Ch. 5 Cultural Approaches
What do these books signal in terms of organizing?
A shift away from strictly rational models of organizing.
What kind of culture do Deal & Kennedy value?
A strong culture
How do ethnographic methods differ from traditional social science techniques?
An ethnographer will try to become immersed in organizational life.
What kind of culture do Peters & Waterman value?
An excellent culture.
What is the approach to culture used by both Deal & Kennedy and Peters & Waterman?
An integration approach aka prescriptive.
What is the principle of simultaneous loose-tight properties?
Exhibit both unity of purpose and the diversity necessary for innovation?
What is cultural penetration?
Various subcultures within an organization may represent important differences in power and in interests.
What research methods do many researchers believe are the most appropriate for studying organizational culture?
Qualitative methods
What are the types of cultural tales?
Realist tale Confessional tale Impressionist tale Critical tale
How are cultural performances interactional?
They require the participation of multiple organizational members.
What are the three levels of Schein's Model of Organizational Culture?
1. Artifacts 2. Espoused Values 3. Basic Assumptions
What are the themes of an excellent culture?
A bias for action; Close relations to the customer; Autonomy and entrepreneurship; Productivity through people; Hands-on, value driven; Stick to the knitting; Simple form, lean staff; Simultaneous loose-tight properties
What is culture?
A complicated patchwork of values, symbols and behaviors that define a nation in various ways for various people.
What does Schin's "onion" model represent?
A consistent cultural pattern with interconnected levels.
What are the two types of cultural patterns that can develop, according to Schein's model?
A consistent pattern or an inconsistent pattern.
What is an impressionist tale?
A narrative in which information about the culture is slipped into a story that could stand on its own dramatic merits.
What is a critical tale?
A narrative with the express goal of uncovering the deep power structures implicit in organizational functioning.
What is a realist tale?
A realist tale is like a documentary, as the ethnographer tries to provide a complete and relatively objective account of what was observed in the org.
What is the cultural approach metaphor?
An organization is like a culture.
What do these observational techniques allow the ethnographer to develop?
An understanding of the values and assumptions at work.
What field was the culture metaphor borrowed from?
Anthropology
What is the principle of simple form, lean staff?
Avoid complex structures and divisions of labor.
How does one investigate organizational culture?
By discovering an organization's ways of doing and ways of talking.
How does a cultural theorist analyze an organization?
By looking at the qualities that make an organization "what it is."
How is organizational culture complex?
By the wide variety of "markers" that scholars use to investigate it.
Why is this idea central to a communication focus on culture?
Communication is "constitutive of culture."
What is the second critical issue raised by Schein's definition of culture?
Culture is a pattern of basic assumptions, suggesting that the core of culture is its basic assumptions and that values, behaviors, and so on are better seen as reflections of that culture.
What are the four issues that highlight the distinction between prescriptive approaches to culture and how most cultural researchers study it today?
Culture is complicated; culture is emergent; culture is not unitary; and culture is often ambiguous.
What are the two different ways of thinking about culture?
Culture is something an organization has; culture is something an organization is.
How is organizational culture emergent?
Cultures are socially created through the interaction of organizational members.
What two books influenced this popularity?
Deal & Kennedy's Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life Peters & Waterman's In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies
What is Edgar Schein known for?
Developing a model of culture that conceptualizes culture as the assumptions, values, behaviors, and artifacts that an organization exhibits as it attempts to adapt to internal and external contingencies.
When did the concept of organizational culture become popular?
During the last part of the twentieth century.
What is the principle of hands-on, value-driven?
Employees and managers share the same core value of productivity and performance.
What are autonomy and entrepreneurship?
Encourage employees to take risks in the development of new ideas.
What is the principle of productivity through people?
Encourage positive and respectful relationships among management and employees.
What research method in particular has been looked at?
Ethnography
What is a close relation to the customer?
Excellent orgs gear decisions & actions to the needs of customers.
What is a bias for action?
Excellent orgs react quickly and do not spend excess time planning & analyzing.
What are heroes?
Heroes are the individuals who come to exemplify an organization's values.
Why is it critical to look at the correspondence between Level 1 and Level 2 in Schein's model?
If there is a strong match between these two levels, it is likely that both the behaviors and values are indicators of underlying cultural assumptions. However, if the two don't match, it is possible that the values are really either rationalizations or only aspirations for the future.
What is Martin's differentiation approach?
Inconsistencies among cultural vies are expected and often seen as desirable in an organization.
What is included in the second level of Schein's model?
Individual and group values; preferences or what "ought" to happen
What are the four types of cultural performances?
Interactional, contextual, episodic, and improvisational.
How is organizational culture not unitary?
It is impossible to characterize an organization as having a single culture; organizations are characterized by a multitude of subcultures that may co-exist in harmony, conflict, or indifference to each other.
What are the two main problems with a prescriptive approach to culture?
It is naive to assume that there is a single cultural "formula" for achieving organizational success. Prescriptive approaches treat culture as a "thing" that an organization "has."
What is one of the problems with Schein's model of org culture?
It oversimplifies the nature of organizational culture and the role of communication in creating and sustaining that culture.
Why did the concept of "culture" become so popular?
Metaphor clearly resonated w/academics and practitioners. The cultural metaphor opened up new and fruitful areas of research. Culture quickly became a part of everyday talk.
What are the six areas around which basic assumptions typically revolve?
Nature of reality and truth; nature of time; nature of space; nature of human nature; nature of human activity; nature of human relationships.
What are some of the points raised about the second level of Schein's model?
Organizations don't have values, individuals do. Not all values will hold equal "weight" in an organization. Sometimes individuals say they hold a particular value but their behavior belies that statement.
What are some of the observational techniques ethnographers use?
Participant observation, nonparticipant observation, archival analysis, or talk with employees about their values, heroes, metaphors, rules, and stories.
What are rites and rituals?
Rites and rituals are the ceremonies through which an organization celebrates its values.
Name some of the markers used to investigate organizational culture.
Rites, ceremonies, values, belief systems, metaphors, stories, communication rules, and hallway talk.
What is the first critical issue raised by Schein's definition of culture?
Schein defines culture as a group phenomenon, and cultural formation is always striving toward patterning and integration.
What is the third critical issue raised by Schein's definition of culture?
Schein sees culture as an emergent and developmental process; cultures are learned or invented as a group meets internal and external challenges.
What is the fourth critical issue raised by Schein's definition of culture?
Schein's definition highlights the socializing aspect of organizational culture; a major part of "learning the ropes" consists of developing an understanding of the assumptions and values that make up that organization's culture.
What is the principle of stick to the knitting?
Stay focused on what the org does best and avoid radical diversification.
What is included in the first level of Schein's model?
Technology, art, and visible and audible behavior patterns; the physical and social environment that org members have created.
What is included in the third level of Schein's model?
The core assumptions that individuals in a group hold about the world and how it works; these are uniformly held by cultural or subcultural members
What is the cultural network?
The cultural network is the communication system through which cultural values are instituted and reinforced.
After a cultural researcher has developed a grounded theory about an organizaton's culture, what is the final step?
The ethnography of that culture can be written in the form of a cultural tale
What might an inconsistent cultural pattern indicate?
The existence of fragmented subcultures or a culture in transition from one set of assumptions and values to another. Underlying assumptions can lead to dysfunctional behaviors or can fail to shift as the contingencies of the organizational environment change.
Where is the cultural metaphor derived from?
The field of anthropology.
What is this approach to culture called?
The fragmentation approach.
What do both of these books emphasize?
The importance of organizational intangibles.
What do the themes of an excellent culture emphasize?
The importance of people and downplay bureaucratic structure and values.
What is a confessional tale?
The researcher talks personally about how he or she experienced the culture under investigation.
What does ethnography mean?
The writing of culture
According to Louis, what are sites of culture in an organization?
There are a number of sites where culture might develop in an organization, including a vertical slice, a horizontal slice, or a specific work group.
How are cultural performances improvisational?
There are no scripts that guide organizational members.
How are organizational cultures ambiguous?
There is not always a clear picture of the organization's culture--or even of its various subcultures.
What do the ethnographer's methods of observation and inference allow him to do?
They allow him to create a mini-theory that is grounded in observations of a particular organizational culture.
How are cultural performances contextual?
They are embedded in organizational situations and organizational history.
How are cultural performances episodic?
They are nameable as distinctive events.
What is the problem with these books?
They are prescriptive, not descriptive.
What approach do cultural researchers take when studying organizations?
They seek to describe and understand the complex ways in which organizational culture is developed and maintained.
What is the goal of the ethnographic approach?
To minimize the distance between the researcher and the culture being investigated.
What are values?
Values are the beliefs and visions that members hold for an organization.
What are the four key components of a strong culture?
Values, heroes, rites and rituals, and the cultural network.
