ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Organizational culture is defined by Brent Ruben and Lea Stewart (1998) as the sum of an organization's symbols, events, traditions, standardized verbal and nonverbal behavior patterns, folk tales, rules, and rituals that give the organization its character or personality. Ruben and Stewart note that organizational cultures are central aspects of organizations and serve important communication functions for the people who create and participate in them. These functions include providing employees with a sense of individual and collective identity, contributing to the establishment of structure and control within the organization, aiding the socialization of employees through learning about the customs and traditions of the organization, and fostering cohesiveness among employees.

In their classic book on organizational culture, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (1982), Terrence Deal and Allen Kennedy provide extensive examples of organizations with strong cultures. Four of the common characteristics that they found are the following:

1. a widely shared philosophy (e.g., "people are our greatest resource" or "customer service is our top priority"),
2. a belief in the importance of employees (e.g., through flexible jobs and work hours, absence of reserved parking spaces, or open-door management policies),
3. the presence of heroes (i.e., a person or persons who exemplify the philosophy of the organization), and
4. rituals and ceremonies (e.g., pizza parties every Friday afternoon, company sponsored recreational outings, birthday celebrations for all employees, and so on).

Various aspects of an organization can serve as indicators of its organizational culture. For example, modern technology companies often are characterized by their use of open space in which many people work in a large space that is freely accessible to all corporate employees. These companies may also encourage employees to dress casually and to interact in an informal manner. This reflects an organizational belief that hierarchies inhibit creativity and make it difficult for people to do their best work. Contrast this view of organizational culture with a more conservative company in which employees adhere to a generally understood dress code of formal business attire and work in offices that indicate the status of their occupants by the size of the office and the relative quality of its furnishings. These companies believe that formal networks of supervision lead to more productivity by allowing supervisors to monitor employee behavior and provide guidance and sanctions when necessary to keep employees focused on their jobs.

Language is a very important aspect of organizational culture and one that has been studied extensively by scholars of communication. Language both reflects and influences an organizational culture. For example, an organization that describes itself in terms of the family metaphor may provide flextime for employees who want to balance home and work responsibilities, on-site daycare facilities, wellness programs including health club memberships, or organization-wide social activities such as picnics and trips to amusement parks. An organization that uses military-oriented language, such as "we are fighting this battle together" or "success means climbing to the top," may focus more on maintaining a rigid organizational hierarchy and a clear separation between people at different levels in the company.

Stories are an important means to maintaining an organizational culture. Most people in organizations can tell several stories that are indicative of the organizational culture, such as stories about how past employees either succeeded or failed at their jobs or memorable moments in the history of the organization. These stories may be communicated within the company or may be included in messages the organization communicates to the public. Within a company, an employee may tell a story of how the last person to ask for a new office carpet was moved to a smaller office, clearly communicating the message that the company does not encourage employees to focus on office décor. Communicating to the public, a television commercial for a beer company describes a situation in which a town was coping with the aftermath of a severe flood, and the company stopped bottling beer and bottled water instead to distribute to the flood victims. This type of advertisement is designed to communicate to the general public the caring nature of the organizational culture of the company.

Healthy organizational cultures can adapt to changing business needs and technological developments. For example, as technology enables employees to telecommute (either work at home or on the road and still remain in contact with their offices), many organizations have adapted themselves to this phenomenon. Some organizations have set up large areas in which telecommuters can come to the office and make telephone calls and meet customers or other employees as necessary without having individual offices. Other organizations have invested considerable resources in making sure that employees who work from their homes have ergonomically designed equipment that will enhance their productivity. Many organizations are struggling to balance the benefits offered by telecommuting (such as allowing employees to have flexible work schedules and the ability to respond to customer needs immediately) with the difficulties that arise when employees are separated from their supervisors and the day-today informal communication that is often beneficial to a healthy work environment.

Katherine Miller (1999) moves beyond the prescriptive approach to organizational culture by noting that some researchers view organizational culture not as a thing but as a process that includes emerging and possibly fragmented values, practices, narratives, and artifacts. Miller argues that the approach to organizational culture scholarship taken by contemporary researchers views culture as complicated, emergent, and not unitary. These researchers are more likely to use qualitative data collection methods, such as participant observation, extensive interviews, and ethnography, to develop a rich understanding of the culture of a particular organizational culture. The goal of this research is to gain an understanding of organizational culture that is grounded in what Miller refers to as "local observations." This research may be reported in a formal, scholarly way, but it can also include stories that are impressionistic and that attempt to capture the essence of an organizational culture that is compelling to the reader.

See also:Culture and Communication; Organizational Communication; Organizational Communication, Careers in; Organizational Quality and Performance Excellence.

Bibliography

Cameron, Kim S., and Quinn, Robert E. (1998). Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Deal, Terrence E., and Kennedy, Allan A. (1982). Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Deal, Terrence E., and Kennedy, Allan A. (1999). The New Corporate Cultures: Revitalizing the Workplace after Downsizing, Mergers, and Reengineering. Reading, MA: Perseus Books.

Frost, Peter J.; Moore, Larry F.; Louis, Meryl Reis; and Lundberg, Craig C., eds. (1991). Reframing Organizational Culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Itzin, Catherine, and Newman, Janet, eds. (1995). Gender, Culture and Organizational Change: Putting Theory into Practice. London: Routledge.

Miller, Katherine. (1999). Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Ruben, Brent D., and Stewart, Lea P. (1998). Communication and Human Behavior, 4th edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Schein, Edgar H. (1997). Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2nd edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lea P. Stewart