1. Organizational Theory – Part 3 Cultural Studies
Chapter 5 Lecture/Recap

2. Culture New Focus Language of Workplace
Performance of manager and employees
Meaningful artifacts
Formal and informal practices of organization

3. Organizational Culture
“…the actions, ways of thinking, practices, stories, and artifacts that characterize a particular organization” (p. 122)
Relationship between communication, individuals, and social context
Symbolic constructions
Controlled by managers? Employees? Both?
Sub-cultures

4. Rise of Cultural Approach
Competitive pressures
Organizations must adapt to surrounding culture (Theory Z; William Ouchi)
Desire for more interpretive methodology for examining organizations
Culture = “is” not “has”
Example of method: ethnography
Told as a story
Can stimulate cultural change
Reveals taken for granted practices and beliefs
Aims to set definition of workplace as a community
Social trends
Growing importance of cross-cultural understandings

5. Dr. G’s Experience; Cultures and Sub-Cultures
CVHS
CVCHC
Dental
Nursing
Doctors
X-ray
Front Desk and Medical Records
Birthday parties, gossip, loyalty
Younger Employees
Hanging outside of work, gossiping, loyalty
SAFP
WHC
AFP

6. Learning the Culture Role of communication
Structure (roles, rules, policies, communication networks)
Vocabulary
Cultural elements
Stories
Rituals
Values
Performances
Metaphors
Artifacts

8. Example Gordon The Office Your examples? Example of practices?
Language in mission statement?
Artifacts?
The Office
Your examples?

9. Practical View of Organizational Culture
Culture as “an organizational feature, like technology or management style, that mangers can leverage to create more effective organizations” (p. 131)
Quasi-causal relationships
Excessive positivity
Research  suggestions

10. Interpretive View of Organizational Culture
Managers and members create culture; culture emerges through organizational life
“…communication works to build, reproduce, and transform the taken-for-granted reality of organizational culture” (p. 134).
Role of narratives (must consider context and narrator)

11. Critical View of Organizational Culture
Challenges power relationships and status quo
Are any cultural elements operating in a way that favor those already in power?
Role of ethnographers
Key features of cultural study
Integration
Culture = consistency and clarity
‘appears cultural members agree on what and why’
No room for ambiguity
Culture as monologue; not dialogue
Often favors stories of those in power
Differentiation
Focuses on differences across units and subcultures
“Cultural manifestations as predominately inconsistent with one another” (p. 139)
Issues with communication between subcultures
Fragmentation
‘Certainty replaced with ambiguity, contradiction, tension, and irony
Use of ambiguity: tool of manipulation for management; coping mechanism for employees

12. New Members Socialization Anticipatory socialization
Vocational (more general)
Organizational (more specific)
Organizational assimilation
How do things really work?
Strict rules vs. rules we can ignore
Level of familiarity
Sources of info: ‘company messages, coworkers/peers, supervisors, other organizational members, customers and outsiders, assigned tasks’ (p. 144)
Especially important for High-Reliability Organizations
Role of technology

13. Communication Perspective on Organizational Culture
Communication = core process = forms and transforms culture
Importance of daily communication and symbolic expressions
Consider verbal and nonverbal (words, actions, artifacts)
Organization culture = cultural nexus = national, local, familial, other external forces
Various motives for studying organizational culture

14. Group Activity
Organizational narratives. What can we learn about the organizational culture?