organizational culture

When I was working on my doctorate in communication at the University of Kentucky, I took a course in organizational culture. There were only four people in the class (that produced some interesting dynamics). The topic of organizational culture was fairly new--the authors of your text note that the first known reference to organizational culture appeared in a journal in 1979. The class greatly influenced my thinking about organizations and since then much of my research in organizational communication has focused on culture.

There are many definitions of organizational culture, as the authors of your text note in Chapter 5. Ouchi defined culture as national standards of organizational performance. From an interpretive perspective, culture is what an organization is and organizations are viewed as storytelling systems. Researchers from the integration perspective on culture generally attend to the stories of those in power and neglect marginalized groups in the organization. The differentiation perspective on organizational culture views organizational cultures as domains that are politically contested. Eisenberg et al. argue that culture is like a religion and that culture involves common recognition or intelligibility among a group of people. Examining organizational culture begins with recognizing the centrality of language in shaping organization members' perceptions.

In past semesters when I've taught this course, I've asked students to identify the different indicators of SJSU culture. Although some communication scholars argue these indicators only get at the surface of organizational culture, they nonetheless provide a useful starting point for examining what's often taken for granted. In identifying metaphors associated with SJSU, students have used the terms zoo, maze, and family. Examples of rituals at SJSU include spring graduation and convocation for first-year students. The MLK Library and statue of SJSU alumni protesting at the Olympics are examples of artifacts. By themselves they don't mean much, but examining several cultural artifacts can reveal organizational values and norms.

~ Professor Cyborg