Cultivating culture

Management S C A N D I N AV I A N J O U R N A L O F

Scand. J. Mgmt. 19 (2003) 385–401 www.elsevier.com/locate/scaman

Book reviews Cultivating culture . . 2001 Joanne Mats Alvesson, Organisationskultur och ledning, Liber forlag, Malmo, Martin, Organizational Culture: Mapping the Terrain, Sage, London, 2002 Martin Parker, Organizational Culture and Identity, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2000

Like a breath of fresh air ‘‘organizational culture’’ swept into the field of organization studies a few decades ago. In the seductive terminology of myths and symbols, organizational life suddenly acquired mythical qualities, such that a Christmas party could be described as a ceremony, the budget process as a ritual, the manager as a hero, the induction programme as a rite, and so on. Thus, with concepts and categories drawn from anthropology, the corporate world was transformed into a ‘‘tribe of savages’’ teeming with folkloric events, drama and sagas. But the notion of culture did more than offer a new vocabulary. It also provided researchers with a new perspective for understanding organizations. In contrast to the dominating image of the organization as a rational machine, culture turned the spotlight on the human and symbolic aspects of organizational life. As a promising alternative to the structural and rational view on organizations, the cultural perspective acknowledged the irrational, emotional and expressive dimensions of organizing. At the same time that culture was being welcomed as a novel perspective by researchers anxious to move beyond the functionalist approaches to organization studies, it was also being appropriated by managers, consultants and researchers looking for new ways of creating effective organizations. In the descriptions of the corporate-culture functionalists, culture came to be conceived as a control mechanism. A social glue not only holding complex organizations together but also creating loyalty, strengthening commitment and providing the basis for success. Corporate culture thus became a widely acclaimed tool for managing the meanings and beliefs of employees. So, by the end of the 1980s the literature on organizational culture was declared ‘‘dominant but dead’’. A passage in the obituary explained this sudden death by reference to the way in which organizational culture was gradually being drained of its vitality by its insidious incorporation into mainstream research: The original impetus behind organizational culture was to counter the dry and overly rational form of traditional theorizing about organizations. It seems that now, however, organizational culture has been appropriated by the rational

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tradition. Thus to the extent that ‘culture’ has been incorporated into the positivist, technical interest as part of the ‘traditional organizational literature’ the organizational culture literature may be ‘dominant but dead’. (Smircich & Cala! s, 1987, p. 229) Rather than representing a new perspective on organizations, culture had become more of an instrument for handling and controlling the ‘‘irrational’’ side of the machine. Disillusioned with this development, Linda Smircich, who had been one of the leading players in the field of organizational culture, announced that she was a ‘‘culture dropout’’ (Smircich, 1995), delivering her swansong in a field that had lost its capacity to help us see the world in new ways and that was thus, in a sense, dead. However, an expedition into the field of organizational culture today reveals a field clearly rejecting the idea of encroaching death. Three recent books on organizational culture indicate an untiring determination to keep the field alive into the new millennium. All three books, imbued with the ambition to deepen our understanding of organizational culture, thus seem to be defying any simplistic functional approaches to culture. Martin Parker’s book emerges from the author’s belief that ‘‘culture’’ is worth rescuing from managerialism. Joanne Martin seeks to open readers’ minds to new ways of thinking about and studying culture so that it can be understood in different ways. Finally, Mats Alvesson suggests new ways of exploiting the potential of the cultural analysis of organizations, his main purpose being to contribute to a more reflexive mode of research. Despite the oft-quoted death announcement, the literature on organizational culture thus seems to have thrown off its shroud. Judging from the number of books and articles that are continuously being produced, the study of organizational culture is alive and well. So, are we witnessing the magic resurrection of a field whose death knell was premature? Was the report of the death of this literature greatly exaggerated? Or, is the continuing production of texts on organizational culture no more than the persisting incorporation of organizational culture into the mainstream machinery of organization theory? An examination of these three books, not only as guides on entering the field but also as cultural manifestations of the field itself, can perhaps reveal some insights as to how the field of organizational culture is succeeding in recreating itself.

1. Defining the field of organizational culture I myself, I must confess, am a cultural aficionada. As I didn’t enter the field until the early 1990s I missed the funeral, and I can’t help still being thrilled by the enchanted and moving world that a cultural perspective can provide. On the other hand, the field of organizational culture is not an unequivocal meaning system with a ready-made approach to be adopted by the culture wannabe. Rather, as all three books indicate, the field is very much characterized by an ongoing contest regarding definitions and competing road maps, where not only do ‘‘dragons lurk’’ (Martin), but also where mortal sins must be avoided (Alvesson).

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In order to become a part of the field of organizational culture it is important to understand its history. It is through its history that organizational culture acquires its shape, as the narration of the past inscribes a field of form and meaning. The history of organizational culture is thus a recurrent theme in all three books. Overall, it seems to be a largely shared history about which there is little dispute. And this is more or less how the story goes: ‘‘In the beginning there was darkness. Organization Researchers were caught in a mechanistic paradigm, where organizations were no more than rational machines and functional systems. One day Culture appears: a glorious Princess who starts to bring light and joy into the study of organizations. A swarm of researchers gathers round the Princess, inviting her into the new Kingdom of Organizational Culture. In this new Kingdom organizations can be understood in more enlightened ways, thanks to the presence of the magnificent Princess. But soon, very soon, a threatening band of intruders sails up like a dark cloud shadowing the newly won light. These intruders, the corporate functionalists, try to capture the Princess, to make her just one more tool in their ongoing search for excellence. Losing the Princess, as the Organizational Culture Researchers all know, would mean the end of their Kingdom. So, confronted by this threat, the Organizational Culture Researchers stand up, united as one: Culture must be rescued! And ever since, the field of organizational culture has been in a state of constant combat with the functionalists, in a common endeavour to keep Culture alive. And, as far as I know, the battle is still going on.’’ Retold in this form, the genesis of organizational culture bears an obvious resemblance to most classical stories of creation. As the story tells us, the organizational culture territory soon became a battleground, an arena for what Martin calls ‘‘the culture wars’’. By adopting the war metaphor, Martin depicts a field constituted by fierce dispute, vehement disagreement and intellectual struggle. With such metaphors, the discourse of the organizational culture literature often produces the image of a field that is different, challenging and rebellious—in continual opposition to ‘‘the other’’. The ‘‘other’’ being not just the ‘‘traditional organizational literature’’ that is obsessed with structures and rationalities, but more specifically the ‘‘corporate culture literature’’ that has allegedly turned culture into a managerial tool. Hence, the field of organizational culture is inscribed through the juxtaposing of opposing views and battles between disparate approaches on such issues as the nature of culture, how it should be studied, etc. In the three books reviewed here, the warlike history of the field obviously provides signposts to more enlightened routes in the continuous creation of the terrain of organizational culture. Borders between opposites and antagonists indicate possible paths to follow in order to become reflexive insiders. Martin’s book is built up round a number of dilemmas that face any cultural researcher, opening up a number of possible avenues in terms of theories, methods and writing styles. Parker seeks to define a route that, he believes, should provide an escape from cultural managerialism. And Alvesson warns organizational culture researchers against seven sins that must be avoided if the researcher is not to be trapped in functionalistic approaches to cultural studies. In short, the reflexive researcher, it

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seems, must not start simplifying and totalizing ‘‘the complex and fluid nature of culture’’. The story of the past thus provides a basis for defining organizational culture as a field. As in most societies, the retelling and rewriting of the past constitutes an identity-seeking process whereby a collective ‘‘we’’ is created as a distinctive entity with roots and origins. By upholding an oppositional position, the field of organizational culture preserves its mission, a mission concerned to purify and make sense of culture, thus safeguarding it from managerialism. But protecting organizational culture from intruders and rivals is not only a way of defining the field: it could also be read as a form of closure.

2. What culture is Whereas the history of organizational culture is largely shared, constituting a common ground for defining the territory, the definition of what culture is seems to be far more ambiguous. In all three books an important topic concerns the definition of what culture is and what it is not. Most members of the field use Smircich’s classical conceptualization of organizational culture as a basis for defining their own standpoint. This conceptualization distinguishes between culture as a variable, that is culture as something the organization has, and culture as a metaphor, that is culture as a way of understanding what organization is (Smircich, 1983). While the variable approach treats culture as a phenomenon to be found within organizations, the culture-asmetaphor approach implies that organizations can be studied as cultural phenomena. Obviously, organizational culture researchers often say that they reject the culture-as-variable view, since this generally implies a commodified treatment of culture as an asset that can be controlled and managed. Martin and Alvesson both suggest that culture can be understood as a lens through which organizational life can be examined, a lens that focuses on the symbolic and interpretive aspects of organizations. Parker holds that culture is something the organization has, as well as a process of organizing. On the one hand he speaks of organizations as patterned collectives which have distinctive cultures because of their particular histories, geographies, key actors and so on. On the other he develops a view of culture as an ongoing process of making distinctions between ‘‘us’’ and ‘‘them’’. Although the culture-as-metaphor view appears to dominate the field of organizational culture, it is not entirely unproblematic. As Alvesson and others have noted, it could be argued that culture is not altogether appropriate as a metaphor for understanding organizations, since organizations can themselves be conceived as being cultures. Consequently, to improve its usefulness as a metaphor, Alvesson turns to the importance of examining the metaphors for culture that are actually used (see also Alvesson, 1993). The metaphoric clash is to be found in the underlying metaphors that guide the culture researcher, defining whether culture/

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organization should be perceived as a social glue, for example, or a constraint, or an integration mechanism, and so on. Defining culture is not simply a question of demarcating differences between culture as a variable and culture as a metaphor. These three books also discuss in considerable detail whether culture should be viewed as something integrated, differentiated or fragmented. At the beginning of the organizational culture era, the most common view seemed to favour integration. Culture was generally described as something coherent and integrated; and organizations were thus defined as patterns of shared meanings or consensus-based symbolic fields. However, the focus on harmony has been problematized by many researchers in the field. As early as in 1983 Gregory proposed a view of the organization as an arbitrary boundary encompassing a multiplicity of cultures. Cultural differentiation was identified as emanating from divisions between groups, positions, professions, etc. Later, ambiguity and fragmentation were also introduced as a characteristic of culture. In 1987 Meyerson and Martin introduced a ‘‘three-perspective theory on culture’’, an approach that Martin has then further developed in her subsequent writings (e.g. Martin, 1992, 2002). The three perspectives suggest that culture can be regarded simultaneously as integrated, differentiated and fragmented. Much of the literature on organizational culture during the 1990s has thus acknowledged the complexity and multiplicity of meanings in organizational settings. Yet, it seems that questioning the integrationist view is still a theme that organizational culture researchers find worth engaging in. Parker argues that culture is best understood as ‘‘fragmented unities’’, while Martin is an advocate of combining all three cultural perspectives. Alvesson emphasizes the dynamic and sometimes contradictory dimension of cultural manifestations, while also warning us against putting too much emphasis on ambiguity, since this would more or less drain the culture concept of meaning. As Gray, Bougon, and Donnellon (1985) put it rather nicely, the process of organizing hinges on the simultaneous presence and absence of shared meanings. While the discussion of what culture is can certainly contribute to a more multifaceted view of the phenomenon, I suggest there is a risk of getting caught up in a definitional game in the search for ever better and more accurate descriptions of culture. As has been claimed in post-modern anthropology, knowledge of culture is more a question of re-presentation than of reflecting a given reality. Regarded in this light, a definition is no more than a label, a linguistic construct. Consequently, the value of a definition lies not in its accuracy or ability to match or reflect ‘‘the way things are’’. Rather, definitions create reality. They control things. Defining what culture is the means whereby researchers inscribe the world. Hence, it might be just as interesting to ask what culture does, and to explore what kind of action a certain definition enables.

3. Can or should culture be managed? Another question that has long been debated in the field of organizational culture concerns whether culture can or should be managed. It comes as no surprise that

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while the corporate-culture functionalists identified culture from the start as a managerial tool, the literature of organizational culture has been engaged in a relentless critique of such a view. Parker’s book revolves round this issue. Parker, very much in line with most other organizational culture researchers, holds that cultural management, in the sense of creating an enduring set of shared beliefs, is impossible. Although organizational culture is often subject to management in the sense of managerial attempts at intervention, the outcome of this intervention can never be totally controlled. The interesting question then, Parker concludes, is: what kind of attempts at manipulating beliefs are justifiable? Following Smircich and Morgan (1982) Alvesson suggests that leadership can be understood as the management of meaning. Leadership in this sense is a process of defining reality for others. However, as Alvesson also points out, leadership is not enacted in a cultural vacuum. Leaders are culturally formed as much as the led are. Rather than standing above or outside the culture, leaders act within given sets of meanings. Thus, the meaning of leadership is defined culturally just as much as the meanings that leaders produce. Rather than creating ‘‘new’’ meanings, Alvesson concludes, management is generally a question of reproducing the dominant set of values that constitutes the organization. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there is a certain element of power in the way meanings are created and shaped. Although sense-making is generally understood as a collective interactive process, in which there are no pure givers or pure takers, the process is not entirely symmetrical. In all societies there are people and institutions whose main purpose is to fabricate and influence meanings. As Berger and Luckman (1967) point out, the division of labour in any society leads to a situation in which some people are freed from ‘‘hunting and forging weapons’’ and can be wholly dedicated to the ‘‘fabrication of myths’’. Institutions such as schools, publishers, ideological organizations, authorities etc, comprise a ‘‘cultural apparatus’’ that aims to shape reality for others (Hannerz, 1992). And in corporations there are several fabricators of meaning that are involved in the explicit shaping and forming of the organizational world. The point at issue is thus not whether culture can or should be managed; it is that management itself can be regarded as a cultural phenomenon. In this light, the ‘‘culture of culture management’’ (Kunda, 1992), i.e. managers’ attempts at creating shared meanings, becomes an influential discourse that shapes organizational life. Organizing, it seems, is not only a process of uniting and dividing organizational members, but also one of controlling and dominating, and culture could thus offer a perspective for exploring these processes.

4. Towards a ‘‘cultured’’ organizational research Together, these three recent books on organizational culture provide the reader with an overview of the present position of this field. Starting from an extensive examination of the culture segment in organization studies, all three books serve as guides or maps to help newcomers and even insiders to orient themselves in the

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terrain of organizational culture. Parker’s book introduces the reader to a critique of cultural managerialism, while Martin’s textbook has a somewhat wider scope with its ambition to guide the researcher among the various methodological and theoretical choices in this field of study. Alvesson’s book, finally, goes a step further towards a cultural approach to organization studies, presenting a framework within which various organizational phenomena such as leadership, management and change can be understood in cultural terms. Yet, although it is interesting to see where the field of organizational culture currently ‘‘stands’’, it would be even more interesting to get some idea of where it is ‘‘going’’ Are there any new insights to be gained from an organizational culture approach? Perhaps what is needed is not more guides or maps, but rather new territories to be explored. Or for new explorations to be de-territorialized. Or new routes instead of old roots. One way of reframing the field could be to challenge the idea of organizational culture. Although I am a culture devotee, I am a bit more sceptical about the qualifier ‘‘organizational’’ (a word that appears in the title of all three books). The three authors all seem to admit that the epithet organizational could be misleading, since it tends to imply that the organization is a bounded entity containing a uniform culture. They all regard culture as a differentiator as much as an integrator, and argue that cultural borders cannot be equated with organizational borders. So, why use the word organizational at all? Not only does it lead to the common notion of culture as an integrated whole, but it also seems to be taking the idea of ‘‘organization’’ for granted. Cultural analysis is generally understood as ‘‘an attack on the self-evident’’, an attempt at making the taken-forgranted exotic, an estrangement of ingrained notions. Maybe it is now time to question some of the taken-for-granted assumptions of organizational culture. Maybe it is not culture that needs to be explained, but rather the whole idea of organizational. As Smircich (1983, 1995) has already suggested, cultured organizational research would mean shifting the focus away from what organizations accomplish to how organization is accomplished. Cultured organizational research viewed in this way is less a study of culture and more of an ‘‘anthropology of complex organizations’’ (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1989). To me such an approach would not provide the researcher with a map of the world, but with an exploratory point of departure whence new questions could be asked. That would be an approach allowing for inside stories of the way the actors themselves represent their world. An approach that makes room for a polyphony of voices, that follows the construction of networks instead of describing territories. Cultured organizational research would thus be an approach that instead of treating the organization as a given entity, explores the way a sense of organization can be created at all. In announcing the death of organizational culture Smircich and Cala! s (1987) implored organizational culture researchers to abandon their oppositional posture and to engage instead in the cultural analysis of organizational life, not the analysis of organizational culture. Smircich and Cala! s thus wanted to drop the endless debate about what culture really is, so that space could be released for cultured

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organizational research. A look at the field in the new millennium suggests that this is still a relevant rallying cry. References Alvesson, M. (1993). Cultural perspectives on organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. New York, NY: Anchor Books Edition. Czarniawska-Joerges, B. (1989). Preface: Towards an anthropology of complex organizations. International Studies of Management and Organizations, 19(3), 3–15. Gray, B., Bougon, M. G., & Donnellon, A. (1985). Organizations as constructions and deconstructions of meaning. Journal of Management, 11, 83–98. Gregory, K. L. (1983). Native-view paradigms: Multiple cultures and culture conflicts in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 359–376. Hannerz, U. (1992). Cultural complexity: Studies in the social organization of meaning. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Kunda, G. (1992). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high tech corporation. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Martin, J. (1992). Cultures in organizations: Three perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. Meyerson, D., & Martin, J. (1987). Cultural change: An integration of three different views. Journal of Management Studies, 24(6), 623–647. Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 339–358. Smircich, L. (1995). Writing organizational tales: Reflections on three books on organizational culture. Organization Science, 6, 232–237. Smircich, L., Cal!as, M. B. (1987). Organizational culture: A critical assessment. In Jablin, F. M., et al. (Eds.), Handbook of organizational communication. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Smircich, L., & Morgan, G. (1982). Leadership: The management of meaning. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18, 257–273.

M. Salzer-Morling Centre for Advanced Studies in Leadership, Stockholm School of Economics, PO Box 6501, Stockholm 113 83, Sweden doi:10.1016/S0956-5221(03)00031-9

Organising and managing work. Organisational, managerial and strategic behaviour in theory and practice Watson, Tony J., Pearson Education; Limited, Harlow, Essex. 535p. 2002 The packaging is all too familiar. My first impression was thus one of boredom: this textbook wears a solidly traditional dress, with a layout standardised to fit the serious approach that the publisher favours. Suspicion grows as every chapter opens with its objectives, in bullet points of course, and winds up in the same manner. So far we recognise it all—but do not fear the standardisation! It is the content