Question

How can organizational rites and rituals normalize discrimination against particular groups? Identify examples of organizational rites and rituals that encourage or allow unequal treatment based on factors such as race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or economic class. When, if ever, are such uses of rites and rituals ethical?

Answer 1

Organizational rites and rituals are reflective of an organization's culture. It can happen at an employee level, group level or at the whole organizational level. These are crucial in establishing goals and achieving them. However, they can sometimes be discriminative towards certain groups or individuals. This can happen when there is a cultural hegemony that promotes submission and discrimination. This discriminatory practices may affect recruitment, rewards, salary, promotion or the image of an employ. On the basis of age, there is an increasing trend to promote young employees by dismissing aged employees in many organizations. On the basis of gender, there are still unequal wages paid to women and the case of LGBT community is often unaddressed when it comes to an organizational setting. Race is often an implicit discriminatory factor even in the era of ultra modernization. There are religious preferences that may be overt or covert when it comes to treatment in an organization. Nationality preferences are profound in almost every organization. Most of these rites and rituals are unethical and absolutely discriminative. But situational demands often facilitate such discriminatory practices. For example, a company that is shifting to the most advanced technology may prefer younger and fresh employees owing to the difficulty in training aged employees. Due to the economic conditions of the nation, an organization may prefer to recruit only the citizens of its home country. These are instances where discrimination is a demand of the situation.