Native-View Paradigms: Multiple Cultures and Culture Conflicts in Organizations

Author(s): Kathleen L. Gregory

Source: Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3, Organizational Culture (Sep., 1983),
pp. 359-376
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management,
Cornell University
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Native-View Paradigms:
Multiple Cultures and
Culture Conflicts in Or-
ganizations
Kathleen L. Gregory
? 1983 by Cornell University.
0001 -8392/8~32803-0359/$00.75
I would like to thank my colleagues who
read an earlier draft of this paper and/or
offered insights, critiques, and sugges-
tions. In particular,I acknowledge Howard
Becker, Mike Boehm, Douglas Chene,
Adele Clarke, Joan Fujimora,Judith Rem-
ington, Helen Schwartzman, Leigh Star,
Gwen Stern, Rachel Volberg, and Oswald
Werner. Several anonymousASQ re-
viewers also made suggestions that were
very much appreciated and led to some
changes in the paper. I also gratefully ac-
knowledge Eleanor Wynn's encourage-
ment and assistance in gaining access to
Silicon Valley research settings, and thank
those who participated as interviewees.
Tremont Research Institute, and especially
its president, Elihu Gerson, provided tech-
nical support during crucial early months
that was very much appreciated. This paper
is dedicated to the memory of James P.
Spradley who introduced me to the cultural
perspective presented here. The views ex-
pressed in the paper are, of course, my
own.
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This paper describes and critiques organizational culture
studies done in industrial settings, some of which were
based on anthropological paradigms, including the
structural-functional and configurationist holistic
paradigms. Most failed to explore multiple "native" views.
In this paper, a multicultural model is proposed for large
organizations, and problems of "cross-cultural" contact are
described. Native-view paradigms from anthropology, es-
pecially ethnoscience ethnography, are recommended for
exploring multiple perspectives in detail. An illustration
from a recent study of "Silicon Valley" technical profes-
sionals' "native" views is presented to demonstrate how
ethnoscience methods, in particular, can be applied to the
task of studying culture.
INTRODUCTION
The notion of "culture" is often associated with exotic, distant
peoples and places, with myths, rites, foreign languages and
practices. Recently, researchers have pointed out that within
our own society, organization members similarly engage in
rituals, pass along corporate myths and stories, and use arcane
jargon, and that these "informal" practices may foster or hinder
management's goals for the organization (Baker, 1980;
Schwartzand Davis, 1981; Dealand Kennedy, 1982; Petersand
Waterman, 1982). The study of organizational culture thus
becomes translated into the study of the informal or "merely"
social or symbolic side of corporate life.
In anthropology, where the concept is most fully developed,
culture concerns all aspects of a group's social behavior,
including their formal laws and technical know-how (Spradley
and McCurdy, 1975: 4). The traditionalgoal of anthropology has
been to make seemingly exotic practices of distant peoples
understandable by exploring them in context. Learning how
"native" participants make sense out of their own behavior
helps demystify apparently exotic practices. According to
Malinowski (1922: 25), the goal of ethnography is "to grasp the
native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of
his world."
Applying this anthropological approach in corporations leads
one to study participants' views about all aspects of corporate
experience. These would include the work itself, the technol-
ogy, the formal organization structure, and everyday language,
not only myths, stories, or special jargon. That some re-
searchers select these for special emphasis says more about
the culture of the researchers than the researched, for whom
all culture is equally taken for granted.
It is, in fact, the taken-for-granted quality of culture that
presents important research and practical problems in organiza-
tions. More researchers have emphasized the homogeneity of
culture and its cohesive function than its divisive potential. This
paper suggests, however, that many organizations are most
accurately viewed as multicultural.Subgroups with different
occupational, divisional, ethnic, or other cultures approach
organizational interactions with their own meanings and senses
of priorities. Ethnocentrism, the tendency to take for granted
one's own cultural view and to evaluate others' behavior in
terms of it, increases the tendency for misunderstandings and
359/AdministrativeScience Quarterly,28 (1983): 359-376
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1 semiotic, and behavioristic styles, where ethnography is the
"gParadigm"in this paper means conceptual
orientation or perspective from which re-
search questions, methods, and styles of
explanation flow. A paradigm is a re-
searcher's "native"-view regarding appro-
priate research behavior and, like the other-
native views discussed in this paper, is
more or less shared between those who
interact around particularresearch scenes
(cf. Sanday, 1979; Morgan, 1980). To iden-
tify the tradition of organizational research
in large, mostly private work organizations,
the word "industrial"is used to label the
kinds of institutions usually studied by
those who call themselves industrial
ethnographers (see Holzberg and Giovan-
nini, 1981, for a review). Different re-
searchers use their own designations for
such settings, and in this paper the term
"industrial"should be viewed broadly to
include corporate and, to some extent, bu-
reaucratic as well as manufacturing
settings.
2 paradigms emphasized "uncovering causal relationships and
In educational research, "culture" has been
used both in the sense of "ethnicity," with
the enculturating function of schools and
issues of cultural pluralism emphasized
(see Kneller, 1965), and also in the sense of
"school culture" or ethnography (see Wol-
cott, 1973; Gregory, 1976; Gregoryand
Mueller, 1980). In medical/mental health
research there have been numerous appli-
cations as well (see Goffman, 1961;
Schwartzman and Krause, 1981). Highbred
studies of medical education and occupa-
tions have also used a culturalapproach
(see Becker et al., 1977).
3
Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown differed
in their perspectives, with Malinowski em-
phasizing the manner in which culture
functioned at an individuallevel, and
Radcliffe-Brown emphasizing the social
functions of culture. Both were influenced
by Weber and Durkheim, as were others in
other disciplines (see Harris, 1968: 464-
567).
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conflicts to occur. It is suggested that using "native-view"
paradigms from anthropology to study the cultures of organiza-
tion members would lead to more complete understandings of
these culture conflicts.
BACKGROUND: CULTURALPARADIGMS AND INDUS-
TRIALRESEARCH1
In organizational research, as in anthropology, there is not one
cultural paradigm, but many. Nearly every branch of organiza-
tional research has used a cultural approach or construct at
some time. Each "incarnation" has its unique history and
situation leading to particulardefinitions of culture and
methodologies. References to anthropological paradigms, with
examples from industrial research, are presented here, but
similar instances can be found in educational, medical, or other
organizational research histories.2
Culturalparadigms into which these "incarnations" fall can be
classified along three dimensions of contrast: (1) holistic-
particulate, (2) explanatory-interpretive, and (3) external-view -
native-view dimensions. This is an elaboration of Sanday's
(1979) classification of ethnographic paradigms into holistic,
process and product of cultural research.
Holistic cultural paradigms lead one to view culture as an
integrated system, instead of focusing on particulartraits out of
context. The prototype for holistic cultural research is extended
ethnography within an isolated social group. Usually one an-
thropologist researched a group through living with them and
tried to understand their behavior as meaningful in its context.
The resulting ethnography sought to describe and explain the
entire group's culture in a timeless way. This image of a robust,
coterminous, stable social group and culture persists, particu-
larlyfor those who seek to describe the ethnography of a group
as a culture.
Sanday (1979) contrasted holistic approaches according to the
explanatory-interpretive dimension and identified two
paradigms: (1) an explanatory structural-functional paradigm
and (2) an interpretive configurationist paradigm. Explanatory
explaining covarying patterns" (Sanday, 1979: 532), whereas
configurationist paradigms were used by researchers "inter-
ested in describing and interpreting the whole, not in explaining
its origin . . " (Sanday, 1979: 531).
Explanatory Holistic Paradigms
The structural-functional paradigm adopts an organismic anal-
ogy of a culture and explains how cultural parts function to
maintain the integrity of a group's social structure. Malinowski
and Radcliffe-Brown exemplified this approach in anthropology
(see Sanday, 1979).3 In the first half of this century, industrial
ethnographers applied this, and other explanatory holistic
paradigms, in a major "incarnation" of research from a cultural
perspective.
The Human Relations school of management research used a
structural-functional paradigm to explore informal social organi-
zation or "human factors" in industry (see Mayo, 1933; Roeth-
lisberger and Dickson, 1939; Gardner, 1945; Warner and Low,
360/ASQ,September 1983
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4 Leighton, 1974: 303). The researcher's goal is to extract and
Morgan (1980) provided an alternative clas-
sification of organization research
paradigms. Especially of interest here is his
description of how metaphors (such as
machines, organisms, or even games) con-
strain theorizing in particular ways. In cul-
ture research, the small-society metaphor
has shaped research in important ways;
however, the extent to which it is, and is
not, appropriate has not been systemati-
cally studied. Like Morgan, I advocate apply-
ing multiple metaphors. In fact, some of
these may come directly from native
viewpoints. In philosophy of science,
Feyerabend's (1975) "epistemological
anarchy" represents a position similar to
Morgan's (1980) and comes closest to the
posture I advocate.
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Native-View Paradigms
1947; Richardson and Walker, 1948). In a recent review of
industrialanthropology, Holzberg and Giovannini (1981: 328)
summarized the approach in this body of industrial case study
research as follows:
The researchgoal was ethnographynot ethnology.... The re-
searchers characterizedthe enterpriseas a smallsociety inand of
itself, described its "culture"(routines,patterns,regularities,layout,
methods of keepingrecords,symbols, etc.) and mappedits social
structurein orderto delineate both formaland informalsocial
organization.
Rather than being basic research, these efforts were directed
toward enabling "scientific" managers to better control subor-
dinates by taking workers' cultural reactions into account
(Kanter, 1977: 23). The cultural control motivation of these
studies contradicts the more usual cultural relativist posture of
anthropology (see Herskovits, 1972). Further, the promanage-
ment position resulted in biased research that studied the
"irrational"behavior of lower ranking personnel and supported
unquestioningly the "rational manager" model (Kanter, 1977:
24). The strength of the Human Relations school was in its
recognition of the importance of informal social organization in
industry (see Arensberg, 1978, for further discussion; for
similar case studies, see Whyte, 1956; Moore, 1962).
Structural-functional paradigms were critiqued for leading to
static, noncontextual studies. This tendency was probably an
artifact of the small-society image they applied as a model.
Later, systems paradigms were applied to analyze industry
diachronically and within a broader social context (Holzberg and
Giovannini, 1981: 332; see also Rodin, Michaelson, and Britan,
1978). Conflict or structural inequality models (including Marxist
models) are another class of holistic explanatory paradigm that
has been applied to challenge the status-quo assumptions of
earlier research (see Nash, 1979; Kanter, 1977).4
Interpretive Holistic Paradigms
The premise of an interpretive configurationist paradigm is that
cultures can be described and compared in terms of distinct,
personality-like patterns of integrated principles. In anthropol-
ogy, this view is rooted in Boasian historical particularism, and
its introduction is credited to Benedict (1934). The paradigm
was further elaborated by Mead and others (see Sanday, 1979:
529-531). Various integrating principles have been proposed,
such as themes that run through cultures (Opler, 1945; Agar,
1979), values, norms, or cultural premises (see Kluckhohn and
delineate these principles.
The configurationist paradigm is criticized for being simplistic,
reducing complex cultures to a small number of principles, and
for overdrawing the extent to which principles lead to norma-
tive behavior (see Harris, 1968: 393-421). It has also been
criticized for insisting that cultures are consistently and fully
integrated, when in reality cultures encompass discordant
elements. Integration is an ongoing process that is never
complete (Spradley and McCurdy, 1975: 593-596). The contri-
bution of the configurationist paradigm is in its recognition of
principles that cut across cultural domains and that may act as
integrators (see Spradley, 1979: 185-203, fora discussion of
themes).
361/ASQ,September 1983
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Sanday (1979: 532) pointed out that organizational research in
the past had largely drawn from explanatory cultural paradigms
rather than from interpretive ones and suggested:
Perhapsit is time to returnto the holisticstyle as practicedby Benedict
and Mead. Itwould be interestingto see whether one couldtake a
varietyof organizational settings andcomparethem fortheirconfigura-
tionaltextureas Benedictcomparedthe Zuni,Dobuans,and Kwakiutl,
oras Meadcomparedthree New Guineasocieties forthe relationship
between sex andtemperament.
Her words appear to have influenced or prophesized a current
proliferation of corporate culture studies. Management re-
searchers are comparing companies in terms of configurations
of values. These configurations, or "cultures," are believed to
underlie characteristic behavior in organizations, leading to
successful or unsuccessful organization performance. Initially,
Ouchi (1981) compared Japanese companies' sets of values to
some American companies' values and was able to distinguish
three configurations that he called "A" (American), "J"
(Japanese), and "Z" (an American type with many Japanese-
like characteristics). More detailed analyses of Japanese and
American value configurations followed (see Pascale and
Athos, 1981). Growing conviction that cultural integration and
particularconfigurations of values contribute to company suc-
cess led researchers to typologize and compare various Ameri-
can companies according to corporate cultures (see Baker,
1980; Schwartz and Davis, 1981; Deal and Kennedy, 1982;
Peters and Waterman, 1982) and to examine the development
and transmission of value sets (see Pfeffer, 1981; Martin,
1982).
The current corporate culture studies are not substantially
different from earlier Human Relations research, in that the
goal is still to illustrate the impact of "irrational"human factors
on "rational"corporate objectives. "Rational" corporate objec-
tives correspond to management's goals for the organization.
Researchers in both areas sought to provide managers with
tools to assess and control the organizational culture of their
subordinates. This "managementcentric" motivation in corpo-
rate culture research probably contributes to the tendency in
these studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the culture with
respect to management goals. In some instances, cultural
integration has been evaluated in terms of the degree of
compliance or noncompliance with the normative view manag-
ers have of the organization, or even to define the dominant
culture as the explicit management philosophy. Managers are
then said to create organizational cultures and train employees
in them, as Baker (1980: 8) related:
Some successful corporationshave especiallydistinctiveculturesthat
they activelycultivateand manage, andthat contributesignificantlyto
theirsuccess.... IBM'stop managementcreateda culturecharac-
terizedby such shared beliefs as: (1)allemployees should be
respected andtreatedwith dignity,(2)the companyshould aimto
accomplishevery task in a superiorway, and (3)the customer should
be giventhe best service possible. IBMmanagementhas saidon many
occasions that this cultureis largelyresponsiblefor its enormous
success in the past 30 years.
But, as Arensberg (I1978:56), a veteran of the Human Relations
school reflected:
Cultureas shared meaningsand organizationas orderedbehavior,
together leadingto cooperativeresult,are not merelyplannedand
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 Native-View Paradigms

commanded; they are always partially spontaneous, responsive, both

self-realized and socially sanctioned and inspired.
Again, corporate culture researchers, like their predecessors,
are hampered by promanagement assumptions that make it
difficult for them to describe cultures as they are, before
assessing how they should be.
Native-View vs. External-View Paradigms
Cultural paradigms also vary along a dimension from emphasiz-
ing native or internal views to emphasizing external views
(Gregory, Remington, and Werner, 1978; Werner, 1981). "Na-
tive" is a technical term anthropologists use to refer to their
research subjects. The rationale for studying native views
comes from the belief that meanings are linked to behavior, and
those who take this perspective define culture as a system of
meanings. Their research goal is to discover and describe native
viewpoints, or "cultures."
Sanday (1 979: 532-536) compared two native-view or semiotic
paradigms in detail: Geertz's thick description and
Goodenough's version of ethnoscience. She pointed out that
"on close analysis the difference between Geertz and
Goodenough is not in aim but in method, focus and mode of
reporting"; thick description is interpretive, ethnoscience is
explanatory, but both aim at understanding culture from partici-
pants' points of view or conceptual worlds (Sanday, 1979: 534).
Two or more native viewpoints are likely to be, at least partially,
incommensurable to each other, and so comparing cultures is
more problematic forthosewho followa native-view paradigm,
than for those who use an external-view paradigm. An illustra-
tion of this problem is the difficulty of language translation. In
learning a particular language, one also learns to classify experi-
ence in a unique way; different languages classify and, hence,
describe experience in distinct ways. The cliched example is
the many words the Eskimo use to classify snow. Skiers and
snow removal experts no doubt have complicated classifica-
tions of their own. Even among these snow experts, snow
classifications would be different, making direct comparison
impossible. In anthropology, Sapir and Whorf explained this as
"linguistic relativity" and formally articulated this connection
between language and cultural concepts (see Whorf, 1941).
This idea is commonly referred to as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothe-
sis. Cultural translations subsume language translations, and
native-view researchers attempt to produce cultural transla-
tions, adequate for generating and interpreting social behavior
that natives would deem appropriate.
In external-view research, the researcher's or some others'
(e.g., managers') culture provides the conceptual framework
through which behavior is studied, with no expectation that
research questions oranalytic categories will conform to native
meanings. For example, actuarial studies of large-scale statisti-
cal regularities treat humans, theirartifacts, and/or behaviors as
"objects of study" and describe phenomena about which the
natives are presumably unaware (Gregory, Remington, and
Werner, 1978). Even those who view culture as meaning may
study human behavior from an external-view perspective.
Studies of attitudes, myths, and rituals can, for instance, be
conducted from an externalviewpointif the comparative
categories and frameworksdo not reflect nativepointsof view.
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5 means apparently shared meanings.6 Becker (1982) provided a
This definition of culture is my own, but is
based on several others'. Spradley and
McCurdy's (1975: 5) definition of culture as
"the acquired knowledge people use to
interpret experience and generate social
behavior," and Werner and Topper's (1979:
34) "system of knowledge that explains
the social and physical universe and pro-
vides plans and decisions for coping" were
particularlyinfluential. Like those, mine is a
cultural knowledge model, as contrasted
with other models based on artifacts or
core values (see Kroeberand Kluckhohn,
1952).
6
Here, the shared qualities of culture are
underemphasized intentionally. In most
cases, it is the social cohesiveness of
human beings and their use of culture to
coordinate social action that is emphasized
(see Becker, 1982). Additionally, the on-
tological status of culture is uncertain. I
implicitly posit somie kind of reviseable
data-base-like model that can be partlyrep-
resented as lexical/semantic fields (see
Werner and Topper, 1979). Notions of ac-
quiringand sharing culture raise the same
questions as does "having" culture. Some
culture, as I've defined it, can be stored
externally in books, computer data bases,
and other libraries.
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Whiting's (1963) "Six Cultures" study, which Sanday (1979:
536) categorized as the "behaviorist style," is an example of
research from an external perspective.
Industrialresearch spans the range but has emphasized exter-
nal viewpoints or has taken a middle position more often than it
has elaborated native views. Studies in work settings that have
focused on native views include Kemnitzer's (1977) research on
railroadoperators' multiple time senses, Smith's (1977) ethno-
graphic comparison of lake to saltwater fishermen's native
views, and Spradley and Mann's (1975) research on cocktail
waitresses' cultural knowledge. Some sociological studies have
incorporated native views along with external views (see
Kanter, 1977; Van Maanen, 1977, 1980).
RESEARCHAGENDA: CONSIDERING MULTIPLENATIVE
VIEWS
Before proceeding, the meaning of culture used in the rest of
this paper requires elaboration. "Culture," as used here, is
defined as learned ways of coping with experience.5A capacity
for culture is innate in human beings, and possibly some other
species, but particularculture, by definition, is not biologically
inheritable. To a great extent, coping with experience involves
sense making and acting in terms of meanings. A culture is
conceptualized as a system of meanings that accompany the
myriad of behaviors and practices recognized as a distinct way
of life. Although it is referred to as a system, culture is only
explicit as people express it; much of the system must be
considered as being made up of implicit meanings that motivate
behavior.
Culture is an individualized capacity, but researchers have
largely studied the social acquisition and use of culture for
collective action, assuming that meanings are shared. The form
and degree of sharing are problems in need of further study
(seeWernerand Topper, 1979), and in this paper, shared culture
description of how culture seems to be shared and to operate in
a situation, which can be summarized as follows. People
interact as if they shared culture. Through trialand error,
sometimes through conversation and negotiation, they confirm
whether or not their meanings are similar enough to get
through social interactions appropriately. Sometimes their ex-
pectations are confirmed; at other times they break down,
leading to further negotiation or even conflict. From a base of
shared culture, people can negotiate new apparently shared
meanings, and do, as a matter of course. Thus, culture accrues
to social groups of every type, from families to work groups to
corporations.
Further, particularculture is taken for granted by natives, for
whom it seems natural; actions based in other cultures often
appear "exotic" in contrast. The pervasive tendency to automat-
ically evaluate all phenomena from one's own cultural stand-
point is termed ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism can bean impor-
tant cohesive force within culturalgroups, but it often leads to
conflict in cross-cultural interaction. Anthropologists tradition-
ally recognize their own and their subjects' ethnocentrism, and
couple this awareness with a posture of "culturalrelativity"that
denies the superiority of any particularculture (Herskovits,
1972).
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 Native-View Paradigms

As mentioned earlier, culturalapproaches of several types led to

ethnographic industrial studies, beginning in the late 1920s
with the Human Relations studies and currently in vogue as
corporate culture research. Perhaps due in part to the small-
society analogy from traditional ethnography, and in part to
management development orientations, these researchers
largely assumed the whole organization to be a robust unit for
culturalanalysis and so described modal accounts of "organiza-
tional cultures" that deemphasized intraculturalvariation. If
significant intraculturalvariation was observed, the culture was
said to "lack integration" (Benedict, 1934: 196). The current
practice in some corporate culture studies is to contrast
"strong" homogeneous cultures with "weak" heterogeneous
cultures that deviate from management philosophy and are said
to lack integration (Deal and Kennedy, 1982: 5; Peters and
Waterman, 1982: 75).
However, the small-homogeneous-society metaphor is often
inappropriateto those organizations that are large, internally
differentiated, rapidlychanging, and only command part-time
commitment from members. Such organizations more nearly
resemble the complex society of which they are a part. In large,
complex societies (and probably in apparently simple ones as
well), the robustness of any group as a culture is questionable.
People participate in many groups and acquire culture in all
experiences (e.g., as family members, residents, citizens, em-
ployees). As affiliations change overtime, culture from past
experiences is carried into new ones. Thus, people as culture
bearers linkgroups simultaneously through joint membership
and sequentially over their careers (see Gregory, 1980).
Societies, and many organizations, can more correctly be
viewed in terms of multiple, cross-cutting cultural contexts
changing through time, rather than as stable, bounded,
homogeneous cultures.
This multiculturalquality of society and organizations has been
described by many (see March and Simon, 1958; Likert, 1961;
Goodenough, 1978; Strauss, 1978; Van Maanen and Barley,
1982). Arensberg (1978: 57) noted how "large-scale hierarchi-
cal organizations ... put persons of diverse [professional and
subcultural] traditions into harness together." He noted the
"clashes of values and traditions" that often result and ex-
pressed his concern that a "way must be found to identify, and
to reconcile if not satisfy, such diverse and opposed traditions"
in these "modern, multiplex bureaucracies and 'plural
societies'."
Therefore, it might be more accurate to separate cultural
integration from organizational integration, and to describe
organizations, rather than cultures, as either "strong" or
"weak" in terms of integration. Organizations that lack integra-
tion may be comprised of members acting from numerous
internally consistent but externally conflicting cultures.
Ethnocentrism exacerbates the intensity of conflicts, since
each coalition takes its position forgranted or may even assume
meahings and priorities are shared. The cultures may conflict
only in a few situations, or in many.
Culturalresearch focused on the organizational dynamics re-
sulting from such "cross-cultural" contact might elaborate
organizationalprocesses that are obscuredwhen the presuma-
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7 panies. The overall research focus was on technical profes-
Comprehensive methods sources for
ethnoscience ethnography include Werner
and Topper (1979) and Spradley (1 979), and
those interested in learning these proce-
dures should consult one or both sources.
Here, it is only possible to provide explana-
tions necessary for following the exam-
ples. A discussion of the various controver-
sies about ethnoscience is likewise outside
the scope of this paper. The main criticism
is that "native" views are not subject to
comparison as are observations from
trained, "external" researchers (see
WernerandTopper, 1979; Werner, 1981).
8 professionals themselves; they are the experts in their own
The primary units of analysis in this study
were individuals, occupations, projects, and
companies. It was necessary to study
several companies in depth to consider
multiple points of view and to gain a com-
prehensive understanding of how particu-
lar companies are intersections for many
individuals' careers. On the other hand,
individual participants provided a picture of
variation across the valley. Some ethnosci-
ence ethnographies are based on a single
informant's viewpoint or similarly, present
an idealized "single-mind model" drawn
from several informants. In this study, var-
ied points of view were presented in the
analysis and wider sampling was chosen
over working in-depth with a single
informant.
9 ing successive interviews. Criteriathey suggested included the
It should be underscored that each com-
pany was taken individually in selecting the
representative sample. For example, in
some, marketing professionals were not
considered "technical" and were not inter-
viewed. The native-view paradigm leads a
researcher to begin inductively, so random
or stratified sampling was not an appropri-
ate course for selecting participants. Be-
fore interviewing, it was not possible to
select units for sampling or bases for
stratifying. During the study, I took advan-
tage of native conceptions of repre-
sentativeness when asking, "Who s hould I
talk to here to get a representative picture
of careers?" Many native theories of sam-
pling were considered (see Gregory, 1984).
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bly shared organizational culture is the focus. Native-view
paradigms from anthropology would be especially appropriate
for exploring the multiculturalism of organizations.
Ideally, in native-view-oriented anthropology, a cultural relativist
posture leads researchers to explore controversies in detail as
various groups view them, rather than to evaluate positions
against a standard. Instead of starting with an assumption of
shared culture (either shared among all researched group
members or shared with the researcher), meanings are ex-
plored systematically, preserving and explaining the bases of
controversies (Werner, 1981). No homogeneous units or spe-
cific characteristics of culture are defined a priori,but rather
those groups and processes recognized by native participants
are discovered and studied "in theirterms" during the research.
DISCOVERINGNATIVEVIEWS IN SILICONVALLEY
Description of the Study
The following illustrations are from a recent ethnographic study
among technical professionals in Silicon Valley computer com-
sionals' careers. The goal was to describe and explain how they
managed their careers within and between companies, and,
reciprocally, how companies staffed design projects. Many
approaches might have been taken to learn about technical
work and culture. Since Silicon Valley is so multifaceted and
rapidlychanging, it seemed most appropriate to discover how
participants made sense of it themselves, so ethnoscience
ethnography was used to systematically explore native
viewpoints.7
The primarysources of information were necessarily technical
culture. About 75 technical professionals were interviewed.
Interviewees were selected in two ways. Technical profession-
als from a wide variety of companies and backgrounds were
interviewed as individualparticipants. Also, several companies
were selected as in-depth cases, or corporate participants, from
which representative samples of employees were interviewed.
Participants were guaranteed anonymity and confidentiality in
exchange for their cooperation.8
During the research, a major emphasis was on learning native
concepts for social categories and on identifying those with
contrasting orientations or cultures. Interviewees (both indi-
vidual and corporate participants) were recruited according to
native conceptions of representativeness, which emerged dur-
type of company one worked for (e.g., large, stable develop-
ment companies, start ups, research labs, software houses),
amount of experience one had, seniority, sex, ethnicity, place
and type of education, and, importantly, technical occupation or
specialty. The participants identified a number of generic tech-
nical occupations, which were sampled, including software
engineering, hardware engineering, computer science, market-
ing, technical writing or documentation, and technical
managements
Technical professionals' interviews lasted about one and a half
hours and covered the following major topics using an open-
ended format: (1) their current jobs, projects, and employers,
366/ASQ,September 1983
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 Native-View Paradigms

including reporting relationships, areas of responsibility, major

activities, and daily activities; (2) their backgrounds and careers,
including transitions, plans for the future, and nonwork ac-
tivities; and (3) their cultural knowledge about careers, staffing,
and worklife, for example, their understandings of others'
careers and jobs, companies' reputations, and so forth.
A few technical professionals were interviewed repeatedly as
key consultants. A smaller number of human resources profes-
sionals, general managers, technical recruiters ("headhunt-
ers"), coworkers, venture capitalists, and other Silicon Valley
participants were interviewed about their conceptions of tech-
nical careers and recruiting. All interviews were tape-recorded
and transcribed verbatim. Many of the interviews took place at
work and provided opportunities to make observations, which
were recorded as fieldnotes. Also, various kinds of documents
(e.g., personnel agreements, formal organization charts, com-
pany philosophies and histories) were collected as native texts.
Although the methods were ethnographic in a broad sense, the
focus was always on learning native viewpoints. Observations
were used as a source for interview questions, and discrepan-
cies between observations and interview statements were
explored in detail.
Native views were primarilydefined as cognitive systems, and
language was considered the least ambiguous representation
of native conceptual systems (Werner and Topper, 1979).
Interviews, documents, and passages of observed language
were gathered and analyzed with attention to discovering and
preserving intrinsic meanings. Data were content-analyzed
(coded and sorted) according to topics identified by participants
(such as their descriptions of companies, kinds of work, rea-
sons to change jobs, etc.). Systematic semantic structural
analyses (as developed by ethnoscientists) were used to elicit,
analyze, and represent native views as lexical/semantic fields,
data-base-like models of culture (as knowledge) consisting of
concepts linked by relations (Werner and Topper, 1979: 37).
The aim of using ethnoscience methods was to learn native
viewpoints accurately and efficiently, introducing as little bias
from my own culture as possible. Ethnoscience ethnography
gave me a set of systematic procedures for exploring lexical/
semantic fields interactively during the interviews and through
analyses of written or transcribed native texts. During inter-
views, I began with general questions to elicit a large sample of
language. This corpus was subsequently used as a base from
which to phrase follow-up questions, delving further into the
viewpoint. A very general question might be, "Tell me about
your job here, in as much detail as possible." In follow-up
questions, the structural principles of lexical/semantic fields
were capitalized on to elicit other concepts, to learn their
meanings, and to understand their relations (Spradley, 1979).
One basic relation, perhaps universal, is taxonomy or inclusion,
where one concept is a kind of another. Using this principle, I
might ask the follow-up structural question, "What kinds of
companies are there?", after discovering "company" as a
concept during a more open-ended question. The one or more
"kinds of companies" elicited, together with the cover term,
"companies,"forma contrastset. A contrastset is partof a
lexical/semanticfield and gets its name fromthe principlethat
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 categories (in this case concepts for various "kinds of com-
panies") stand in limited contrast to one another (Spradley,
1979: 158); they have some similarity, hence their inclusion,
and some dissimilarity, hence the need for separate terms. Any
contrast set can be represented with a tree-diagram referred to
as a taxonomy (see Figure 1). One-way arrows between terms
in the figure indicate the asymmetric quality of the taxonomic
relation. For example, a "start up" is a kindof "small company"
and, transitively, a kind of "computer product development
company." Parentheses around terms indicate a conceptual, as
opposed to an object, taxonomy (Werner and Topper, 1979). In
the study, such conceptual taxonomies, and other conceptual
structures, from numerous interviewees were compared, and
variations were explored.

(Computer Product Development Company)

(Large Company) (Small Company)

(Computer Product (Other Small

Division or Company, e.g.,
Subsidiary of a (Large (Start up) software house)
Large Corporation) Computer
Manufacturer)

Figure 1. Taxonomy of "kinds of computer product development com-

panies," a segment of one interviewee's lexicallsemantic field.

Coming to understand a native view entails learning to distin-

guish between the conceptual categories natives use. The
bases for conceptual distinctions are referred to as attributes of
the concepts. Various methods were used to identify attributes,
the simplest being asking for folk definitions and observing
definitions that occurred in the normal course of natives' writing
or conversation. For example, one informant defined a "start
up":
You go to a venture capitalist with an idea and a business plan that
involves one to ten million dollars up front and 18 months worth of
development to produce a product that will grow your company into a
fifty-million-dollar-a-year company in five years. That has to be a hig h
pressure situation. They [venture capitalists] don't want you taking off
three days a week. They want you to work eighty hours a week!
Numerous attributes (e.g., "working eighty hours a week")
were specified in this text. Further exploration of the contrast
set, "kinds of companies," led to more definitions, compari-
sons, and contrasts as meanings were fully elaborated. Such
explorations also led me to explore other contrast sets within
the overall lexical/semantic field.
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10
Klingand Gerson (1977, 1978) provided the
best analyses of structural evolution of the
computing world. They used a "social
worlds" view from symbolic interactionist
sociology (see Strauss, 1978) to focus on
the multiple shifting perspectives around
the production and distribution of computer
technology. Symbolic interactionism is
similar to ethnoscience in emphasizing
perspectives, but contrasts with it by plac-
ing less emphasis on learning native views
of perspectives (see Blumer, 1969).
Ethnomethology is closer to ethnoscience
in elaborating perspectives (see Garfinkle,
1967).
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Native-View Paradigms
Conceptual structures (taxonomies, attribute analyses, and
others) from the same individualat various times, and from
different individuals, were compared, and controversies were
studied in detail. Culturalsharing was thus operationalized in
terms of similar lexical/semantic field representations. Since
the process is qualitative and complex, however, for practical
reasons, only selected portions of lexical/semantic fields were
subjected to detailed comparison.
The following section presents a brief example from my study,
as an illustrationof the kinds of phenomena ethnoscience
ethnography identifies. Itis not a conclusive analysis of multiple
cultures in Silicon Valley computer companies and only draws
on a small subset of the technical interviews. Although I have
not detailed the representativeness and distribution of these
native viewpoints (see Gregory, 1984), they were certainly not
uncommon examples. In these illustrations, I emphasize the
research process of discovery, and, in some cases, I have
exaggerated the relatively "exotic" appearance to underscore
the importance of checking native views within a seemingly
familiarculture. One aspect of the wider study, the presence of
multiple cultures and conflicts, is exemplified (see also Gregory,
1984).
Silicon Valley Cultures
"Silicon Valley" refers to a geographic area about 25 miles long
and 10 miles wide that extends northwest from San Jose, up
the San Francisco peninsula. It is roughly equivalent to Santa
ClaraCounty, California. Its nickname comes from the dense
concentration of high-technology companies, many of which
produce or incorporate integrated circuits on slivers of silicon
called "silicon chips." Hundreds of semiconductor, consumer
electronics, computer, and similar companies are spread along
and between U.S. Highway 101 on the northeast side of the
valley and Interstate 280 on the southwest side. The human
population of Silicon Valley is also densely concentrated and
highly differentiated. Among local inhabitants are venture
capitalists, "headhunters," entrepreneurs, technical profes-
sionals, managers, clerical workers, and production workers
involved in high-technology companies and institutes.
Change seems to be one of the few constants. Multiple
occupations, technologies, and organizations are developing
simultaneously, in contactwith each other.10AIIare enmeshed
in cooperative and/or competitive relationships within the valley
and within larger national, industry, and international markets.
As balances shift, even the near future is hard to predict. For
example, the semiconductor industry recently slowed its rate of
growth, leading to some lay-offs and reduced production
schedules; meanwhile, personal computer and software com-
panies are booming, competing fiercely for experienced com-
puter scientists and software engineers, and they seem to
conjure up new buildings overnight. Participants often use a
gold-rush metaphor to describe the valley, and it seems to fit.
Pacific Microcomputer Corporation (PMC), the name I give to a
fictional composite of several companies the interviewees
work at, most closely resembles a medium-sized computer
products manufacturer several years beyond the start-up stage,
but not yet a large, "sluggish" company. It is housed in its own
recentlyconstructedbuildingjust off Interstate280. Visitorsto
369/ASQ,September 1983
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PMC are greeted by a young, male receptionist, are asked to
sign-in, and are given adhesive visitor's badges before being
escorted to areas where engineering work takes place. PMC
employees clip on or carry plastic badges that identify them by
picture, name, and employee number. Badges must be inserted
into black security boxes to gain entrance to several areas. PMC
zealously guards information about incipient new products by
requiring new employees (and participant observers) to sign
nondisclosure agreements and by controlling the access of
even PMC employees to information about products, if they are
not directly involved with their development. A few weeks prior
to several long-anticipated "product releases," one employee
described PMC as "pregnant with products," which vividly
captured the sense of expectation, combined with mystery,
that surrounds the development and release of new computer
products.
Most engineers, marketers, and writers work in a single huge
room where five-foot-high dividers define a maze of individual
work spaces or cubicles. A naive visitor entering this room
might observe casually dressed, collegiate-looking men and
women, sitting at desks, working at computer terminals, talking
on telephones, or simply chatting in small groups, and might
hear muffled conversations coming, presumably, from people
obscured behind partitions. To a completely naive visitor, for
example, one from a radicallydifferent culture, nearly every-
thing about PMC would appear exotic, just as the many settings
in which anthropologists customarily conduct fieldwork seem
exotic to those from the anthropologists' cultures.
A less naive observer, but one unfamiliarwith computer design-
ing work might not distinguish marketing from engineering
people, nor anticipate the existence of two competing projects,
nor understand why one PMC engineer is elated at the chance
to "alpha test the PMCB," while another is disgruntled at being
assigned to "maintain PMCA Pascal." A PMC native would be
likely to understand these and many other culturallybased
elements.
At PMC, "occupational communities" cross-cut the organiza-
tion (Van Maanen and Barley, 1982). These provide employees
with identities and significant reference groups within and
outside the company. Although not the only basis of stratifica-
tion, they are frequently a basis for folk classifications of people
at PMC and in Silicon Valley more generally. In one interview, a
software engineer suggested the following classification of
"technical professionals":
The maindistinctionsarewhat you'dcallsoftware types and hardware
types. Andthen, well Iwas going to say you'renot interestedin
marketing,but in fact a lot of people in marketingit seems to me are
convertedengineers. [People in] manufacturing,production,sales,
communications,personnel,those are alltotallyseparatecareers.
Using this and subsequent statements from the same en-
gineer, two taxonomies were constructed that correspond to
his stated understanding of these native concepts and their
relationships (see Figure 2). Inthe figure, Aand B can beviewed
as two planes in the same software engineer's multidimen-
sional lexical/semantic field. They show the complexity and
context-sensitivity of native viewpoints that may be portrayed
accurately through showing several versions. In the same

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 Native-View Paradigms

A
(Technical Professional)

(Hardware oftware
Type) / eype)

(Engineer) (Computer
(Technician) (Software Scientist)
Engineer)

B
(Technical Professional)

(Person in Marketing)

(Engineer)

(Converted
Engineer)

Figure 2. Two alternate taxonomies of "kinds of technical professionals,"

from a single native viewpoint.

interview, the software engineer defined a limited contrast

between "computer scientists" and "software engineers" in
the following way:
The difference is really,computerscientists are moreinterestedinthe
academicside of it,andthey willwantto writea paperaboutwhat they
did,anddon'treallycaredeep down intheir heartswhether customers
have any use for anythingthat they're doing.Software engineers may
have exactlythe same training.Theycouldtakethe same courses, but
they see themselves as builders,and want to get something built.
This partialnative text identifies attributes he considers relevant
for distinguishing between the two conceptual categories. A
different software engineer, or a computer scientist might
distinguish between the terms on other bases, but would
probably consider his comparison appropriate. A newcomer to
the setting would be likely to misuse the terms through failing
to recognize the subtle distinctions between them. One un-
familiarwith computer-designing work would lack any aware-
ness of the terms or the social categories to which they refer.
PMC employees sometimes alluded to different occupation-
based or suborganization-basedcultures."Hardware,"
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11
Particular"native" orientations have been
noted by other researchers. This example
provides evidence to support distinct "sci-
entist" and "engineer" orientations (cf.
Ritti, 1971; Bailyn, 1980). In the next exam-
ple, the contrast between marketing and
engineering viewpoints supports similar
findings of Lawrence and Lorsch (1967).
However, the principle here is broader and
leads researchers to consider culturalorien-
tations based on a wide variety of structural
and historical experiences. For example,
technical writers may bring creative-
writing, artistic viewpoints to their work if
they were-chosen from those back-
grounds. Computer companies sometimes
intentionally import (technically) "naive"
users as employees. Ethnic backgrounds
provide another dimension. Overall com-
pany cultures, such as being an "ex-HP
manager" or being an "originalemployee"
often produce orientations that can lead to
cultural conflicts. The inductive, native-
view approach described here aims to un-
cover any bases for culturalorientations,
not only structurally predicted ones based
on supposedly rational interests.
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"Software," "Engineering," "Marketing," "PAC Division," or
"Scientist" orientations were often mentioned. These would
presumably be represented by sizeable conceptual dis-
similarities. The software engineer, quoted above, elaborated
"engineer" and "scientist" perspectives in the following
way:11
Indevelopment[work]there's too much pressureto get something
done, and sometimes the onlyway to solve a problemis to thinkupa
new idea. Butan engineer's pointof view is you don'twant to do that.
Youwant to use well-knowntechniques that are sure to work.Onlyif
there's a problemthat no one knows how to solve do you have to
inventa new thing.There's a riskto invention.
Scientists are the other way. They don'twant to do what's been done
before because they won't be able to publisha paper.So, even if
there's a perfectlygood way to do it,you'dbetterthinkof anotherway.
In a similar kind of example, a "marketeer" who describes
himself further as "a converted engineer now in product
marketing" contrasted marketing, engineering, and sales
orientations at PMC:
Sales people want to plug holes. They see that they lost this sale
because they didn'thave this [productor service]. Marketingis trying
to lookahead so they will have time to respond[to competition].
Engineeringwillbe interestedin what's coming interms of where is
the system nowand where shouldit be a fewyears fromnowand how
do we get there. Itseems that for sales, onlythis month is important;
for marketing,onlythis yearis important;forengineering,nothingthis
year is important.
Just as more widely-held cultures produce ethnocentricity,
each occupational culture justifies its own centrality and em-
phasizes local priorities, as the "marketeer" elaborated:
Eachfunctionalareathinksof themselvesas beingthe company,orat
least at the center of it. Engineeringsees themselves as beingcentral,
with marketingtakingtheirstuff and handingit to sales. Marketing
sees themselves as coordinatingallthe other pieces. They'rethe ones
that set the tone for the companyin general.Sales people thinkif you
don'tget this problemsolved bythe end of the week, then we're going
to lose every sale.
Employees holding such contrasting viewpoints may try to
interact and coordinate their actions to produce computer
products but may find that their conflicting cultures complicate
these attempts or even make direct coordination unproductive.
These particularinterviewees were unusual in their ability to
articulate conflicts. Inactual practice, such conflicts remain tacit
and can lead to misunderstanding and wasted time and effort,
as the software-engineer indicated in discussing "research"
and "development" orientations:
They frustrateeach other totally.There's no communicationbetween
the two if they tryto worktogether. Instead,you set up a research
grouphere and a developmentgroupthere andtrynot to workclosely
together because you can'tget alongverywell.
Infact, at [PMC]we don't haveany research-a slightexaggeration-
we-have had, fromtime to time, groupsthat didn'tlast very longthat
were doingresearch.None lasted morethantwo months.Theywould
do something totallyuseless, totallya flop, andthey wouldjust sort of
dissolve it. Or,they didsomething so successful itwouldturnout to be
productdevelopment,andthe same guys that didthe researchwanted
to do the productdevelopment,so the groupvacatedthat sphere
again.We never haveongoingresearch.Withinthe companythere are
r
only two people we have now who arerea esearching-type people.
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12
For a similar discussion of the mechanism
of occupational commitment, see Becker
(1960) or Van Maanen and Barley (1982:
21).
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Native-View Paradigms
One of them has been turned into an engineer. Several of them came
from research, but they all became engineers."
Usually, individuals' careers proceed within single occupational
communities.12 But, both these interviewees had been "con-
verted," one from an engineer into a product marketer, and the
other from a computer scientist into a software engineer. The
term "converted" is revealing of the difficulty with which such
changes are made. The difficulty lies in changing cultural
orientations, as the software engineer explained:
We hire people, including me, from research who come here and are
not used to this notion of when you develop a product you always want
to avoid thinking up new ideas. It's hard not to think up new ideas.
That's the way I've been trained. And, it takes some learning and some
bad experiences to stop doing that. The rewards are getting a product
out. The rewards aren't in having a paper to write.
Once the change has been successfully negotiated, however,
the "convert" sometimes retains a sensitivity to the abandoned
perspective and is able to make contrasts between at least
these "familiar"cultures explicit. Converts become more adept
at cross-cultural "mediation" using their insights. In fact, the
marketeer reported experiences in which he acted as a trans-
lator or culture broker between marketing and engineering. This
is a naturallyoccurring instance of the conflict-resolution value
to be gained from understanding another's viewpoint. The
native-view paradigm provides a systematic way for re-
searchers, and possibly participants as well, to gain the advan-
tages of such "conversions" without literallychanging jobs.
At PMC, the overlapping of cultures creates numerous bases
for group segmentation or cohesion. Some culture is widely
shared, at the organizational or even regional/industrylevel, and
creates a basis for understanding. For example, innovation in
general and new products in particularare highly valued, as was
pointed out earlier. The opportunity to work on "the newest,
whizziest product" is sought by many Silicon Valley employees.
Those who share this basic understanding would know why
the engineer mentioned earlierwas elated at a chance to "alpha
test" (to give an early in-house trialto a product) a soon-to-be-
released new product. Conversely, "maintaining" last year's
product is assigned to junior, low-status employees, if it is
assigned to anyone at all. At PMC, the life-cycle of computer
products was so compressed that few stayed on the market
long enough to require maintenance.
But the value placed on innovation is not enough to guarantee
shared priorities. Values are often expressed differently when
they intersect with cross-cutting occupational cultures. For
example, the positive value placed on innovation is expressed in
different ways by engineers and scientists. Engineers concen-
trate on developing new products, specifically on "getting it out
the door" (releasing it to the market), whereas scientists
emphasize developing new technology. As was pointed out,
these goals are sometimes diametrically opposed.
CONCLUSIONS AND APPLICATIONS
Much past organizational culture research emphasized shared
culture and suffered from managementcentric biases. A multi-
culturalimage of organizationsleads one to considerboth
cohesive and divisivefunctionsof cultureandis recommended
373/ASQ,September 1983
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model for downward and horizontal com-
munication, as well as upward communica-
tion, and could provide a process for teach-
ing as well as learning cultural viewpoints.
Culturaltranslation is always conducted in-
teractively. If the goal is to reduce cultural
conflict, the process should be mutual and
symmetric, in so far as this is possible.
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