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As I have done more reading and thinking about organizational context, I have come up with a fourth category to add to the three I have already defined: structural, cultural, and personal. The new category is management context. While structural context describes the context that has been designed into the organization through the organizational design, incentive systems, and financial mechanics, the management context is created by what the management team (usually the executives and senior manages) say and do. As with structural context, the actual results may not align with intent, but the intent is important to recognize. A few of the items I would put in the management context category are:
Corporate values. Many senior management teams develop a set of “corporate values”. This might be a list or a simple statement like “our employees are our most valuable asset.” Management may or may not demonstrate their stated values and employees may or may not believe them. Either way, they are part of the management context.
Accessibility. Senior managers explicitly or implicitly set the parameters for communicating with them. Some have an open door policy that says anyone at any level can see them any time. Others make it clear that you can only get an audience through your management chain. Other avenues are emails, suggestion boxes, town halls etc.
Openness. Openness refers to management’s position to sharing information with the larger organization. Most often, this is information regarding strategy, finances, or the future of the company but can include other items of interest to employees.
Leadership. Leadership reflects to the senior management team’s ability (in aggregate) to go beyond managing and truly lead the organization.
The bottom line:_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Executives and other senior managers set the tone for the organization by what they say and what they do. This context often influences the structural context design as well as how the cultural context responds.
Tagged: context 
