Organizational Communication Chapter Five

Front 1

Approach 1: Prescriptive Views of Culture

Back 1

Functional Perspective: Culture is something an organization HAS.
"you either got it or you don't"

Front 2

Approach 2: Alternate Approaches to Culture (Descriptive?)

Back 2

Symbolic Perspective: Culture is something an organization IS.

Front 3

Deal and Kennedy's Corporate Culture

Back 3

-Values
-Heroes
-Rites and Rituals
-Cultural Network

Front 4

Peter and Waterman's In Search of Excellence
(Prescriptive View)

Back 4

**Emphasize PEOPLE over Structure**
1. A bias for action
2. Close relations to the customer
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship
4. Productivity through people
5. Hands-on, value-driven
6. Stick to the knitting
7. Simple form, lean staff
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties

Front 5

Org Cultures are Complicated

Back 5

Metaphors: Employees and management in a study of the culture of Disneyland
Stories: are the best way to reveal culture
Ceremonies
Values and Belief Systems
Communication Rules
Hallway Talk

Front 6

Org Cultures are Emergent

Back 6

Interactional- require participation of multiple org members
Contextual- they are embedded in org situations and org history
Episodic- nameable as distinct events
Improvisational-no scripts that guide org members

Front 7

Org Cultures are not unitary

Back 7

Differentiation approach:inconsistencies among cultural views are expected and often seen as desirable
Subculture Slices: There are a number of sites where culture might develop in an organization "vertical slice" (a division) and "horizontal slice" (a hierarchical level)
ex: a certain group develops a special vocab to talk about things in their area of work

Front 8

org cultures are often ambiguous

Back 8

Fragmentation perspective: there is not always a clear picture of the org's culture, or of its subcultures. Studies will see an ambiguous culture as normal, salient, and inescapable part of organizational functioning

Front 9

Definition of Culture

Back 9

Group Phenomenon: striving toward patterning and integration
Pattern of basic assumptions: specific values that are a given
emergent and development process: cultures are learned as problems arise
socializing: when you enter a new culture, you learn their values

Front 10

Level One: Artifacts

Back 10

Schein's Onion Model
Technology, Art, Visible and audible behavior patterns
-THINGS!

Front 11

Level Two: Espoused Values

Back 11

Testable in the physical enviornment
-Testable only by social consenses
-WHAT OUGHT TO HAPPEN

Front 12

Level Three: Basic Assumptions

Back 12

THE WAY THINGS ARE
-Reality and truth
-Time
-Space
-Human Nature
-Human Activity
-Human Relationships

Front 13

Ethnography

Back 13

Writing of Culture
-Will become immersed in org life
-participant observation

Front 14

Grounded Theory

Back 14

-Observations, mini theory

Front 15

Writing up Culture

Back 15

Telling a Cultural tale
-Realist tale (Documentary)
-Confessional tale (What they observed, personal)
(Impressionist Tale- narrative)
-Critical tale (uncovering power structures)