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Cultural Approach to Organizations
Clifford Geertz & Michael Pacanowsky

GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION: ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Chapter 19
 Organizational Communication
Communicative Constitutions... 
Chapter 19
 Organizational Communication
Communicative Constitutions... 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction.
    1. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz views cultures as webs of shared meaning, shared understanding, and shared sensemaking.
    2. Geertz' work has focused on Third World cultures, but his ethnographic approach has been applied by others to organizations.
    3. In the field of speech communication, Michael Pacanowsky has applied Geertz's approach in his research of organizations.
    4. Pacanowsky asserts that communication creates and constitutes the taken-for-granted reality of the world.
  2. Culture as a metaphor of organizational life.
    1. Interest in culture as a metaphor for organizations stems from our recent interest in Japanese corporations.
    2. Corporate culture has several meanings.
      1. The surrounding environment that constrains a company’s freedom of action.
      2. An image, character, or climate controlled by a corporation.
      3. Pacanowsky argues that culture is not something an organization has, but is something an organization is.
  3. What culture is; what culture is not.
    1. Geertz and his colleagues do not distinguish between high and low culture.
    2. Culture is not whole or undivided.
    3. Pacanowsky argues that the web of organizational culture is the residue of employees' performances.
    4. The elusive nature of culture prompts Geertz to label its study a “soft science.”
  4. Thick description—what ethnographers do.
    1. Participant observation, the research methodology of ethnographers, is a time-consuming process.
    2. Pacanowsky researched Gore & Associates.
    3. Although Pacanowsky now works with Gore, the company he researched, he earlier cautioned against “going native.”
    4. An ethnographer has five tasks.
      1. Accurately describe talk and actions and the context in which they occur.
      2. Capture the thoughts, emotions, and the web of social interactions.
      3. Assign motivation, intention, or purpose for what people said and did.
      4. Artfully write this up so readers feel they’ve experienced the events.
      5. Interpret what happened; explain what it means within this culture.
    5. Thick description refers to the intertwined layers of common meaning that underlie what people say and do.
      1. Thick description involves tracing the many strands of a cultural web and tracking evolving meaning.
      2. Thick description begins with a state of bewilderment.
      3. The puzzlement is reduced by observing as a stranger in a foreign land.
    6. Ethnographers approach their research very differently from behaviorists.
      1. They are more interested in the significance of behavior than in statistical analysis.
      2. Pacanowsky warns that statistical analysis and classification across organizations yields superficial results. 
    7. As an ethnographer, Pacanowsky is particularly interested in imaginative language, stories, and nonverbal rites and rituals.
  5. Metaphors: taking language seriously.
    1. Widely used metaphors offer a starting place for assessing the shared meaning of a corporate culture.
    2. Metaphors are valuable tools for both the discovery and communication of organizational culture.
  6. The symbolic interpretation of story.
    1. Stories provide windows into organizational culture.
    2. Pacanowsky focuses on the script-like qualities of narratives that line out roles in the company play.
    3. Pacanowsky posits three types of organizational narratives.
      1. Corporate stories reinforce management ideology and policies.
      2. Personal stories define how individuals would like to be seen within an organization.
      3. Collegial stories—usually unsanctioned by management—are positive or negative anecdotes about others within the organization that pass on how the organization “really works.”
    4. Both Geertz and Pacanowsky caution against simplistic interpretation of stories.
    5. Pacanowsky has demonstrated that scholars can use fiction to convey the results of their research.
  7. Ritual: this is the way it's always been, and always will be.
    1. Rituals articulate multiple aspects of cultural life.
    2. Some rituals are nearly sacred and difficult to change.
  8. Can the manager be an agent of cultural change?
    1. The cultural approach is popular with executives who want to use it as a tool, yet culture is extremely difficult to manipulate. 
    2. Even if such manipulation is possible, it may be unethical.
    3. Linda Smircich notes that communication consultants may violate the ethnographer's rule of nonintervention and may even extend management’s control within an organization.
  9. Critique: is the cultural approach useful?
    1. The cultural approach adopts and refines the qualitative research methodology of ethnography to gain a new understanding of a specific group of people, particularly in clarifying values of the culture under study.
    2. The cultural approach is criticized by corporate consultants who believe that knowledge should be used to influence organizational culture.
    3. Critical theorists attack the cultural approach because it does not evaluate the customs it portrays.
    4. The goal of symbolic analysis is to create a better understanding of what it takes to function effectively within the culture.
    5. Adam Kuper is critical of Geertz for his emphasis on interpretation rather than behavioral observation.
    6. The cultural approach may fall short on one of the criteria for good interpretive theory, aesthetic appeal.

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Archived chapters (PDF)
from previous editions
are available in
Resources by Type.
See list

New to Theory
Resources?
Find out more in this short
video overview (3:01).


Cultural Approach to Organizations
Clifford Geertz & Michael Pacanowsky

GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION: ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Chapter 19
 Organizational Communication
Communicative Constitutions... 
Chapter 19
 Organizational Communication
Communicative Constitutions... 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction.
    1. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz views cultures as webs of shared meaning, shared understanding, and shared sensemaking.
    2. Geertz' work has focused on Third World cultures, but his ethnographic approach has been applied by others to organizations.
    3. In the field of speech communication, Michael Pacanowsky has applied Geertz's approach in his research of organizations.
    4. Pacanowsky asserts that communication creates and constitutes the taken-for-granted reality of the world.
  2. Culture as a metaphor of organizational life.
    1. Interest in culture as a metaphor for organizations stems from our recent interest in Japanese corporations.
    2. Corporate culture has several meanings.
      1. The surrounding environment that constrains a company’s freedom of action.
      2. An image, character, or climate controlled by a corporation.
      3. Pacanowsky argues that culture is not something an organization has, but is something an organization is.
  3. What culture is; what culture is not.
    1. Geertz and his colleagues do not distinguish between high and low culture.
    2. Culture is not whole or undivided.
    3. Pacanowsky argues that the web of organizational culture is the residue of employees' performances.
    4. The elusive nature of culture prompts Geertz to label its study a “soft science.”
  4. Thick description—what ethnographers do.
    1. Participant observation, the research methodology of ethnographers, is a time-consuming process.
    2. Pacanowsky researched Gore & Associates.
    3. Although Pacanowsky now works with Gore, the company he researched, he earlier cautioned against “going native.”
    4. An ethnographer has five tasks.
      1. Accurately describe talk and actions and the context in which they occur.
      2. Capture the thoughts, emotions, and the web of social interactions.
      3. Assign motivation, intention, or purpose for what people said and did.
      4. Artfully write this up so readers feel they’ve experienced the events.
      5. Interpret what happened; explain what it means within this culture.
    5. Thick description refers to the intertwined layers of common meaning that underlie what people say and do.
      1. Thick description involves tracing the many strands of a cultural web and tracking evolving meaning.
      2. Thick description begins with a state of bewilderment.
      3. The puzzlement is reduced by observing as a stranger in a foreign land.
    6. Ethnographers approach their research very differently from behaviorists.
      1. They are more interested in the significance of behavior than in statistical analysis.
      2. Pacanowsky warns that statistical analysis and classification across organizations yields superficial results. 
    7. As an ethnographer, Pacanowsky is particularly interested in imaginative language, stories, and nonverbal rites and rituals.
  5. Metaphors: taking language seriously.
    1. Widely used metaphors offer a starting place for assessing the shared meaning of a corporate culture.
    2. Metaphors are valuable tools for both the discovery and communication of organizational culture.
  6. The symbolic interpretation of story.
    1. Stories provide windows into organizational culture.
    2. Pacanowsky focuses on the script-like qualities of narratives that line out roles in the company play.
    3. Pacanowsky posits three types of organizational narratives.
      1. Corporate stories reinforce management ideology and policies.
      2. Personal stories define how individuals would like to be seen within an organization.
      3. Collegial stories—usually unsanctioned by management—are positive or negative anecdotes about others within the organization that pass on how the organization “really works.”
    4. Both Geertz and Pacanowsky caution against simplistic interpretation of stories.
    5. Pacanowsky has demonstrated that scholars can use fiction to convey the results of their research.
  7. Ritual: this is the way it's always been, and always will be.
    1. Rituals articulate multiple aspects of cultural life.
    2. Some rituals are nearly sacred and difficult to change.
  8. Can the manager be an agent of cultural change?
    1. The cultural approach is popular with executives who want to use it as a tool, yet culture is extremely difficult to manipulate. 
    2. Even if such manipulation is possible, it may be unethical.
    3. Linda Smircich notes that communication consultants may violate the ethnographer's rule of nonintervention and may even extend management’s control within an organization.
  9. Critique: is the cultural approach useful?
    1. The cultural approach adopts and refines the qualitative research methodology of ethnography to gain a new understanding of a specific group of people, particularly in clarifying values of the culture under study.
    2. The cultural approach is criticized by corporate consultants who believe that knowledge should be used to influence organizational culture.
    3. Critical theorists attack the cultural approach because it does not evaluate the customs it portrays.
    4. The goal of symbolic analysis is to create a better understanding of what it takes to function effectively within the culture.
    5. Adam Kuper is critical of Geertz for his emphasis on interpretation rather than behavioral observation.
    6. The cultural approach may fall short on one of the criteria for good interpretive theory, aesthetic appeal.

 
 
 
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