Chapter Five: Organizational Culture

The organizational culture approach was developed, like systems theory, to give a big picture view of the communication that takes place in organizations. It is an approach that works very well with our communication perspective on organizations. It is difficult to define exactly what culture is but most scholars of culture come up with definitions that make the interaction between people (communication to us) at the heart of the culture construction process. Of all the approaches we will use to study organizational communication, organizational culture is probably the most communication-friendly.

Ironically, it is this very communication-friendliness that makes organizational culture one of the most difficult approaches for a manager or organizational communication practitioner. The organizational culture approach makes it very clear that the culture producing process is not top down. All of the interactions between all of the members are coming together and adding up to a whole that is an organizations culture. There is seemingly little a manager or communication expert can do to control the organizational culture that develops in an organization. In fact, the managers may not even really know what the organizational culture of the organization is. In The Mighty Machine, a paper a colleague and I wrote in the early days of organizational culture research we found that in the organization we studied the managers and employees had completely opposite characterizations of the culture in the organization. The managers believed the organization had a "people-first" culture while the employees reported they felt strongly that the culture of the organization was driven by the machines and technology of the organization--first and foremost.

This bottom-up nature of culture is difficult for managers because it is virtually uncontrollable yet has a powerful impact on the organization. It is even more difficult because what management of culture is possible does not follow the patterns and processes typically followed by managers. Management of culture must be symbolic. That is, management must use symbols to guide and direct the culture. Symbolic management is even harder than it might be because the "one cannot not communicate" concept reminds us that EVERY action potentially is an important symbol that can communicate. Actions that are not thought of as any part of the communication with employees, new carpet in the managerial suite, for example, or a reward trip for employees in a certain department, end up being major factors in creating the culture. The actions themselves send messages, intended or not. Employees' reactions to these messages reverberate and create cultural realities that shape the organization.

Bottom line, it is better to understand how organizational culture works and have an awareness of the impact of potential messages than to be unaware. Symbolic management is practiced, and practiced effectively, by managers and organizations. It would be great if organizational culture could just be avoided but that is a luxury organizations just don't have.