Ather Shabbar

Promoting Inclusion through Organizational Culture Change

In this paper, I explored the prevalence of systemic barriers to inclusion in public sector organizations and suggested the need for organizations to examine their own cultural practices to identify such barriers, take steps to mitigate the barriers, and bring about cultural change to improve and sustain an inclusive work environment. To this end, I used organizational auto-ethnographic analysis within a narrative analysis framework to examine my professional / personal experiences in the course of my 23-year career with the Ontario Public Service (OPS), supplemented by expert interviews with four senior officers of OPS. I identified seven key systemic barriers to inclusion created by organizational cultural practices in OPS and suggested some measures for mitigating those barriers. Based on this exercise, I designed a tool for public sector organizations, as learning organizations, to reflect on their cultural practices to identify systemic barriers to inclusion and develop plans for becoming more inclusive. http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/1833/