Corporate Culture Revisited

Greg Smith has a popular post in the NYT titled Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs. His reason is that the organizational culture is now "as toxic and destructive" as has "ever seen it." In particular, Smith criticizes that the values and norms of the organization are oriented almost exclusively toward profit-making, with little or no regard for the well-being of other organizations and people, including their clients.

Misc. Links

•  MIT students are having a Pi Day recitation and celebration today (since today is 3.14, of course).
• The Financial Times discusses Goldman Sachs' corporate culture without, unfortunately, describing what is meant by the phrase; however, I'm glad to see that cultural factors are mentioned, since clearly faulty beliefs, norms, and values contributed to financial crisis.
• The U.S. Census Bureau recently released a report describing the inequality levels (expressed as Gini coefficients) of all counties in the United States from 2006 to 2010; the findings show, as one would expect, that more populous counties are more unequal.
• Finally, a new study suggests that first-generation immigrants face a disadvantage in attending college due a "cultural mismatch" in values and norms from between working-class youth and those from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.