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

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

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

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

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

Something the
organization has; a
tool, skill, or lever
Inform workplace of
values
Change occurs through
management directive
and intervention

ROOT METAPHOR

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

Culture is SHARED

Culture is INTANGIBLE

Frameworks of understanding and interpreting organizational phenomena

Consists of values, assumptions, norms, and frameworks

Culture AFFECTS HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Construction of human interaction that affects and is affected by the behavior of all
members of the organization

Other characteristics

Communicative creations

Cultures are created, sustained and and influenced by and through human interaction

Historical

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

Scheins Model of Organizational Culture

Three Interrelated Levels of Culture

Artifacts and Creations

tangible, physical, or hearable things in the environment of the organization
Important to connect artifacts to values

Values
Sense of what ought to be, as distinct from what is
Common basis for operating together
Cognitive constructions

Basic Assumptions - represent the essence of culture

FIVE BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
Humanitys 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 . . .

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

Karl Marx
Roots in the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt (Frankfurt School)

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

Power - the possibility of imposing ones 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

Habermas - goal to develop a theory of society that aims at the selfemancipation of people from domination (the ideal speech situation)

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

Oppressive reality of organizational life does not have to continue

Oppression is not an inherent part of organizational life
Workplace democracy

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

Examine the oppressive circumstances experienced by women in the

workplace

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

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!)