A STUDY ON HOW ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE INFLUENCES WORKER-YOUTH RELATIONSHIPS IN THE GUIDANCE PROGRAMME

Abstract

This paper presents an exploratory study, looking into how organisational culture influences worker-youth relationships, set within the context of the Guidance Programme (GP). Founded on the premise that worker-youth relationships are of high importance in youth work, this study looks to understand 1) how organisational culture influence the GP intervention approach, 2) how these intervention practices influence worker-youth relationships and 3) how worker-youth relationships are perceived by workers to influence intervention outcomes. This study employed qualitative research design, conducting semi-structured interviews with GP caseworkers from three different organisations doing youth work, two to three GP caseworkers per organisation. This study finds that although different organisations run under the same programme guidelines, they have vastly different cultures and operation styles. Organisations also prioritise relationship-building differently, despite unanimous claims that relationships are important in youth work. Most importantly, through identifying each organisation's culture, practices and norms, it was deduced that organisational culture does influences worker-youth relationships, via a process. A framework was then proposed to chart out this process, which, in gist, states that a. organisational culture, through influencing b. organisational practices and norms, and thereafter c. components of relationship-building, subsequently influences d. the nature of worker-youth relationships. The discussion also attempts to understand how and why different organisations prioritise relationship-building differently, despite consensus that relationships are important in youth work, thus urging readers to rethink the place of relationship-based practice in youth work.