Cultural Approach To Organizations

Chapter 20

1. Cultural Approach to Organizations
Of Clifford Geertz and
Micahel Pacanowsky

2. Organizations as Cultures
Culture as system of shared meaning
Reject notions of high culture and low culture
Cultures have subcultures and counter-cultures
Culture made manifest through performance – the
actions which constitute and reveal people’s culture
(symbolic expression)
Culture includes task and non task-related performance
Performances seen as texts, available to be read
Reading performances requires seeing an organization
as its members experience it – ethnographic method.

3. Ethnography
Involves “thick description” based on
extensive observation
Posture of “radical naiveté” – sees the
organization as “strange”.
Focuses on the non-obvious but significant,
including language, metaphors, stories,
nonverbal rites and rituals.

4. The Metaphor
The ethnographer pays attention to
metaphors that organizational participants
themselves use to describe the organization
and its practices and
Also constructs metaphors of his/her own

5. The Story
Ethnographers watch for the stories that participants
tell – stories/anecdotes often encapsulate
memorable performances and values
Three kinds of story include: corporate (ideology of
management), personal (told by employees about
themselves), collegial (told about others in the
organization). Collegial stories are often negative or
positive and revealing about how employees think
the organization “really works.”
Sometimes the results of this research can be reported
in fictional form.

6. Ritual : the way it has always been
Some rituals are texts that articulate multiple
aspects of cultural life – but they should be
interpreted according to the meanings that
they have for the participants

7. Practical and ethical issues
Should managers change culture?
Can culture be changed?
Should ethnographers work for
management?

8. Critique
Do corporations really have cultures that are
identifiably isolated from the culture in the
wider society?
Should ethnographers remain neutral in the
face of all cultural practices? Or should they
expose repression, wrong-doing, etc.?