Organizational Culture As a Conversion Factor for Early-Career Social Workers: A Capability Approach to Strengthening Workforce Sustainability

Background/Purpose: Social service organizations are increasingly challenged by workforce shortages, financial constraints, and growing societal and regulatory demands. Ensuring sustainable career trajectories for early-career social workers is therefore critical to maintaining high-quality services and advancing the public good. The transition into professional practice represents a key phase in which individual needs, professional aspirations, and organizational conditions intersect.

Drawing on the Capability Approach, this study examines how organizational culture shapes early-career social workers’ opportunities to realize valued professional capabilities. By identifying organizational conditions that enable or constrain these opportunities, the study contributes to understanding how social work organizations can foster equitable, participatory, and sustainable work environments—thereby strengthening democratic social infrastructures.

Methods: A sequential mixed-methods design was employed. In Study 1 (quantitative), N=331 social work students nearing graduation were surveyed using the Organizational Culture Inventory® to assess preferred organizational culture profiles and associated professional needs. Statistical analyses were conducted using R.

In Study 2 (qualitative), 15 early-career social workers were interviewed using problem-centered interviews to explore lived work experiences during career entry. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis following Kuckartz and Rädiker. The integration of findings followed a convergent comparative strategy, allowing for a systematic comparison between ideal expectations and experienced organizational realities.

Results: Findings reveal a pronounced gap between preferred and experienced organizational cultures. Quantitative results indicate strong preferences for constructive, participatory, and supportive cultural dimensions, including collegiality, feedback structures, and opportunities for professional growth.

Qualitative findings show that early-career experiences are often characterized by organizational ambiguity, insufficient onboarding, and limited participation in decision-making processes.

Across both datasets, key professional capabilities were identified. Organizational culture emerged as a central conversion factor influencing whether these capabilities can be realized. While supportive team dynamics facilitated positive agency experiences, structural and cultural constraints at the organizational level frequently limited capability realization.

Conclusions and Implications: This study advances social work research by integrating the Capability Approach into organizational analysis and empirically demonstrating the role of organizational culture in shaping early-career outcomes. The findings highlight a critical theory–practice gap and underscore the need for capability-oriented organizational development, particularly in onboarding practices and participatory management structures. Strengthening organizational cultures that promote professional capabilities can enhance workforce retention, improve service quality, and contribute to more equitable and responsive social service systems.

In line with the conference theme, the study illustrates how rigorous, practice-oriented research can inform organizational change and support democratic values such as participation, inclusion, and social justice within social work institutions.