Organizational Culture Theory and
Critical Theory
Move from systemic and structural issues to . . .
Culture Theory
Understanding organizations through a cultural lens with a
focus on values, attitudes and beliefs of members
Critical Theory
Revealing how social and technological structures within
organizations serve to oppress workers.
“Organizational Culture”
FOCUS
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Changes in Global Marketplace
Intense Competition
Reconsider Traditional Management Practices
Shift from traditional, highly rationale theories to
more fluid and irrational
 Societal consciousness-raising regarding oppressive
atmosphere in organizations for workers, women,
and minorities
 Inequities and Oppressive Circumstances
Organizational Culture Theory
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State University vs. Southern University Case Study
Attempts to explain behavior within organizations
Attempts to account for differences among organizations
Description of how members of a group live and make sense
of their world together
 Culture provides a lens through which its members interpret,
interact with, and make sense of reality
 Culture helps to explain patterns of behavior and thought that
characterize individuals and the groups with which they are
associated
 Focus on VALUES, ATTITUDES, and BELIEFS of members
Organizational Culture Theory
 Organizational culture provides
meanings for routine organizational
events, thereby reducing the amount of
cognitive processing and energy
members need to expend throughout the
day.
Misunderstandings and
Organizational Culture
 Cultural variations are often the cause of major and minor
misunderstandings as groups come into contact with one
another
 Value of cultural perspective is in illustrating the
misunderstandings that occur within an organization
 Culture may hinder organizations from progress in the future
 Organizations consist of “subcultures”
 Mergers and International Mergers are also a source of
misunderstandings
Two Competing Perspectives
on Organizational Culture
 Culture as Variable
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Something an organization “has”
By-product of organizational activities
Stories, rites, rituals, and heroes
Culture is changeable by management
Organizational “tool” for enhancing organizational effectiveness
In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman)
Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Deal & Kennedy)
Strong cultures have four key components
 Values - basic beliefs and concepts (concrete guidelines for success)
 Heroes - personify cultural values
 Rites and rituals - public performances that display and enact values
 Cultural network - primary carrier of cultural information (stories, myths, legends,
jokes, and gossip)
 Criticisms: shortsighted, more than strategy, not just a skill; culture is a complex,
communicative phenomenon rooted in the history of the organizations events.
Two Competing Perspectives
on Organizational Culture
 Culture as Root Metaphor
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Something an organization “is” as opposed to something it “has”
Organizations as expressive forms, manifestations of human consciousness
Culture is the process of sense-making created and sustained through communication
and interactions
Rituals and stories are ‘generative processes’ the yield and shape meanings
Provides deep understanding of the way members of a particular organization make
sense of the world around them
The essence of an organization is culture
Three Primary Elements
 Complex (multi-level construction of values, beliefs and attitudes)
 Communicative Construction (constructed and reconstructed through interaction)
 Subcultures and Countercultures
 Differential interaction
 Shared experiences
 Similar personal characteristics
 Comparisons on page 90.
Comparison of Two Competing
Perspectives on Organizational Culture
 VARIABLE
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Something the
organization “has”; a
tool, skill, or lever
Inform workplace of
values
Change occurs through
management directive
and intervention
 ROOT METAPHOR
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Something the
organization “is”;
expressive form
Create sustain and
influence culture
Change occurs through
natural evolution; all
members influence
culture
Definitions of Organizational
Culture
 Three common characteristics
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Culture is SHARED
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Culture is INTANGIBLE
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Frameworks of understanding and interpreting organizational phenomena
Consists of values, assumptions, norms, and frameworks
Culture AFFECTS HUMAN BEHAVIOR
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Construction of human interaction that affects and is affected by the behavior of all
members of the organization
 Other characteristics
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Communicative creations
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Cultures are created, sustained and and influenced by and through human
interaction
Historical
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Cultures emerge and develop over time
Organizational Culture Defined
Organizational culture is a communicatively
constructed, historically based system of
assumptions, values, and interpretive
frameworks that guide and constrain
organizational members as they perform their
organizational roles and confront the challenges
of their environment.
Multi-level Perspective on Culture
 Schein’s Model of Organizational Culture
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Three Interrelated Levels of Culture
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Artifacts and Creations
 tangible, physical, or hearable things in the environment of the organization
 Important to connect artifacts to values
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Values
 Sense of what “ought” to be, as distinct from what is
 Common basis for operating together
 Cognitive constructions
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Basic Assumptions - represent the essence of culture
FIVE BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
 Humanity’s relationship to nature
 The nature of reality and truth - is truth real or discovered?
 The nature of human nature
 The nature of human activity
 The nature of human relationships
Critical Perspectives on Culture
 Critical Perspectives . . .
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Reject the notion that organizations are value-free sites
Organizations are sites of struggle between management and workers resulting
in domination and oppression of the powerless by the powerful.
 Critical Theory
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Karl Marx
Roots in the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt (Frankfurt School)
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Knowledge is not objective; tainted by personal interests and the power structure
Involvement in the inner workings of society to reveal contradictions associated
with the imbalance of power
Provide critique that allows for the reversal of oppressive conditions in the future
Research goal: reveal how social and technological structures within the
organization serve to oppress workers
Researchers must engage in consciousness-raising among organizational
members
Critical Theory
 Organization as a Site of Domination
 Power, Hegemony, and Concertive Control
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Power - the possibility of imposing one’s will upon the behavior of other
persons
Hegemony - the predominant influence over others
Concertive Control - based on adherence to socially constructed norms and
values developed by organizational members as they attempt to structure the
environment
 Communication and Critical Theory
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Habermas - goal to develop a theory of society that aims at the selfemancipation of people from domination (the ideal speech situation)
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The utterances are truthful
There is a legitimate relationship established between the participants
The utterances are sincere
The utterances are comprehensible
Goal of Critical Theorists
Attempt to uncover the communication
practices, whether they be interpersonal, teambased, or organization-wide, that serve to
promote an unhealthy imbalance in
organizations.
Critical Theory: Issues and
Challenges
 Creating a more ‘human(e)’ workplace
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Oppressive reality of organizational life does not have to continue
Oppression is not an inherent part of organizational life
Workplace democracy
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Encourage SELF-REFLECTION
Encourage COLLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT
Encourage INDIVIDUAL OPPORTUNITY
Critical theory offers a means of identifying elements of constraint and
oppression and prescriptions for improving the situation
 The plight of women: Feminist organizational communication
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Examine the oppressive circumstances experienced by women in the
workplace
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Raise our collective consciousness regarding unequal treatment and oppression
Attempts to uncover the assumptions upon which those circumstances are based
Offers a variety of means by which the oppression can be alleviated
Critical Theory: Feminist
Perspectives
 Liberal Feminists - advocate working within the existing structure
 Radical Feminists - argue for a separation of men and women
 Materialist Feminists - gender differences are socially constructed
 Goal: Seek to show the centrality of language and interaction to the
circumstances women face in the gendered workplace
 Organizational members are able to understand how their communicative
actions and interactions contribute to either the perpetuation or the reversal
of the current oppressive situation (change behavior, affect the behavior of
others, help promote a more equitable and equal workplace for the sexes)
Summary
 Similarities of Organizational Theory and Critical Theory
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Both theories call into question the theories and practices of the past and view
organizations as more than the sum of management practices and task
allocation
Communication is central to both theories
Most critical approaches to organizations realize that it is through
communication that oppressive structures come into being and, in turn, restrict
the communication of certain groups
Communication is the way to freedom from those oppressive structures
Intention of both theories do not serve to increase profits -- they excavate the
underlying values and assumptions that guide organizational life and may
serve to oppress certain members
 Critical theory is not as popular as organizational culture theory
 Most organizations are unwilling to make themselves vulnerable to
disapproval (think about how this applies to your major research project!)