Organization Theory
Organizations and the Search for Meaning in Life
The theories of practice subsumed in symbolic frame liken organizational life to a
medieval tapestry. Suspended before a nondescript wall, the tapestry is rich in
color, texture, and hue. Portraying a warm, gracious, and inviting pastoral scene,
the tapestry is not only pleasing to the eye, but also pleasing to the human spirit
as the tapestry invites the observer to enter into the scene and to experience the
life symbolized therein.
By analogy, an organization has a rich symbolic life. There are trends, values,
and purposes that have been part of the organization’s history over the years
and decades of its existence. These are conveyed by one set of strands. In
addition, there are the fundamentally irrational and unsubstantiated opinions that
exercise influence upon the people in the organization, depicting the shared
values and beliefs that are part-and-parcel of daily life in that organization. These
are represented by a second set of strands. Then there are an organization’s
norms and standards, conveyed in those strands which clarify the ideologies
governing organizational behavior. Lastly, another set of strands depict that
aspect of organizational life represented in those recurring, visible patterns of
behavior. In sum, the organization’s history, values and beliefs, its norms and
standards, as well as its shared patterns of behavior symbolize an organization’s
rich and vibrant life.
Just as artists select and weave sets of strands together into a finished tapestry,
so too, from a symbolic framework, leaders can weave these symbols of
organizational life to better reflect, better shape and, if necessary, change
organizational life.
The symbolic frame assumes that human beings create symbols to resolve
confusion, increase predictability, or provide direction in organizations. Over
time, these symbols and the behaviors representing them coalesce in an
invisible, yet pervasive (if not intrusive) culture. Furthermore, the symbolic frame
asserts, what happens in organizations is not as important as what these
phenomena mean to people. By learning how to read, contend with, and
represent the tangible raw data of organizational life—the symbolic elements
depicting a unique culture—leaders grapple with, shape, and change the basic
issues of meaning and faith emerging in organizations as human enterprises.
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Bower was an early advocate of this line of inquiry, defining organizational
culture as “the way we do things around here” (1966, p. 22). Somewhat later,
Sergiovanni and Corbally described organizational culture as the “system of
values, symbols, and shared meanings of a group including the embodiment of
these values, symbols, and meanings into material objects and ritualized
practices. Culture governs what is of worth for a particular group and how group
members should think, feel, and behave” (1984, p. viii). By the time Deal and
Peterson weighed in, they asserted that organizational culture is the “historically
rooted, socially transmitted set of deep patterns of thinking and ways of acting
that give meaning to human experience, that unconsciously dictate how
experience is seen, assessed, and acted on” (1990, p. 8).
Deal and Kennedy popularized the concept of organizational culture in their 1982
book, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Intended
primarily for corporate executives, the authors asserted that a strong
organizational culture contributes to corporate productivity and success.
To date Schein has provided the most sustained, critical analysis of
organizational culture as well as definition of it. Sounding like—but hardly a
structural theorist—Schein maintains argues that culture is a phenomenon
emerging as two pressures exert themselves upon organizational functioning,
namely, the dual pressures of external adaptation and internal integration.
For Schein, culture is an elusive concept, most noticeable in its effects, primarily
at the level of behavior and espoused values. Culture emerges as people in
organizations develop a pattern of shared basic assumptions that solve the
problems of external adaptation and internal integration. But, these assumptions
are not themselves organizational culture. Instead, these assumptions provide a
cognitive foundation for organizational culture as it builds upon these
assumptions as these work “well enough to be considered valid and, therefore,
to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in
relation to those problems” (Schein, 1992, p. 12).
To fully identify, understand, and work with organizational culture, leaders must
learn to probe beyond and into the surface manifestations of culture (its symbols)
in order to unearth the values embedded within. It is here, lurking beneath the
surface, that managers and leaders discover what is sacred. Furthermore, astute
leaders understand that it is at this level that organizational issues must be
addressed if its members are to develop and act with the courage it will take to
engage in the self-change that is the precursor to long-lasting change in
performance and productivity (McWhinney, 1992).
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Returning to the metaphor of the medieval tapestry, one way that leaders can
ferret out these more substantive issues is to examine carefully the tapestry’s
reverse side. In contrast to the unified, colorful, and more pleasing depiction on
the tapestry’s front side, its back side reveals a bland if not colorless and rather
displeasing hodgepodge of strands and knots that only vaguely hint at the beauty
and texture revealed on the reverse side. And yet, if it were not for the artist who
used one single strand of fiber to pull together all of the remaining strands—the
theory of practice revealed on the tapestry’s back side—what the world now
recognizes as an objet d’art, would not exist. And, if one were to judge the worth
of a tapestry solely upon a review of its rather unsightly back side, one might
bypass something of truly great worth and permanence.
And, so it is with organizations and their leaders.
Core beliefs and values are those cherished, universally accepted ideals that
members of organizations possess in common. These represent what people
stand for and aspire to as well as what they revere. These ideals shape the
membership’s collective identity as they provide meaning, evoke pride, and
motivate cooperative behavior. In other words, organizational culture is strong to
the degree it is cohesive in terms of its members’ ideals. Without leaders who
capably attend to the elements of organizational culture, individual elements of
culture might well remain disjointed and adversely affect organizational
functioning while the strands what could be unified into an organizational
tapestry remain fragmented and never attains their artistic potential.
A strong organizational culture, then, is not simply “the way we do things around
here” (Bower, 1966, p. 12). Nor is a strong culture simply a “system of values,
symbols, and shared meanings” (Sergiovanni & Corbally, 1984, p. viii) that is
“historically rooted [and] socially transmitted” (Deal & Kennedy, 1990, p. 8). A
strong culture is more than this, Schein argues. It is comprised of “deeply
embedded, unconscious basic assumptions” that are the “essence” of the
organization (1992, p. 12). For Barnard (1938), these assumptions provide the
“purpose” that is the “moral factor” for leading organizations and the people in
them.
Through their theories of practice, these leaders unite the diverse strands of
organizational culture into masterpieces of beauty and grace. They do so by
envisioning what the organizational should look like, organizing the various
strands of organizational culture, and uniting them into an entity that functions as
it should. These managers and leaders accomplish this artistic feat by attending
to the messiness associated with the organization’s “back side.”