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The organizational melting-pot: an arena for different cultures
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Stand. 1. Mgmr. Vol. 1. No. 3/A, pp. 135-145. 19X8 Printed in Great Britain
THE ORGANIZATIONAL MELTING-POT: AN ARENA FOR DIFFERENT CULTURES MATS ALVESSON*
and BENGT SANDKULL
University of Linkfiping Abstract Organizational culture has become misleading as a concept, because it equates organization and culture while neglecting societal dimensions, and because it tends to reify the two concepts which it incorporates. We suggest instead the idea of esprit de corps to denote the local cultural phenomena in a particular corporation or institution, or vague organizational features such as style, habits and mentality. A corporation could be regarded instead as a melting-pot of several work cultures in a society. It then becomes possible to identify a number of work cultures in society which transcend particular organization. An example could be the ideas and meanings and habits shared by the staff of almost all firms. Attention is given to the way in which the cultural structuring of society transforms ideology into organizational realities and produces cultural phenomena in organizations. We argue against the misuse of the culture metaphor. Instead of organizational culture we suggest the concepts arenas for societal cultures and esprit de corps.
Key
words:
Culture,
esprit
SHORTCOMINGS
de corps,
management,
OF RESEARCH
organization,
society,
subculture.
ON ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE
The branch of organization theory oriented towards the cultural and symbolic dimensions exhibits a somewhat heterogeneous collection of approaches and studies. Although well aware of the risk of overgeneralization, we feel justified in pointing out a number of problems and shortcomings in large areas of this research. One of these is a preoccupation with value and belief systems derived from actual social practices and the behaviour patterns and materialistic aspects of organizational reality. The “substantial” parts of culture are hardly discussed at all. An idealistic bias is common (Alvesson, 1985). Another problematic feature is the attention devoted to rather peripheral and insignificant symbolic and cultural phenomena (such as certain jokes, stories, coffeebreak and Christmas party behaviour, and other “rites”, “rituals” and “ceremonies”) while other perhaps more significant aspects like acts, events and conditions that symbolically express and reproduce hierarchy and engender inequality between the sexes receive little attention in most management or organization studies. A third shortcoming of most of the current studies is the preoccupation with values and beliefs related to the effective achievement of corporate goals. The overall context of organizations as well as dimensions which are not directly connected with these instrumental values and goals are often played down, neglected or taken for granted. Thus, only limited aspects of organizational cultures are emphasized (Smircich, 1985).
‘Present Sweden.
address:
Department
of Business Administration,
University
of Stockholm,
S-106
91 Stockholm,
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Yet another problematic feature of large sections of current culture studies focussing on organizations is a tendency to postulate the existence of particular organizational cultures. The boundaries of culture and organization are often supposed to be the same, although there may be provisos for organizational subcultures. Whether corporate culture or organizational subculture is in focus makes no difference to the predominant approach: that is, viewing the organization as the significant entity (or even totality) in light of which cultural phenomena in organizations should be seen. The basic idea, which is either explicitly mentioned or is implicit in many texts, is that each organization and culture (subcultures) are assumed to be concepts on the same analytical level. Every organization is unique in terms of culture/subcultures. Occasionally, when organizations have strong cultures they are assumed to be “more unique” than others. In this article we will raise some objections to this dominant view of organizational culture, and will call for caution and restraint in equating organization and culture. The idea that each organization has particular rites, rituals, jokes, languages, gestures and other kinds of symbols implies that non-insiders will have difficulty in understanding what is taking place within the organization. Most current cultural approaches stress the importance of the organizational dimension in the creation of culture, and consequently suggest that newcomers or outsiders are likely to be considerably perplexed when entering the “new” organization culture. We suggest that it might be more accurate to regard organizations which are of the same type in terms of the business or activity that they conduct in a society, as also being similar in most basic cultural respects. It seems plausible that the bulk of activities and the values corresponding to them in one workplace, will be familiar to people with experience from other workplaces of the same kind. The socialization and internalization of norms which are part of the training and daily work in a professional area (such as medicine or accountancy) are clearly much stronger than those related to a particular company, except perhaps in the case of lifelong enlistment.
ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE
-
A MISLEADING
CONCEPT
Most research on organizational culture assumes one of two positions: either that an organization has a culture, or that it is a culture. In the first case culture is seen as a metaphor for organization (Smircich, 1983). One argument against these views might be that organizations do not norm&y deviate so much from each other or from society at large as to render it appropriate to attribute them with cultures of their own. If some do differ from the prototype of a company, this is often because they are engaged in very special activities. Examples could be army regiments or churches. It would also be misleading to assume that an organization is homogeneous in terms of cultural characteristics. The heterogeneity in society in terms of differences in occupational cultures, for example, corresponds to a similar heterogeneity at the organizational level. Some authors, however, see organizations as tight and consistent entities, with specific ideas, values, norms, beliefs, philosophies, meanings and understandings. Organizational members, it is suggested, are tightly knit together by a common culture (e.g. Kilmann et al., 1985; Ouchi, 1981).
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The type of conceptualization described here suggests that organizations are uniform and well-packaged entities with respect to their cultures. This is a very problematic assumption. It relies on the use of analogies in understanding organizations, and in this context the culture metaphor is as dubious as the organism metaphor (cf. Morgan, 1980). Most organizations employ a large number of people and groups from different professions and with different job characteristics, values, lifestyles, ethnic and religious backgrounds, ages, etc. For this reason characteristics such as work ideology, sex roles, norms for interpersonal behaviour and values concerning equality and hierarchy in organizational life, which are common to all organization members but unfamiliar to people outside the organization, are often limited. The assumption that belonging to a particular organization necessarily means so much in terms of developing a homogeneous set of beliefs, values and views of the world is questionable. It can be postulated that “every business - in fact every organization - has a culture” and to qualify the statement somewhat by saying that “sometimes it is fragmented and difficult to read from the outside” (Deal and Kennedy, 1982, p. 4). This would indi::ate that as a rule the cultivating mechanisms are strong. However, this position does not seem particularly meaningful, if the cultivating mechanisms outside the organization are stronger and more important to organizational life. It is possible that much management-oriented organizational literature stresses the organizational determinants so strongly and disregards the extra-organizational ones because the latter factors cannot be managed or manipulated and therefore tend to be excluded from analysis. This pragmatic orientation restricts the research, and leads to a selective and biased understanding of the object under examination and to little gain in theoretical insight. This is largely an unavoidable consequence of the instrumental approach to knowledge, which limits itself to what is regarded as possible to manage and control. The inevitable selectivity in all studies introduces a bias that affects the research results. The strictly management-oriented research, which dominates the field discussed here, restricts the range of possible aspects, neglecting for example those outside management’s control, which could well be equally important. It seems likely that these reasons, rather than any theoretical considerations, contribute to the view of the organization as a culture-producing entity and to the disregard of extra-organizational determinants. Several authors have raised critical points to their argument against the treatment of the whole organization as a robust unit or natural entity for cultural analysis (Gregory, 1983; Smircich, 1983). One approach questions whether organizations are normally such “well-defined communities” that they can produce an organization-specific culture. Wilkins and Ouchi (1983) suggest that this is the case only when the organization is characterized by a long history, stable membership, little impact on members of social institutions with other cultural characteristics and frequent interaction among members from different parts of the organization. According to another view (Alvesson, 1986), it is pointless or inappropriate to speak of organization culture when the organization is primarily a reflection of the cultural attributes of the society in which it and its members exist. It could be argued, of course, that all organizations have some unique cultural characteristics, at least on particular issues, such as their attitude to customers or the exact way of relating to management information systems. However minor variations between organizations with regard to specific issues do not justify the belief that all
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organizations are unique and that they have, or are, cultures of their own. In order to motivate reference to an “organizational culture”, in the common connotation of a “mini-society” with distinct cultural characteristics in relation to the rest of the world, the distinctiveness concerned must embrace fairly large areas of the organization and not just minor issues. Another approach to the role of culture would be to recognize the existence of social categories in a society according to class, profession or occupation. In a recent article, van Maanen and Barley (1984, p. 295) have suggested the use of occupational community as a starting-point for research. The concept refers to . . . a group of people who consider themselves to be engaged in the same sort of work; who identify (more or less positively) with their work; who share a set of values, norms and perspectives that apply to, but extend beyond, work related matters; and whose social relationships mould the realms of work and leisure.
The relevant boundaries of an occupational community are those set by the members themselves. Official occupational titles and organizational belongingness provide little guidance as to where these boundaries may lie. Van Maanen and Barley warn against the use of abstract aggregations and other insensitive ways of defining occupational communities and argue for a phenomenological approach, whereby the communities are defined on a basis of the members’ own experiences of meaningful boundaries. The communities are not restricted to physical or geographical areas. They can be international. Careful investigations of people’s phenomenological reality must precede the researcher’s way of acknowledging different occupational communities and the work cultures associated with them, which may be seen as societal subcultures. The occupational community, the professional or any other group- or class-based category, often seem to be at least as important an organization when it comes to producing and expressing cultural phenomena. Some of these become visible in organizations, but they should not be treated for that reason as something contained within the boundaries of the organization. Occupational communities cut across and even exist partly outside organizations, and cannot be reduced to the status of a part of one of them.
CULTURE
ANALYSIS AND THE AVOIDANCE
OF REDUCTIONISM
Most of the academics in organizations or management who jumped onto the culture bandwaggon, treat culture as just another variable or aspect in a causal explanation scheme (Smircich and Calas, 1987). See, for example most of the contributions in the book edited by Kilmann er al. (1985). Only a few try to break out of the mould. The growth of academic interest in “culture” has been rapid. The increase in the frequency of articles in organizational culture reflects with a certain timelag the growth of the market share of the Japanese motor car in the United States. It may be a wild conjecture, but it seems that “culture” began to emerge as a catchword in management research just at the time when people were looking for a way of explaining the superiority of Japanese to American industry. The concept of organizational culture has passed through a process or merchandizing somewhat similar to the path followed earlier by organization development. It has
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become a commodity not only in the academic marketplace but also in the consultancy business, where culture is treated as a set of techniques or devices. We may regard this cultural engineering as a new activity in the profession of the social engineer who, according to Emery (1977, p. 198). is usually an agent of maladaptive strategies. Engineering is the science and art of shaping objects and object-sets in forms and structures according to certain specifications. In the social sphere, engineering is the nonsocial construction of reality and the means for treating humans as objects in the design of an institution as a purposive-rational instrument. We all remember Taylor and Simon as the classical heroes of this story, but we can recognize a similar lofty approach to people in, for example, the MbO-movement (see Humble, 1970) and in some enthusiasts of organizational culture. On a philosophical level the cultural engineering approach may represent a monistic view, i.e. everything is reduced to one set of phenomena, in this case an idealistic position in which everything exists only as perceptions (symbols, myths). The more academically minded researchers, on the other hand, hold a dualistic view, i.e. they recognize two categories of phenomena: material things and immaterial entities such as thoughts, dreams and symbols, and these two categories are essentially different and externally related to each other (see, for example, Allaire and Firsirotu, 1984). Taking a closer look at these two ways of dealing with the concept of organizational culture, we find that they both stem from the academic interest in explanatory schemes. The approach which declares that an organization has a culture is dualistic. Culture is reduced to a set of attributes of some “thing” called an organization. By treating the organization as a thing and organizational culture as a set of attributes, both concepts have become reified. The culture metaphor - organization is culture - represents a very different approach and one that tends to be idealistic. In a mapping of the material realities of an organization, the so-called cultural features are used to represent it. Because the material realities are thus lost to sight, the explanations offered become detached from experience. The way out of this dilemma is to transcend the limitations of idealism and dualism and to adopt a holistic approach (Israel, 1979). We can then see that all things and all phenomena are elements in some sort of totality, i.e. some part of our human world. Material and immaterial elements are not separable but are internally related to each other in the basic processes of daily life, in which what is given is transformed into actions and structures. Both material production and the production of ideas, knowledge and symbols are essential to our daily life, and together these processes create the material conditions and the structures and institutions of society in which communication and interaction take place. Social scientists who use the culture metaphor while disregarding its material basis might serve the cause of distorted communication, i.e. communication that helps to keep people in order, obedient and subdued (cf. Foucault, 1975; Habermas, 1968). The use of language, furthermore, is a prerequisite to instrumental action. Students of businesses and similar organizations must recognize that cu!ture encompasses material as well as non-material forms and structures. A modern automatic paper machine, for example, is not only an instrument for profitable paper-making; it also represents a symbol of a techno-culture and a techno-economic mentality (cf. Berg, 1985). If such a machine is silenced, its symbolic meaning disappears as well. Our
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and B. SANDKULL
conclusion is that organizational culture and organizational work are internally related, i.e. mutually interdependent. The revelation of these relations is a task for research. Research that takes on the job of discovering and identifying organizational cultures in a particular setting cannot avoid examining the social (and political) institutions that regulate the material production process. This regulation naturally employs symbols, and may to a large extent also appear as symbolic. The trivial fact that an organization also represents a place of employment, the production of certain goods or services, and the exchange of goods for resources from outside, usually a market, is part and parcel of the objective conditions that structure - and are structured by - the local cultural setting. For want of a better term we suggest esprit de corps - the common spirit or disposition shared in a body or association - to denote the empirically derived local cultural phenomena as a dynamic social unit which does not necessarily appear as homogeneous. The concept indicates the “soft” features of the organization: the style, habits and other informal characteristics displayed by its members. It embraces what many writers on corporate “culture” are talking about. By referring to esprit de corps rather than culture, we want to avoid conceptualizing organizations as entities that are stable and homogeneous with regard to culture. In the culture concept, whatever its precise definition, lies the idea of persistence over a long period of time. A culture does not change over a period of months or even years. The esprit de corps, on the other hand, might change if some key people leave the organization, if a new executive with a style different from his predecessor takes office, if the corporation expands rapidly or if it runs into a crisis. As has been stressed before, the idea of an organizational culture indicates a certain homogeneity among its members. To talk of esprit de corps avoids the problem this involves. A number of people may share a common spirit without necessarily being similar in terms of their basic beliefs, values, norms and orientation towards the world. Esprit de corps is a more restricted and modest concept, not pretending to capture the totality of a collective’s way of functioning. It does, however, point to a more stable and broader phenomenon than, for example, “spirit” or “climate”. In terms of extension in space and time, it is a middle-range concept between culture and spirit or climate.
PARTICIPATION
AND COMPLIANCE
The business corporation and other institutions could be regarded as a meeting-point or arena for several work cultures in society. These work cultures do not meet freely, but under the auspices of the existing hierarchical order and its organizational structures and processes. The work cultures are mapped into the work organization by the people manning the organization, and the amalgamation in daily practice may create an esprit de corps. All who are subsequently hired become socialized to a varying degree into the work organization with its particular esprit de corps. What characterizes an esprit de corps and how it can be fostered, maintained or changed, are important research questions. Esprit de corps is probably affected by the cultural characteristics of the various groups employed, by the way they interact and the way their occupational cultures are blended in the organization. Other factors too may be of importance, e.g. the development phase and the outcomes achieved. Another important aspect may be the style of the top executives, especially their symbolic
TltE
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features. While acknowledging that all managerial activities are to some extent symbolic, we use the expression “symbolic management” to stress the transmission or activation of symbols to achieve compliance. in contrast to the managerial routines and practices in themselves. Here we find great variation between different countries and even within countries, due to the different institutional influences exerted by the particular management fads and fashions which happen to be in vogue when a new manager is hired. A typical characteristic of hierarchical organization is the existence of a “head”, an executive who has the ultimate responsibility. He, either alone or sometimes together with a small sway group, regulates (manages, administrates or plans) the activities of the hierarchically organized body. That coordination is the main characteristic of organization was noted already by Chester Barnard (in fact a definition of organizing, 1938): the contraposition to this is that cooperation is the main problematic feature in hierarchical organization. In analysing the issue Etzioni (1961) found the main aspects involved to be modes of participation and methods of achieving compliance. Looking for ideal types Etzioni distinguished three modes of participation and likewise three methods of achieving compliance. He examined all the cells of the corresponding matrix (see Fig. l), and came to the conclusion that there were three stable combinations represented by the diagonal of the matrix. When the modes of participation did not fit the method of achieving compliance, he regarded the resulting situation as unstable and predicted structural changes that would lead to one of the stable states. We assume the combination of a calculating mode of participation and the use of utility as a method of achieving compliance as being typical of the instrumental, rational leadership usually attributed to business, tinged in practice of course by enforcement and norms. In the organization-culture movement this rationality is denied, and attention focuses on another ideal type: an emotional mode of participation associated with normative methods of achieving compliance, or symbolic management as noted above. Let us regard coercive, rational and symbolic management as ideal types according to the diagonal of the matrix. Looking at the history of management in Europe and the U.S., we can see a general tendency to reduce the use of coercion and to increase the use of norms in obtaining compliance (even in manufacturing, see Burawoy, 1979). The modes of participation have changed likewise. But we have also witnessed a greater degree of managerial sophistication in employing a blend of several methods for achieving compliance. Nor are the modes of participation to be found in pure form, but
Modes Method of compliance
Submissive
of participation Calculating
Emotional
Coercion Utility Norms
Fig.
1. Modes
of participation
and methods
of compliance.
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M. ALVESSON
and B. SANDKULL
rather as opportunism (as blend of submission and calculation), loyalty (submission and morale) or self-righteousness (calculation and morale). The mixed forms outside the diagonal are not likely to be the unstable ones; it would be more difficult to maintain the pure cases. The role of symbolic management in the dynamic interplay between modes of participation and methods of achieving compliance would be an interesting research task. It would be interesting to take a closer look at the coercive and utilitarian aspects of life in organizations, seen from a holistic vantage point.
THE HEGEMONY
OF ORGANIZATIONS
Symbolic management and other cultural phenomena at the level of organization not exist in isolation; rather, they reflect the characteristics of society.
do
Society as a part of a human world, (is) made by men, and, in turn, making men, in an ongoing historical process. (Berger and Luckmann, 1966. p. 189)
Through human interaction and action an institutional order is created which displays certain fixed patterns. These patterns are objectified by explanatory and legitimizing actions and converted into social rules that are taken for granted by the citizens. Thus to any individual belonging to a particular society, that society becomes an objective social reality. As all humans are socialized in a number of institutions - the family, the school and the workplace - man is a social product. In modern society most aspects of life are organized; thus man can be regarded as a product of organization as well (Herbst, 1976). Members of any organization (in which most people stay for a number of years only, before leaving for another one) have been socialized, educated, trained and affected in other ways by various social institutions before entering their present organization. And even after entry members belong to a number of affiliations outside their workplace: occupational communities, professional and religious groups, ethnic minority associations, families, etc. The mass media and other vehicles of commercial forces are probably the most powerful influencing factors in the ongoing cultivation and socialization of people, which takes place outside the workplace and affects people’s beliefs, values, ways of thinking, acting and relating to other people, i.e. their “culture”. The relevance of these factors to behavioural and cultural phenomena in organizations is great and largely underestimated (see, for example, Hofstede, 1980). A few in-depth studies have provided revealing examples of the complex interplay between outside conditions and the managerial and labour processes within the firm (two recent examples are Burawoy, 1979 and Rosen, 1985). In general, however, these aspects have been neglected. The previously established political ideologies in Europe - conservatism, liberalism and socialism - differ clearly from each other as regards their basic principles of social order and the distribution of wealth. Material growth is important to all three. In political practice the ideologies have to be translated into feasible solutions to emergent situations. Political ideology of any kind seems to give in readily to managerial rationality (Highley et al., 1976). In fact we may recognize in all established ideologies a
THE
OKGANIZATIONXL
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MELTING-POT
managerial ideology which is embraced by a great part of the ruling groups, and which endorses male dominance. The practice of management ideology demonstrates that economic criteria are what count. People are treated as a means. Further the non-elites are affected and moulded by stereotypes characterized by individualism with a strong degree of well-adapted conformism, competition, an orientation toward leisure. mass consumption, materialistic values, “narcissistic lifestyle”, and a certain degree of permissiveness - to choose only a few that are often quoted in describing present societal cultures in contemporary social research (e.g. Lasch. 1980; Riesman, 1969; Zetterberg, 1977). We will not elaborate here on the existence of possible subcultures in society, which could be mentioned as significant to all kinds of organizations. We would simply suggest that there are important subcultures in a society, and that these affect people and must therefore be taken into consideration in any attempt to analyse cultural phenomena in organizations. Our argument hitherto is summarized and illustrated in Fig. 2. This figure suggests that any understanding of cultural aspects in organizations should take into account the effects of societal culture in its totality on the members of the organization, as well as significant subcultures in society and intra-organizational determinants of culture. As we have already stated, the “hardware” (i.e. technology, work organization. hierarchy, control systems, etc.) provides an important basis for the understanding of culture. The figure indicates that the likelihood of unique cultural phenomena in any one organization is limited by the societal impact. To a great extent these phenomena are related to societal conditions common to all organizations of a similar kind. The cultural characteristics of a hospital, for example, are greatly dependent on the professional subculture of physicians. The existence of this subculture would suggest that most hospitals share cultural attributes. Some may differ significantly, but this is probably rare.
Fig. 2. Extra-organizational
and intra-organizational
determinants
to cultural
phenomena
in organizations.
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There are obvious differences between organizations in terms of cultural characteristics, i.e. values, beliefs, leadership styles and stories told. Generally, however, most variations probably occur within quite narrow limits. In North American corporations Martin er al. (1983) found that stories told were variations on a few themes only, and were thus essentially similar. The hospitals in one society do not usually represent completely different cultures, nor do banks or textile industries. We are not saying that there are no exceptions to this, i.e. that there are some companies with specific cultural characteristics or “cultures” of their own (cf. Deal and Kennedy, 1982). But even in such cases it is arguable whether the distinctiveness of the cultural features does justify our talking of anything more far-reaching than a specific esprit de corps. When we pass from one department of business administration to another, we will not meet a new culture with characteristics that we do not understand or that we are unable to operate in. It does not seem appropriate to use an anthropological conception of culture to explain what are simply minor variations within the same overall society or subgroup (e.g. a professional group). It would be more reasonable to talk of the organizational amalgamation or the impact of overall cultural determinants, which trigger and stress various values, beliefs, symbolic operations, etc. In a specific organization certain peculiar cultural features may be found, but in most cases we would expect these to deviate only marginally from what is to be found elsewhere.
CONCLUSION:
INSTEAD OF ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE
In this article we have refrained from joining the chorus of those who link the concepts of organization and culture together, without carefully considering and examining the boundaries of cultures. Our thesis is that cultural phenomena in organizations must be acknowledged as refraction of predominant cultural characteristics in a society. The various societal subcultures converge in a specific organization. Unique organizational cultures, produced by organizational factors that are relatively independent of society and other organizations, are to be found primarily in organizations such as the Catholic Church, the French Foreign Legion, the CIA or the KGB. These can be regarded as belonging to a category of their own -the total organization. At present there seems to be a strong tendency to attribute culture-producing powers to organizations and to their top executives. In terms of culture, organizations are regarded as largely closed systems, despite the functional imperatives of the market. We would suggest that organizational culture is a treacherous concept in organizational research, and like Smircich (1985) we recommend that researchers should conduct cultural analyses of organizations rather than studying organizational culture. When cultural aspects specific to a particular organization are in focus, the idea of the organizational culture can be replaced by the concept of esprit de corps. This concept has the benefit of incorporating the dynamics of organizational life, and it is compatible with a view of organizations as having open cultural boundaries with the rest of society. Another problem with the idea of the organizational culture, with its emphasis on shared values and norms and understanding in corporate life, is that it tends to distract researchers from considering the basic issues such as organizational forms of domination, methods of achieving compliance, organizational control and surveillance. We have argued instead that organizations should be regarded as meeting places for work
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cultures. The common culture of a society should be recognized, together with occupational and other subcultures in that society. Organizations are thus conceptualized as arenas for societal cultures. That organizations differ as regards their ability to a&lgamate societal cultures is perfectly evident, and research into their capacity in this respect seems timely. The striking differences here between Japanese and U.S. companies are weil known. We believe that there are substantial differences even within a country like Sweden. REFERENCES Allaire, Y. and Firsirotu, M., Theories of organizational culture, Organization Studies (1984), pp. 193-226. Alvesson, M., On focus in cultural studies of organizations, Scandinavian Journal of Management Studies (1985). pp. 105-120. Alvesson, M., On the Idea of Organizational Culture. Remarks on Its Popularity, Its Limitations and an Idea Paper presented at the First International Conference on for an Alternative Conceptualization, Organization Symbolism and Corporate Culture, Lund, 26-30 June 1984, revised March 1986. Barnard, C. I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938). Berg, P. 0.. Techno-culture: the symbolic framing of technology in a Volvo plant, Scandinavian Journal of Managernenf Studies (1985), No. 1. Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T., The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1966). Burawoy, M., Manufacturing Consent (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979). Deal, T. E. and Kennedy, A. A., Corporate Culture: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1982). Emery, F., Futures We Are In (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977). Etzioni, A., Complex Organizations (New York: Free Press, 1961). Foucault, M., Surveilfer et punir. Naissance de la Prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975). Gregory, K., Native-view paradigms: multiple cultures and culture conflicts in organization, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983)‘. pp. 356-376. * Habermas, J., Technik und Wissenschaft als “Ideologie” (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1968). (1971: Towards a Rational Society, Boston: Beacon Press). Herbst, P. G., Alternatives to Hierarchies (Leiden: Nijhoff, 1976). Highley, J., Field, G. L. and Groholt, K., Elite, Structure and Ideology (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget; and New York: Columbia University Press, 1976). Hofstede, G., Culture’s Consequences (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980). Humble. J.. Mananement bv Objectives in Acrion (London: McGraw-Hill. 1970). Israel, J., The Langiage of diaiec;ics and rhe Dialect& of Language (Kapenhamn: Munksgaard; London: The Harvester Press; and New York: Humanities Press, 1979). Kilmann, R., Saxton, M., Serpa, R. and Associates, Gaining Control of the Corporate Culture (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985). Lasch, C., The C&re of Narcissism (London: Abacus, 1980). Martin, J., Feldman, M. S., Hatch, M. J. and Sitkin, S. B., The uniqueness paradox in organizational stories, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983), pp. 438-453. Ouchi, W. G., Theory Z (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981). Riesman. D.. The Line/v Crowd (New Haven: Yale Universitv Press. 19691. 2nd edn. Rosen, i., Breakfast ai Spiro’s: ‘Dramaturgy and Dominance: Journal of banagement (1985) (No. 2), pp. 31-48. Smircich, L., Concepts Of culture and organizational analysis, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983). pp. 339-358. .’ Sn%cich, L., Is the concept of culture a paradigm for understanding organizations and ourselves? In: P. Frost et al. (Eds), Organizational Culture (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985). Smircich: L. and C&s, M., Organizational culture: a critic2 assessment. In: F. Jablin et al. (Eds), Handbook of Organizational Communication (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1987). van Maanen, J. and Barley, S. R., Occupational communities: culture and control in organization. In: B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (Eds), Research in Organizational Behavior (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1984). Vol. 6. Wilkins, A. L. and Ouchi, W. G., Efficient cultures: exploring the relationship between culture and organizational performance, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983). pp. 468-481. Zetterberg, H. L., Arbete, motivation, livsstil (Work, motivations and life style) (Stockholm: SAF, 1977).
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Stand. 1. Mgmr. Vol. 1. No. 3/A, pp. 135-145. 19X8 Printed in Great Britain
THE ORGANIZATIONAL MELTING-POT: AN ARENA FOR DIFFERENT CULTURES MATS ALVESSON*
and BENGT SANDKULL
University of Linkfiping Abstract Organizational culture has become misleading as a concept, because it equates organization and culture while neglecting societal dimensions, and because it tends to reify the two concepts which it incorporates. We suggest instead the idea of esprit de corps to denote the local cultural phenomena in a particular corporation or institution, or vague organizational features such as style, habits and mentality. A corporation could be regarded instead as a melting-pot of several work cultures in a society. It then becomes possible to identify a number of work cultures in society which transcend particular organization. An example could be the ideas and meanings and habits shared by the staff of almost all firms. Attention is given to the way in which the cultural structuring of society transforms ideology into organizational realities and produces cultural phenomena in organizations. We argue against the misuse of the culture metaphor. Instead of organizational culture we suggest the concepts arenas for societal cultures and esprit de corps.
Key
words:
Culture,
esprit
SHORTCOMINGS
de corps,
management,
OF RESEARCH
organization,
society,
subculture.
ON ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE
The branch of organization theory oriented towards the cultural and symbolic dimensions exhibits a somewhat heterogeneous collection of approaches and studies. Although well aware of the risk of overgeneralization, we feel justified in pointing out a number of problems and shortcomings in large areas of this research. One of these is a preoccupation with value and belief systems derived from actual social practices and the behaviour patterns and materialistic aspects of organizational reality. The “substantial” parts of culture are hardly discussed at all. An idealistic bias is common (Alvesson, 1985). Another problematic feature is the attention devoted to rather peripheral and insignificant symbolic and cultural phenomena (such as certain jokes, stories, coffeebreak and Christmas party behaviour, and other “rites”, “rituals” and “ceremonies”) while other perhaps more significant aspects like acts, events and conditions that symbolically express and reproduce hierarchy and engender inequality between the sexes receive little attention in most management or organization studies. A third shortcoming of most of the current studies is the preoccupation with values and beliefs related to the effective achievement of corporate goals. The overall context of organizations as well as dimensions which are not directly connected with these instrumental values and goals are often played down, neglected or taken for granted. Thus, only limited aspects of organizational cultures are emphasized (Smircich, 1985).
‘Present Sweden.
address:
Department
of Business Administration,
University
of Stockholm,
S-106
91 Stockholm,
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Yet another problematic feature of large sections of current culture studies focussing on organizations is a tendency to postulate the existence of particular organizational cultures. The boundaries of culture and organization are often supposed to be the same, although there may be provisos for organizational subcultures. Whether corporate culture or organizational subculture is in focus makes no difference to the predominant approach: that is, viewing the organization as the significant entity (or even totality) in light of which cultural phenomena in organizations should be seen. The basic idea, which is either explicitly mentioned or is implicit in many texts, is that each organization and culture (subcultures) are assumed to be concepts on the same analytical level. Every organization is unique in terms of culture/subcultures. Occasionally, when organizations have strong cultures they are assumed to be “more unique” than others. In this article we will raise some objections to this dominant view of organizational culture, and will call for caution and restraint in equating organization and culture. The idea that each organization has particular rites, rituals, jokes, languages, gestures and other kinds of symbols implies that non-insiders will have difficulty in understanding what is taking place within the organization. Most current cultural approaches stress the importance of the organizational dimension in the creation of culture, and consequently suggest that newcomers or outsiders are likely to be considerably perplexed when entering the “new” organization culture. We suggest that it might be more accurate to regard organizations which are of the same type in terms of the business or activity that they conduct in a society, as also being similar in most basic cultural respects. It seems plausible that the bulk of activities and the values corresponding to them in one workplace, will be familiar to people with experience from other workplaces of the same kind. The socialization and internalization of norms which are part of the training and daily work in a professional area (such as medicine or accountancy) are clearly much stronger than those related to a particular company, except perhaps in the case of lifelong enlistment.
ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE
-
A MISLEADING
CONCEPT
Most research on organizational culture assumes one of two positions: either that an organization has a culture, or that it is a culture. In the first case culture is seen as a metaphor for organization (Smircich, 1983). One argument against these views might be that organizations do not norm&y deviate so much from each other or from society at large as to render it appropriate to attribute them with cultures of their own. If some do differ from the prototype of a company, this is often because they are engaged in very special activities. Examples could be army regiments or churches. It would also be misleading to assume that an organization is homogeneous in terms of cultural characteristics. The heterogeneity in society in terms of differences in occupational cultures, for example, corresponds to a similar heterogeneity at the organizational level. Some authors, however, see organizations as tight and consistent entities, with specific ideas, values, norms, beliefs, philosophies, meanings and understandings. Organizational members, it is suggested, are tightly knit together by a common culture (e.g. Kilmann et al., 1985; Ouchi, 1981).
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The type of conceptualization described here suggests that organizations are uniform and well-packaged entities with respect to their cultures. This is a very problematic assumption. It relies on the use of analogies in understanding organizations, and in this context the culture metaphor is as dubious as the organism metaphor (cf. Morgan, 1980). Most organizations employ a large number of people and groups from different professions and with different job characteristics, values, lifestyles, ethnic and religious backgrounds, ages, etc. For this reason characteristics such as work ideology, sex roles, norms for interpersonal behaviour and values concerning equality and hierarchy in organizational life, which are common to all organization members but unfamiliar to people outside the organization, are often limited. The assumption that belonging to a particular organization necessarily means so much in terms of developing a homogeneous set of beliefs, values and views of the world is questionable. It can be postulated that “every business - in fact every organization - has a culture” and to qualify the statement somewhat by saying that “sometimes it is fragmented and difficult to read from the outside” (Deal and Kennedy, 1982, p. 4). This would indi::ate that as a rule the cultivating mechanisms are strong. However, this position does not seem particularly meaningful, if the cultivating mechanisms outside the organization are stronger and more important to organizational life. It is possible that much management-oriented organizational literature stresses the organizational determinants so strongly and disregards the extra-organizational ones because the latter factors cannot be managed or manipulated and therefore tend to be excluded from analysis. This pragmatic orientation restricts the research, and leads to a selective and biased understanding of the object under examination and to little gain in theoretical insight. This is largely an unavoidable consequence of the instrumental approach to knowledge, which limits itself to what is regarded as possible to manage and control. The inevitable selectivity in all studies introduces a bias that affects the research results. The strictly management-oriented research, which dominates the field discussed here, restricts the range of possible aspects, neglecting for example those outside management’s control, which could well be equally important. It seems likely that these reasons, rather than any theoretical considerations, contribute to the view of the organization as a culture-producing entity and to the disregard of extra-organizational determinants. Several authors have raised critical points to their argument against the treatment of the whole organization as a robust unit or natural entity for cultural analysis (Gregory, 1983; Smircich, 1983). One approach questions whether organizations are normally such “well-defined communities” that they can produce an organization-specific culture. Wilkins and Ouchi (1983) suggest that this is the case only when the organization is characterized by a long history, stable membership, little impact on members of social institutions with other cultural characteristics and frequent interaction among members from different parts of the organization. According to another view (Alvesson, 1986), it is pointless or inappropriate to speak of organization culture when the organization is primarily a reflection of the cultural attributes of the society in which it and its members exist. It could be argued, of course, that all organizations have some unique cultural characteristics, at least on particular issues, such as their attitude to customers or the exact way of relating to management information systems. However minor variations between organizations with regard to specific issues do not justify the belief that all
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organizations are unique and that they have, or are, cultures of their own. In order to motivate reference to an “organizational culture”, in the common connotation of a “mini-society” with distinct cultural characteristics in relation to the rest of the world, the distinctiveness concerned must embrace fairly large areas of the organization and not just minor issues. Another approach to the role of culture would be to recognize the existence of social categories in a society according to class, profession or occupation. In a recent article, van Maanen and Barley (1984, p. 295) have suggested the use of occupational community as a starting-point for research. The concept refers to . . . a group of people who consider themselves to be engaged in the same sort of work; who identify (more or less positively) with their work; who share a set of values, norms and perspectives that apply to, but extend beyond, work related matters; and whose social relationships mould the realms of work and leisure.
The relevant boundaries of an occupational community are those set by the members themselves. Official occupational titles and organizational belongingness provide little guidance as to where these boundaries may lie. Van Maanen and Barley warn against the use of abstract aggregations and other insensitive ways of defining occupational communities and argue for a phenomenological approach, whereby the communities are defined on a basis of the members’ own experiences of meaningful boundaries. The communities are not restricted to physical or geographical areas. They can be international. Careful investigations of people’s phenomenological reality must precede the researcher’s way of acknowledging different occupational communities and the work cultures associated with them, which may be seen as societal subcultures. The occupational community, the professional or any other group- or class-based category, often seem to be at least as important an organization when it comes to producing and expressing cultural phenomena. Some of these become visible in organizations, but they should not be treated for that reason as something contained within the boundaries of the organization. Occupational communities cut across and even exist partly outside organizations, and cannot be reduced to the status of a part of one of them.
CULTURE
ANALYSIS AND THE AVOIDANCE
OF REDUCTIONISM
Most of the academics in organizations or management who jumped onto the culture bandwaggon, treat culture as just another variable or aspect in a causal explanation scheme (Smircich and Calas, 1987). See, for example most of the contributions in the book edited by Kilmann er al. (1985). Only a few try to break out of the mould. The growth of academic interest in “culture” has been rapid. The increase in the frequency of articles in organizational culture reflects with a certain timelag the growth of the market share of the Japanese motor car in the United States. It may be a wild conjecture, but it seems that “culture” began to emerge as a catchword in management research just at the time when people were looking for a way of explaining the superiority of Japanese to American industry. The concept of organizational culture has passed through a process or merchandizing somewhat similar to the path followed earlier by organization development. It has
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become a commodity not only in the academic marketplace but also in the consultancy business, where culture is treated as a set of techniques or devices. We may regard this cultural engineering as a new activity in the profession of the social engineer who, according to Emery (1977, p. 198). is usually an agent of maladaptive strategies. Engineering is the science and art of shaping objects and object-sets in forms and structures according to certain specifications. In the social sphere, engineering is the nonsocial construction of reality and the means for treating humans as objects in the design of an institution as a purposive-rational instrument. We all remember Taylor and Simon as the classical heroes of this story, but we can recognize a similar lofty approach to people in, for example, the MbO-movement (see Humble, 1970) and in some enthusiasts of organizational culture. On a philosophical level the cultural engineering approach may represent a monistic view, i.e. everything is reduced to one set of phenomena, in this case an idealistic position in which everything exists only as perceptions (symbols, myths). The more academically minded researchers, on the other hand, hold a dualistic view, i.e. they recognize two categories of phenomena: material things and immaterial entities such as thoughts, dreams and symbols, and these two categories are essentially different and externally related to each other (see, for example, Allaire and Firsirotu, 1984). Taking a closer look at these two ways of dealing with the concept of organizational culture, we find that they both stem from the academic interest in explanatory schemes. The approach which declares that an organization has a culture is dualistic. Culture is reduced to a set of attributes of some “thing” called an organization. By treating the organization as a thing and organizational culture as a set of attributes, both concepts have become reified. The culture metaphor - organization is culture - represents a very different approach and one that tends to be idealistic. In a mapping of the material realities of an organization, the so-called cultural features are used to represent it. Because the material realities are thus lost to sight, the explanations offered become detached from experience. The way out of this dilemma is to transcend the limitations of idealism and dualism and to adopt a holistic approach (Israel, 1979). We can then see that all things and all phenomena are elements in some sort of totality, i.e. some part of our human world. Material and immaterial elements are not separable but are internally related to each other in the basic processes of daily life, in which what is given is transformed into actions and structures. Both material production and the production of ideas, knowledge and symbols are essential to our daily life, and together these processes create the material conditions and the structures and institutions of society in which communication and interaction take place. Social scientists who use the culture metaphor while disregarding its material basis might serve the cause of distorted communication, i.e. communication that helps to keep people in order, obedient and subdued (cf. Foucault, 1975; Habermas, 1968). The use of language, furthermore, is a prerequisite to instrumental action. Students of businesses and similar organizations must recognize that cu!ture encompasses material as well as non-material forms and structures. A modern automatic paper machine, for example, is not only an instrument for profitable paper-making; it also represents a symbol of a techno-culture and a techno-economic mentality (cf. Berg, 1985). If such a machine is silenced, its symbolic meaning disappears as well. Our
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conclusion is that organizational culture and organizational work are internally related, i.e. mutually interdependent. The revelation of these relations is a task for research. Research that takes on the job of discovering and identifying organizational cultures in a particular setting cannot avoid examining the social (and political) institutions that regulate the material production process. This regulation naturally employs symbols, and may to a large extent also appear as symbolic. The trivial fact that an organization also represents a place of employment, the production of certain goods or services, and the exchange of goods for resources from outside, usually a market, is part and parcel of the objective conditions that structure - and are structured by - the local cultural setting. For want of a better term we suggest esprit de corps - the common spirit or disposition shared in a body or association - to denote the empirically derived local cultural phenomena as a dynamic social unit which does not necessarily appear as homogeneous. The concept indicates the “soft” features of the organization: the style, habits and other informal characteristics displayed by its members. It embraces what many writers on corporate “culture” are talking about. By referring to esprit de corps rather than culture, we want to avoid conceptualizing organizations as entities that are stable and homogeneous with regard to culture. In the culture concept, whatever its precise definition, lies the idea of persistence over a long period of time. A culture does not change over a period of months or even years. The esprit de corps, on the other hand, might change if some key people leave the organization, if a new executive with a style different from his predecessor takes office, if the corporation expands rapidly or if it runs into a crisis. As has been stressed before, the idea of an organizational culture indicates a certain homogeneity among its members. To talk of esprit de corps avoids the problem this involves. A number of people may share a common spirit without necessarily being similar in terms of their basic beliefs, values, norms and orientation towards the world. Esprit de corps is a more restricted and modest concept, not pretending to capture the totality of a collective’s way of functioning. It does, however, point to a more stable and broader phenomenon than, for example, “spirit” or “climate”. In terms of extension in space and time, it is a middle-range concept between culture and spirit or climate.
PARTICIPATION
AND COMPLIANCE
The business corporation and other institutions could be regarded as a meeting-point or arena for several work cultures in society. These work cultures do not meet freely, but under the auspices of the existing hierarchical order and its organizational structures and processes. The work cultures are mapped into the work organization by the people manning the organization, and the amalgamation in daily practice may create an esprit de corps. All who are subsequently hired become socialized to a varying degree into the work organization with its particular esprit de corps. What characterizes an esprit de corps and how it can be fostered, maintained or changed, are important research questions. Esprit de corps is probably affected by the cultural characteristics of the various groups employed, by the way they interact and the way their occupational cultures are blended in the organization. Other factors too may be of importance, e.g. the development phase and the outcomes achieved. Another important aspect may be the style of the top executives, especially their symbolic
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features. While acknowledging that all managerial activities are to some extent symbolic, we use the expression “symbolic management” to stress the transmission or activation of symbols to achieve compliance. in contrast to the managerial routines and practices in themselves. Here we find great variation between different countries and even within countries, due to the different institutional influences exerted by the particular management fads and fashions which happen to be in vogue when a new manager is hired. A typical characteristic of hierarchical organization is the existence of a “head”, an executive who has the ultimate responsibility. He, either alone or sometimes together with a small sway group, regulates (manages, administrates or plans) the activities of the hierarchically organized body. That coordination is the main characteristic of organization was noted already by Chester Barnard (in fact a definition of organizing, 1938): the contraposition to this is that cooperation is the main problematic feature in hierarchical organization. In analysing the issue Etzioni (1961) found the main aspects involved to be modes of participation and methods of achieving compliance. Looking for ideal types Etzioni distinguished three modes of participation and likewise three methods of achieving compliance. He examined all the cells of the corresponding matrix (see Fig. l), and came to the conclusion that there were three stable combinations represented by the diagonal of the matrix. When the modes of participation did not fit the method of achieving compliance, he regarded the resulting situation as unstable and predicted structural changes that would lead to one of the stable states. We assume the combination of a calculating mode of participation and the use of utility as a method of achieving compliance as being typical of the instrumental, rational leadership usually attributed to business, tinged in practice of course by enforcement and norms. In the organization-culture movement this rationality is denied, and attention focuses on another ideal type: an emotional mode of participation associated with normative methods of achieving compliance, or symbolic management as noted above. Let us regard coercive, rational and symbolic management as ideal types according to the diagonal of the matrix. Looking at the history of management in Europe and the U.S., we can see a general tendency to reduce the use of coercion and to increase the use of norms in obtaining compliance (even in manufacturing, see Burawoy, 1979). The modes of participation have changed likewise. But we have also witnessed a greater degree of managerial sophistication in employing a blend of several methods for achieving compliance. Nor are the modes of participation to be found in pure form, but
Modes Method of compliance
Submissive
of participation Calculating
Emotional
Coercion Utility Norms
Fig.
1. Modes
of participation
and methods
of compliance.
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rather as opportunism (as blend of submission and calculation), loyalty (submission and morale) or self-righteousness (calculation and morale). The mixed forms outside the diagonal are not likely to be the unstable ones; it would be more difficult to maintain the pure cases. The role of symbolic management in the dynamic interplay between modes of participation and methods of achieving compliance would be an interesting research task. It would be interesting to take a closer look at the coercive and utilitarian aspects of life in organizations, seen from a holistic vantage point.
THE HEGEMONY
OF ORGANIZATIONS
Symbolic management and other cultural phenomena at the level of organization not exist in isolation; rather, they reflect the characteristics of society.
do
Society as a part of a human world, (is) made by men, and, in turn, making men, in an ongoing historical process. (Berger and Luckmann, 1966. p. 189)
Through human interaction and action an institutional order is created which displays certain fixed patterns. These patterns are objectified by explanatory and legitimizing actions and converted into social rules that are taken for granted by the citizens. Thus to any individual belonging to a particular society, that society becomes an objective social reality. As all humans are socialized in a number of institutions - the family, the school and the workplace - man is a social product. In modern society most aspects of life are organized; thus man can be regarded as a product of organization as well (Herbst, 1976). Members of any organization (in which most people stay for a number of years only, before leaving for another one) have been socialized, educated, trained and affected in other ways by various social institutions before entering their present organization. And even after entry members belong to a number of affiliations outside their workplace: occupational communities, professional and religious groups, ethnic minority associations, families, etc. The mass media and other vehicles of commercial forces are probably the most powerful influencing factors in the ongoing cultivation and socialization of people, which takes place outside the workplace and affects people’s beliefs, values, ways of thinking, acting and relating to other people, i.e. their “culture”. The relevance of these factors to behavioural and cultural phenomena in organizations is great and largely underestimated (see, for example, Hofstede, 1980). A few in-depth studies have provided revealing examples of the complex interplay between outside conditions and the managerial and labour processes within the firm (two recent examples are Burawoy, 1979 and Rosen, 1985). In general, however, these aspects have been neglected. The previously established political ideologies in Europe - conservatism, liberalism and socialism - differ clearly from each other as regards their basic principles of social order and the distribution of wealth. Material growth is important to all three. In political practice the ideologies have to be translated into feasible solutions to emergent situations. Political ideology of any kind seems to give in readily to managerial rationality (Highley et al., 1976). In fact we may recognize in all established ideologies a
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managerial ideology which is embraced by a great part of the ruling groups, and which endorses male dominance. The practice of management ideology demonstrates that economic criteria are what count. People are treated as a means. Further the non-elites are affected and moulded by stereotypes characterized by individualism with a strong degree of well-adapted conformism, competition, an orientation toward leisure. mass consumption, materialistic values, “narcissistic lifestyle”, and a certain degree of permissiveness - to choose only a few that are often quoted in describing present societal cultures in contemporary social research (e.g. Lasch. 1980; Riesman, 1969; Zetterberg, 1977). We will not elaborate here on the existence of possible subcultures in society, which could be mentioned as significant to all kinds of organizations. We would simply suggest that there are important subcultures in a society, and that these affect people and must therefore be taken into consideration in any attempt to analyse cultural phenomena in organizations. Our argument hitherto is summarized and illustrated in Fig. 2. This figure suggests that any understanding of cultural aspects in organizations should take into account the effects of societal culture in its totality on the members of the organization, as well as significant subcultures in society and intra-organizational determinants of culture. As we have already stated, the “hardware” (i.e. technology, work organization. hierarchy, control systems, etc.) provides an important basis for the understanding of culture. The figure indicates that the likelihood of unique cultural phenomena in any one organization is limited by the societal impact. To a great extent these phenomena are related to societal conditions common to all organizations of a similar kind. The cultural characteristics of a hospital, for example, are greatly dependent on the professional subculture of physicians. The existence of this subculture would suggest that most hospitals share cultural attributes. Some may differ significantly, but this is probably rare.
Fig. 2. Extra-organizational
and intra-organizational
determinants
to cultural
phenomena
in organizations.
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There are obvious differences between organizations in terms of cultural characteristics, i.e. values, beliefs, leadership styles and stories told. Generally, however, most variations probably occur within quite narrow limits. In North American corporations Martin er al. (1983) found that stories told were variations on a few themes only, and were thus essentially similar. The hospitals in one society do not usually represent completely different cultures, nor do banks or textile industries. We are not saying that there are no exceptions to this, i.e. that there are some companies with specific cultural characteristics or “cultures” of their own (cf. Deal and Kennedy, 1982). But even in such cases it is arguable whether the distinctiveness of the cultural features does justify our talking of anything more far-reaching than a specific esprit de corps. When we pass from one department of business administration to another, we will not meet a new culture with characteristics that we do not understand or that we are unable to operate in. It does not seem appropriate to use an anthropological conception of culture to explain what are simply minor variations within the same overall society or subgroup (e.g. a professional group). It would be more reasonable to talk of the organizational amalgamation or the impact of overall cultural determinants, which trigger and stress various values, beliefs, symbolic operations, etc. In a specific organization certain peculiar cultural features may be found, but in most cases we would expect these to deviate only marginally from what is to be found elsewhere.
CONCLUSION:
INSTEAD OF ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE
In this article we have refrained from joining the chorus of those who link the concepts of organization and culture together, without carefully considering and examining the boundaries of cultures. Our thesis is that cultural phenomena in organizations must be acknowledged as refraction of predominant cultural characteristics in a society. The various societal subcultures converge in a specific organization. Unique organizational cultures, produced by organizational factors that are relatively independent of society and other organizations, are to be found primarily in organizations such as the Catholic Church, the French Foreign Legion, the CIA or the KGB. These can be regarded as belonging to a category of their own -the total organization. At present there seems to be a strong tendency to attribute culture-producing powers to organizations and to their top executives. In terms of culture, organizations are regarded as largely closed systems, despite the functional imperatives of the market. We would suggest that organizational culture is a treacherous concept in organizational research, and like Smircich (1985) we recommend that researchers should conduct cultural analyses of organizations rather than studying organizational culture. When cultural aspects specific to a particular organization are in focus, the idea of the organizational culture can be replaced by the concept of esprit de corps. This concept has the benefit of incorporating the dynamics of organizational life, and it is compatible with a view of organizations as having open cultural boundaries with the rest of society. Another problem with the idea of the organizational culture, with its emphasis on shared values and norms and understanding in corporate life, is that it tends to distract researchers from considering the basic issues such as organizational forms of domination, methods of achieving compliance, organizational control and surveillance. We have argued instead that organizations should be regarded as meeting places for work
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cultures. The common culture of a society should be recognized, together with occupational and other subcultures in that society. Organizations are thus conceptualized as arenas for societal cultures. That organizations differ as regards their ability to a&lgamate societal cultures is perfectly evident, and research into their capacity in this respect seems timely. The striking differences here between Japanese and U.S. companies are weil known. We believe that there are substantial differences even within a country like Sweden. REFERENCES Allaire, Y. and Firsirotu, M., Theories of organizational culture, Organization Studies (1984), pp. 193-226. Alvesson, M., On focus in cultural studies of organizations, Scandinavian Journal of Management Studies (1985). pp. 105-120. Alvesson, M., On the Idea of Organizational Culture. Remarks on Its Popularity, Its Limitations and an Idea Paper presented at the First International Conference on for an Alternative Conceptualization, Organization Symbolism and Corporate Culture, Lund, 26-30 June 1984, revised March 1986. Barnard, C. I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938). Berg, P. 0.. Techno-culture: the symbolic framing of technology in a Volvo plant, Scandinavian Journal of Managernenf Studies (1985), No. 1. Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T., The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1966). Burawoy, M., Manufacturing Consent (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979). Deal, T. E. and Kennedy, A. A., Corporate Culture: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1982). Emery, F., Futures We Are In (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977). Etzioni, A., Complex Organizations (New York: Free Press, 1961). Foucault, M., Surveilfer et punir. Naissance de la Prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975). Gregory, K., Native-view paradigms: multiple cultures and culture conflicts in organization, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983)‘. pp. 356-376. * Habermas, J., Technik und Wissenschaft als “Ideologie” (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1968). (1971: Towards a Rational Society, Boston: Beacon Press). Herbst, P. G., Alternatives to Hierarchies (Leiden: Nijhoff, 1976). Highley, J., Field, G. L. and Groholt, K., Elite, Structure and Ideology (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget; and New York: Columbia University Press, 1976). Hofstede, G., Culture’s Consequences (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980). Humble. J.. Mananement bv Objectives in Acrion (London: McGraw-Hill. 1970). Israel, J., The Langiage of diaiec;ics and rhe Dialect& of Language (Kapenhamn: Munksgaard; London: The Harvester Press; and New York: Humanities Press, 1979). Kilmann, R., Saxton, M., Serpa, R. and Associates, Gaining Control of the Corporate Culture (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985). Lasch, C., The C&re of Narcissism (London: Abacus, 1980). Martin, J., Feldman, M. S., Hatch, M. J. and Sitkin, S. B., The uniqueness paradox in organizational stories, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983), pp. 438-453. Ouchi, W. G., Theory Z (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981). Riesman. D.. The Line/v Crowd (New Haven: Yale Universitv Press. 19691. 2nd edn. Rosen, i., Breakfast ai Spiro’s: ‘Dramaturgy and Dominance: Journal of banagement (1985) (No. 2), pp. 31-48. Smircich, L., Concepts Of culture and organizational analysis, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983). pp. 339-358. .’ Sn%cich, L., Is the concept of culture a paradigm for understanding organizations and ourselves? In: P. Frost et al. (Eds), Organizational Culture (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985). Smircich: L. and C&s, M., Organizational culture: a critic2 assessment. In: F. Jablin et al. (Eds), Handbook of Organizational Communication (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1987). van Maanen, J. and Barley, S. R., Occupational communities: culture and control in organization. In: B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (Eds), Research in Organizational Behavior (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1984). Vol. 6. Wilkins, A. L. and Ouchi, W. G., Efficient cultures: exploring the relationship between culture and organizational performance, Administrative Science Quarterly (1983). pp. 468-481. Zetterberg, H. L., Arbete, motivation, livsstil (Work, motivations and life style) (Stockholm: SAF, 1977).
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