This book is more or less a text book on organizational culture. It was written with a purpose of creating awareness about the nature, structural elements, approaches, methods, functions and the ways of thinking of organizational culture. Further, this book is a “cry for breaking out of the information systems/ logical-positivist/ quasi-experimental mold that has placed a mental and emotional straight-jacket on organizational theory and theorists for too many years (ix).” As is clear from this statement, this book was written at a time when organizational culture perspective was just beginning to gain prominence and the organizational theory was just beginning to move beyond structures.
We can divide the book in two halves. First four chapters generally discuss the concepts and terminology used in the field of organizational culture. Additionally, sources for origin, development and perpetuation of culture are also discussed. The second half of the book discusses the development of the cultural perspective and the methodological approaches for studying the culture in organizations.
Though the terms associated with this perspective are commonly used, the distinction between various terms is not very apparent to everyone. Therefore, it would be useful to summarize all the terms here in a sentence or two. First, “culture is to the organization what personality is to the individual- a hidden yet unifying theme that provides meaning, direction, and mobilization.” It consists of shared values, beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, norms, symbols, artifacts and patterns of behavior.
Second, let’s now define each of these terms. “Symbols” are signs that connote meanings greater than themselves and express much more than their intrinsic content. “Symbols embody and represent wider patterns of meaning and cause people to associate with ideas that in turn endow them with their deeper, fuller and often emotion-invoking meaning (21).” Artifacts include material and non-material objects and patterns (such as dress code, sitting arrangement & annual reports) that intentionally or unintentionally communicate information about the organizational technology, beliefs, values, etc. Generally, language, jargons, myths, stories, metaphors, organizational scripts, ceremonies and legends are all included in the concept of artifacts.
Three, patterns of behavior refer to routinized activities such as rites and rituals which through repetition communicate information about organization’s technology, beliefs, values and assumptions. These rituals are so powerful that they govern movement, time, place, language, activity sequence, participant response, artifacts usage and metaphors and symbols that guide responses (36).
Fourth, another way to visualize these concepts is to consider them as three levels of organization culture (Schein on 54). Artifacts are level 1. They are visible but may not be decipherable. Values and beliefs, level 2, are less visible than artifacts. They are testable in physical environment but only by social consensus. Basic assumption, level 3, are the least visible and are taken for granted. These levels are important in shaping the culture change and research strategies. A macro organization theorist would focus on level 3 and behaviorist on level 1.
Fifth, organizational cultures are not monolithic which takes us to the concept of sub-cultures. “All institutions of any size have subcultures, pockets in which the organizational culture varies to some degree from the culture in other pockets and from the dominant culture (45).”
Last, sources of origin of culture emanate from three categories: broader societal culture in which organization resides, nature of organization’s business environment, values of founders or early dominant leaders. Recruitment (or anticipatory socialization), training (socialization), removal of deviants, and incentives and control structures (reinforcement) are the means to perpetuate the organizational culture.
Having clarified the basic concepts related to organizational culture, let’s turn our attention to the issue of research in the field. If organization culture is defined as espoused beliefs and values, then quasi-experimental design with questionnaires, surveys, and interviews can be used. If, however, organizational culture is defined as basic underlying assumptions; and if significant differences between espoused and in-use values exist than longitudinal qualitative research methods or ethnographic paradigm is needed. It is better to triangulate information collected from such sources with multiple sources (e.g. archival data). The researchers need to be on the lookout for physical artifacts, archival records, “language”, myths, stories, legends, etc.
Rest of the book is devoted to discussion of various schools of organization theories and as also the growth of organizational culture paradigm. Various schools that are discussed include classical school, scientific management, s, human resource school, systems perspective, communication perspective, bureaucracy and decision process models (including power-politics paradigm).
Finally, I must mention the sources of growth of organizational culture perspective. “The overarching concept of culture appears to have originated with classical philosopher Chester Bernard (1938) who asserted the importance of norms and moral codes in infusing organizations with value systems (172). Selznick (1957), McGregor (1960), Schein (1961), Jacques (1952) and Whyte (1956) are other classical thinkers who gave the impetus to the perspective. Besides dissatisfaction with structural approaches to organization studies, the external event that generated interest in the perspective was “the relative ease with which Chinese brainwashed the U.S. prisoners of war in Korea” and led to Schein’s 1961 book (177). Over 1970s, however, the interest in cultural approach waned. The concept of social construction of reality and meaning (Bolman and Deal, 1984 and others) revived some of the interest in the perspective to an extent. Periodically, there are studies in organization using this perspective. However, it is not among the dominant streams in organization research; partly because the organizational studies have moved on to more pressing concerns of the times (like learning organizations) and partly out of methodological limitations. While mainstream perspectives tend to work with hard, tangible, quantitative variables, culture perspective focuses on soft, less tangible and ethereal variables such as unspoken beliefs which involve qualitative, ethnographic studies with long term efforts and low pay-off since not many journals have interest in their publication. That doesn’t, however, lessen the value of perspective in any way!
