (full transcript and audio).
Weber, M. (1978) Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology. California: University of California Press.
Youth Support and Advocacy Service. (n.d. a) Our people.
Youth Support and Advocacy Service. (n.d. b) Our story.