ORGANIZATIONS AND CULTURES
by
Charles Lamson
Organizations exist within cultural environments. Within each organization, there is a culture unique to that organization. These are the contexts within which organizational communication occurs. These cultures have an influence on communication
 |
The Organization within a Culture. All organizations have a home base, even internet organizations. The vast majority have workers who live reasonably close to a central location, where they all come together to work each day. many of these workers are hired because they live in that area. Others move to that area after they are hired. That area provides the culture in which the organization lives. The organization depends not only on their own employees, who live in that culture, but also on other people living in that culture for what it needs to survive - water, gas, electricity, roads, airports, telephones, food service, etc. The government policies, schools, churches, and recreational opportunities provided by the area directly impact the organization.
If an organization is based in New York City, it likely will be dramatically different than one located in Birmingham, Alabama, San Diego, California, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The people in it are likely to differ on the accent and dialect they speak, their religion, a general attitude toward life, what is good food and what time of the day it should be eaten, work habits, ethnic background, and a wide variety of other things which are culturally relevant. All of these external cultural elements work to shape the nature of the organization. Whatever area the organization chooses for its home base, the people from that area will serve as a significant proportion of the organization's workforce. That workforce will expect or demand that the organization will operate in ways that are consistent with the local culture. the bottom line is: Cultures shape organizations.
The Culture within an Organization. Over time organizations create their own culture, while the culture of an area impacts an organization. There are other forces at work as well. The culture of the organization is impacted by the kind of work that is done in the organization - blue collar and white collar organizations tend to have very different cultures. The leadership of the organization has a major impact on the organization - the kinds of people who are at the top, tend to define what kinds of people the organization values, and often what kinds of people are hired and retained. Over time (usually only a few years), an oral history of the organization develops. In this way, myths about great and terrible things that have happened, become real and current, and former employees become the rogues and heroes of the organization. Traditions are built, and acceptable, as well as unacceptable, behavior patterns are determined. Most everyone learns "how we do it around here." Diversity, at least in terms of values beliefs and attitudes, declines. individuals begin to identify with the organization, and an in-group is identified (The organization becomes "we") and other competing organizations are increasingly seen as evil, and not nearly as good as "we" are, hence out-groups are formed ("they"). Expectations for new employees become more elaborate and more rigid , and more programs designed to mentor, train, and socialize new employees are developed.
The bottom line is : Organizations shape cultures. Organizations are a lot like people. Where they grow up makes a big difference in how they are accultured. Nevertheless, each one develops its own personality. However, organizations which have multiple work sites (even if they are all within a close geographic area) are likely to develop different cultures. And if organizations physically move from one area to another, they go into culture shock, and have an extremely hard time dealing with the culture of the new area. If they get past that, and many do not, they develop a new culture, one that has some of the old and much of the new. Imagine what happened to the people in American Airlines, as well as the organization itself. They had been solidly lodged in New York City for decades, then they moved to Dallas, Texas, As the Texas Tourist Bureau puts it: "Texas, A Whole Other Country!" While this may be thought of as an amusing sloganm and good attention getter for the tourist business, never doubt whether it is the actual orientation of a very large proportion of real Texans.
Global Organizations. Until quite recently, most organizations had their home base in one country and conducted most of their business in that country. Many are still like that, but others have become multi-national or global organizations. Some of these have accomplished this by creating branch-organizations in countries beyond their home country. Others have accomplished this through mergers with, or acquisitions of, other organizations. At one time, many products had a "made in the USA" identification on them. That was taken to mean that the product was made from US materials, by US workers, in a US-located plant, owned by US people. Being "made in Japan" meant the same thing, except substitute Japan for US. Today, being made in the USA (or any other country) is hard to define. Today we buy a product which was designed by a German-owned firm in Canada, put together by US workers, in a plant in California, owned by a Dutch conglomerate, from parts imported from 35 other countries. There are so-called "American" cars that have less US made parts, than so called "Japanese" cars, and vice versa. And we can buy blouses made in Indonesia, in Dutch-owned factories, with material made in Mexico, in Canadian-owned factories, according to specifications of US-based designers. and they have the designer's label on them.
Organizations are not what they once were. They are much more complex. When multiple large cultures come together within a single organization, we would assume that the cultures merge into some blended culture. Many people who have looked at this phenomenon suggest this often is not the case. Rather, there often is a culture clash where people from the different cultures actively seek to get rid of one another, and ultimately one group wins and the other loses. This can be very costly on all dimensions for the organization. Similarly, sometimes organizations branch into new cultures, and try to make things work the way they do in their home culture. They virtually always fail. Both these patterns are commonly based on the same basic cause: The organization is highly ethnocentric, which i shall cover in the next article on ethnocentricism. To be continued...
*SOURCE: ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION FOR SURVIVAL 3RD ED. BY VIRGINIA P. RICHMOND, JAMES C. MCCROSKEY AND LINDA L. MCCROSKEY; PGS. 143-145*
END
|
No comments:
Post a Comment