The Art of the Possible A Documentary on Narrative Approaches to Pediatric Cancer Care A 10 Minute Demo Produced by Lynn Harter, Ph.D. Directed by Casey Hayward, M.F.A.

Meet Anna, her mom, and nurse Maritza…

Defining Organizational Culture Culture: a pattern of basic assumptions – invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration; created through cx Function to: Help members cope with uncertainty Create identities Create continuity (i.e., socialization)

Elements of Culture Values (ideologies) Norms Heroes Rites and Rituals Cultural Network Stories Metaphors Myths/legends Goal of org cx researcher: investigate cx processes through which culture is created

Sub-cultures/Counter-cultures Subculture: smaller groups sharing values that may differ slightly from the whole; arise from: Differential interaction Shared experiences Similar personal characterstics Counter-culture: basic understandings question and oppose the overall culture in some way

Cultural vs Critical Perspectives Descriptive hermeneutic approach – concerned with interpreting organizational symbolic practices (i.e., cultural approach) Hermeneutics of suspicion – preserves focus on symbolic practices and the creation of organizational meaning systems, but situates this relationship within critical conception of orgs as sites of discursive and material domination (i.e., critical approach)

Critical Perspectives Organizations – not neutral sites of meaning formation; rather, they are produced and reproduced in context of struggles between competing interest groups and systems of representation Role of researcher: Reveal how social and technological structures within organizations serve to oppress workers; ultimate goal is emancipation/consciousness-raising Work with participants as co-investigators

Issues of power and control Mgmt = control of resources Control is created and maintained in variety of ways Outright exercise of power (traditional perspective) Hegemony (Gramsci) – unknowing adoption of a dominant group’s values and beliefs, even though those goals may not be in interest of subordinate group Concertive control – adherence to socially constructed norms developed by members themselves as they attempt to structure their environment

Focus of critical inquiry Ideology critique – denaturalize social order that is taken for granted Recognize diverse rationalities Identify universalization of dominant group interests Identify spaces of resistance and empowerment Look for contradictions and paradoxes that emerge from competing values