UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Mats Alvesson
Chapter 1: The Concept of Organizational Concept
Organizational culture is one of the major issues in academic research and education, in
organization theory as well as in management practice. There are good reasons for this: the
cultural dimension is central in all aspects of organizational life.
A key concern is that ‘cultural management aspires to intervene in and regulate
being, so that there’s no distance between individuals’ purposes and those of the
organization
However, there is often a lack of a deeper understanding of how people and
organizations function in terms of culture
Knowledge is said to be the crucial factor behind sustainable advantage and success for
companies, and knowledge issues are closely interlinked with organizational culture. Culture
is thus highly significant for how organizations function.
This book deals with the why and how of cultural understandings of organizations. The
general aims are to contribute to a more reflective mode of research and to more reflective
corporate practitioners. It draws attention to hidden ethical and political dimensions.
A glance at just a few works that use the term ‘organizational culture’ will reveal enormous
variation in the definitions of this term and even more in the use of the term ‘culture’.
Culture has no fixed or broadly agreed meaning
The concept of culture seams to lend itself to very different uses as collectively
shared forms of ideas and cognition, symbols and meanings, rules and norms…
However, culture is a tricky concept as it is easily used to cover everything and
consequently nothing
This calls for a balance between freezing a definite view on culture and letting the concept
stand for anything and nothing. Most of the diverse perspectives surveyed here share the
following assumptions about cultural phenomena.
They are related to history and tradition
They have some depth, are difficult to grasp and account for, must be interpreted
They are collective and shared by members of groups
They are primarily ideational in character, having to do with meanings,
understandings, beliefs, knowledge and other intangibles
They are holistic, intersubjective and emotional rather than strictly rational or
analytical
Culture is then understood to be a system of common symbols and meanings. It provides the
shared rules governing cognitive and affective aspects of membership in an organization, and
the means whereby they are shaped and expressed
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, Not primarily ‘inside’ people’s heads, but somewhere ‘between’ the heads of a
group of people where it is expressed
Culture, then, is central in governing the understanding of behaviour, social events,
institutions and processes. Culture is the setting in which these phenomena become
comprehensible and meaningful.
Meaning refers to how an object or an utterance is interpreted. It points at what something is
seen as standing for. Meaning makes an object relevant and meaningful.
In a cultural context it is always socially shared meanings that are of interest, not so
much highly personal meanings
A symbol can be defined as an object that stands ambiguously for something else and/or
something more than the object itself. A symbol is rich in meaning, it condenses a more
complex set of meanings in a particular object and communicates meaning in an economic
way.
As states, culture is the creation of meaning through which human beings interpret their
experiences and guide their actions, while social structure is the form which action takes or
the network of social relationships which actually exists.
Culture and social structure represent different abstractions of the same
phenomenon
Culture describes social action as depending on the meaning it has for those
involved
Social structure describes social action from the point of view of its consequences
on the functioning of the social system
Discontinuity between social and cultural structures can occur when there is a
change in formal rules or routines which is not matched by a change in cultural
patterns
Any social science project should be carefully reflected upon and position itself with respect
to the issue of its basic purpose or rationale. Highly valuable here is Habermas’s (1972) idea
of cognitive or knowledge-constitutive interests. Three basic motives:
The technical interest aims to develop knowledge of causal relationships in order to
manipulate and control variables to accomplish outcomes
The practical-hermeneutic interest aims to achieve understanding about human
existence, the creating of meaning and communication
The emancipatory interest aims to liberate humans from external and internal
repressive forces that prevent them from acting in accordance with their free choices
Academic studies and practitioner thinking on organizational culture guided by the technical
interest often proceed from the assumption that culture is in some way related to
organizational performance.
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,This is an ‘offensive’ formulation of the issue, one which suggests that culture can be used as
a tool or guiding concept for achieving effectiveness. A ‘defensive’ version of the culture-
performance link sees culture more as an obstacle to economic rationality and effectiveness.
Culture and symbolism research guided by the practical-hermeneutic cognitive interest does
not concern itself with what culture might accomplish or how this accomplishment might be
improved but concentrates on the creation of meaning in organizational communities.
The emancipatory approach investigates primarily the negative features of organizational life
and helps to counteract the taken-for-granted beliefs and values that limit personal autonomy.
Cultural studies provide insight into organizational life that may contribute to
liberating thought from its traditional patterns
There are two broad targets for emancipatory efforts
One is a critique of ideologies and sociocultural processes in organizations in which
asymmetrical power relations and the exercise of power make their mark
The other aims to illuminate basic values and understandings with a view to
counteracting ethnocentrism and taken-for-granted cultural assumptions
The three cognitive interests indicate a wide spectrum of ways to approach organizational
culture. The relationship between the three, and in particular between the technical and the
emancipatory, is antagonistic (vijandig).
Chapter 2: Culture as a Metaphor and Metaphors for Culture
Metaphors are seen as important organizing devices in thinking and talking about complex
phenomena. We never relate to objective reality ‘as such’ but always do so through forming
metaphors or images of the phenomenon we address.
Culture is one of the most inspirational and powerful metaphors for organizations, although
not entirely easy to grasp and use well. This is, however, not unproblematic. Culture can
easily become too general to work as a good metaphor.
A metaphor is created when a term is transferred from one system or level of meaning to
another, thereby illuminating central aspects of the latter and shadowing others.
It allows an object to be perceived and understood from the viewpoint of another
A good metaphor depends on an appropriate mix of similarity and difference
between the transferred word and the focal one
It calls for some goodwill, imagination and knowledge of the subject matter
In a narrow, traditional sense, a metaphor is simply an illustrative device; thus, words that
make language richer or more felicitous and formal models can both be regarded as
metaphors. In this sense they are often helpful and nice, but not crucial and do not structure
thinking.
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, But metaphors may also be seen as implying something more profound. In a very broad sense,
all knowledge is metaphorical in that it emerges form or is constructed from some point of
view, metaphors can thus be seen as a crucial element in how people relate to reality.
They indicate or create how people understand their world, it is a way of seeing and
a way of thinking
In terms of theoretical frameworks, we can talk about a root metaphor, which is a
fundamental image of the world on which one is focusing
It organizes, frames and structures the thinking or imagination around a
phenomenon
Metaphors in social science, advantages:
The most frequently expressed one concerns their ability to develop new ideas and
guide analysis in novel ways
A second one relates to the communicative capacities of metaphors, they can be used
in communicating insights to others, may also facilitate understanding
A third advantage is that considering metaphors also draws attention to the partiality
of the understanding gained by an approach built on a particular root metaphor
A fourth concerns critical scrutiny, a focus on metaphors may facilitate examination of
the basic assumptions of a particular conceptualization
Despite the benefits that the use of metaphors appears to offer the study of organizations, it
also presents some problems:
One of these is the risk of using ‘bad’ ones
A related difficulty is the catchiness problem that springs partly form the current
popularity of metaphors in organization studies, can lead to excessive use
A third one concerns the risk of a supermarket attitude to metaphors, focusing on the
metaphor will draw attention away from the deeper levels
These problems are not arguments against the use of metaphors. Rather, they point to the need
for an approach that is self-critical and reflective, avoiding the temptation to overuse
metaphors and reminding oneself that they do not tell the whole story.
In a classic overview of concepts of culture in organizational analysis, Smircich (1983)
distinguished between culture as a variable and culture as a root metaphor.
Researchers who see culture as a variable draw upon a more traditional, objectivist
and functionalist view of social reality
In contrast, researchers who see culture as a root metaphor approach organizations
as if they were cultures and draw upon anthropology in developing new theories
Researchers who treat culture as a variable recognize that organizations produce or are
accompanied by more or less distinct cultural traits, such as values, norms, rituals, ceremonies
and verbal expressions, and these features affect the behaviour of managers and employees.
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