Anthropology Of Organizational Culture Research Paper

1. Interest In Organizational Culture In Historical Perspective

In academic circles in the late 1970s, and in organizational practice a few years later, people began to realize that the instrumental-rational view of organizations that had been adhered to until then had not produced the success it had promised. This view rose to prominence in the nineteenth century and was developed further by Taylor (1912) in the theory of scientific management at the beginning of the twentieth century. This approach was characterized by increased efficiency, division of functions, and control of the production process in accordance with rational principles. Questions such as motivation and staff cooperation, which had emerged as relevant aspects of organization in the course of the well-known Hawthorne researches in the 1920s, were also tackled from this angle. After a while the idea that an organization is like a machine was dropped in favor of the metaphor of an organism, giving greater prominence to mutual functional harmonization and adaptation to the environment, but this did not lead to a fundamental rejection of the principles of scientific management.

By the end of the 1970s, however, a number of factors produced doubt. The Western economy was in recession, while that of Japan, where completely different views of management and organization held sway, was growing. Publications revealed that the distinctive features of Japanese companies were a shared culture and identification with the firm, in addition to quality, customer orientation, and considerable attention to the developmental and preparatory process. Moreover, the study by Peters and Watermann (1980) of the characteristics of several dozen successful North American companies seemed to confirm the suspicion that organizational culture was decisive for success or failure. According to Peters and Watermann, the ideal culture was one characterized by customer orientation, flexibility, and unity of purpose. This emphasis on financial success, excellence, and quality was welcomed by many young people who had enough of the pessimism, sobriety, and modesty of the 1970s. This group also favored the development of an identity of one’s own organization, as it was in line with the trend towards distinction and the development of personal lifestyles in a globalizing society in which behavior was less and less guided by tradition.

Within a short time the notion of organizational culture became a priority for managers and consultants. Very many organizations initiated trajectories for organizational change at this point, and in the course of time the list of desirable cultural aspects was extended to include such values as self-directing and communicational skills. However, many of these trajectories did not yield the success that they had been expected to provide. This is partly due to the fact that the instrumental-rational notion of management has not really been abandoned. This can be seen clearly once we take a closer look at how organizational culture has been approached by the mainstream of organizational scientists to date and which preferences are displayed by the practitioners (managers and their consultants).

2. Organizational Culture: Stability And Unity, Diversity And Dynamics, Or Both?

Many organizational experts emphasize the values, norms, rituals, and myths shared by members of the organization. They often see the culture of an organization as a variable like structure or strategy. For others an organizational culture almost always implies internal differences and contradictions, but after a while these subcultures become reasonably stable. Yet others see organizational culture, especially in the individualizing societies of the West, as a dynamic entity in which converging, diverging, and fragmenting processes operate simultaneously. Most theorists in the latter group do not regard culture as a variable like strategy or structure; they take an organization to be a culture. In other words, in every organizational process, and thus in the establishment of a structure too, meanings are constructed, produced, interpreted, and distributed. These perspectives on organizational culture, as we shall see, have important consequences for what is regarded as the object of research, as well as for the response to the question of whether and how culture can be organized and managed.

2.1 The Integration Approach

A prominent and influential representative of this group is the social psychologist Schein, whose 1985 publication was a major contribution to the theoretical elaboration of the concept of organizational culture. The key element in his theory is that the norms, values, heroes, myths, and symbols of a group are based on how the group deals with the question of order (‘internal integration’) and the problem of adjustment to the surroundings (‘external adaptation’). These basic assumptions arise during the first stage in the life cycle of a group by means of a group dynamic process in which each person has received a position and leadership has been defined. After a while they are internalized and new members are socialized into them. In other words, they are transferred from generation to generation, and there is practically no awareness of those basic assumptions (and their transfer). They refer to the relation to nature, they provide an answer to the question of what is true and legitimate, on what authority is based, what human nature entails, and how people view interpersonal relations and work (incidentally, these categories were taken from the cross-cultural research conducted by the anthropologists Kluckhohn et al. in 1955). The integrating function of culture is expressed in an organization in the mission, the objectives, the means, and the opportunities for monitoring and correcting. The adaptive function is reflected in the shared language, the group boundaries, the views held on influence and status, the relations of intimacy and friendship, and the sanctions and rewards. According to Schein, groups can only have an organizational culture when they display a reasonable level of stability, homogeneity, and cohesion. This emphasis on unity, stability, and continuity can be found among virtually all the researchers who apply an integration approach to organizational culture. They consider that an organization must aim for a shared culture; difference weakens, and in this case they often distinguish between strong and weak cultures.

Research conducted from an integration perspective displays three other major characteristics. First, the research method is primarily quantitative, with a preference for questionnaires and scaled questions. Second, there is an implicit—and often explicit— assumption that culture is something that can be made, and that the person at the top has a large influence on the process of forming a culture. Organizational cultures can be changed by presenting different missions, introducing new styles of leadership, modifying systems of rewards, and altering the organizational structure. Third, most of those who adopt an integration approach display a tendency to prescribe, implicitly following a ‘one best way’ strategy. They often present ideal organizational cultures with characteristics such as customer orientation, the spirit of enterprise, flexibility, external orientation, empowerment, self-direction, etc. Hardly any of them ask themselves whether time and place ought to be taken into account. Most models on the relation between the success and the culture of an organization that claim to be universally applicable have been elaborated in the United States, although there are positive exceptions to this rule, such as Hofstede (1980) and Trompenaars (1993). On the basis of a wealth of empirical material, they show that there are significant national differences in attitudes to work, personal relations within the organization, time, truth, authority, and nature. They both consider that differences in national culture are more significant and influential than differences in organizational culture. National cultures are older, cover more walks of life, and are therefore more deeply rooted. Their theory is that the larger the difference between national cultures, the more problematical cooperation between (members of ) the organizations from two different countries is likely to be. In all other respects, however, Hofstede and Trompenaars share the same characteristics as other researchers on culture from an integration perspective. No attention is paid to the dynamics of culture, the theory pays little, if any, heed to other organizational aspects such as power, and the methodology is quantitative, based on scaled questions and dimensions. The hypothesis that cultural difference is decisive for the success or failure of international cooperation has been falsified in a number of researches. The (perceived) difference in power between two organizations, and the difference in power between the countries in which their head offices are located, prove to be significant intervening variables (see, e.g., van Marrewijk 1999).

Many researchers who adopt an integration perspective have elaborated typologies. A well-known one, for example, is that of Deal and Kennedy (1982): ‘bet your company,’ ‘tough-guy macho culture,’ ‘process culture,’ and ‘work-hard-play-hard culture,’ based on the dimensions of high and low risk attaching to decisions called for by the surroundings and the rapidity of feedback to the quality of those decisions. Another familiar typology is that of Handy (1985), based on the dimensions distribution of power and organizational structure: Zeus or club culture; Apollo or role culture; Athena or task culture; and Dionysus or person culture.

2.2 The Differentiation Approach

Already in the late 1970s there was a small group of researchers who concentrated on the formation of subcultures within organizations (a controversial researcher is van Maanen 1991). They take the existence of subcultures to be inherent in every organization. After all, members of organizations occupy different positions (of power), are located in different buildings, and differ in terms of gender, training, ethnicity, age, political preference, and ideology. This has often led to the emergence of (informal) subcultures, which sometimes assume the character of a counterculture in opposition to the dominant culture. Those who adopt a differentiation approach to organizational culture are thus interested in relations between subculture and power. However, they show hardly any interest in the immanent dynamics of culture, nor do many of them consider the relation between (diversity in) organizational culture and success to be an important question for empirical research.

The issue of how culture can best be directed or managed in organizations is not a main one for them. Their main research aim is to describe and explain the different systems of meaning in organizations in themselves. They make much more use of qualitative, ethnographic research methods (such as participant observation, group discussions, and interviews with lists of topics) for this purpose than do the researchers who adopt an integration perspective. There are, it is true, a few researchers who promote the advantages of cultural diversity in organizations (with the slogan ‘management of diversity’), but they hardly back up their claims with detailed empirical research in the field. Managers and consultants have displayed a very minimal interest in the differentiation perspective so far. Some measure of a cautious change in their attitude can be detected in recent years, but this is mainly confined to the front stage where managers operate. Back stage, most managers still cling to the idea that difference weakens and that an ideal of unity is thus preferable.

2.3 The Fragmentation And Multiple Perspective Approaches

These two approaches are primarily products of the last few years and certainly have not come to constitute a mainstream yet. Adherents to the fragmentation approach claim that every element of culture has an ambiguous character, and that no culture or subculture is consistent and stable. This perspective has its roots in postmodernism, which calls into question the possibility of attaining an objective ideal of truth and places strong emphasis on the situational construction and production of (virtual) realities by means of signs. It takes an organization to be a nexus of configurations of meaning that partially overlap and intersect, thereby presenting individuals with many problems of choice and uncertainties (see, e.g., Martin 1992). The decisions that they take eventually lead to new cultural permutations. Research within this perspective targets the question of which meanings are constructed and produced, by whom, and when. The criticism that has been leveled against this approach is that its proponents see fragmentation, complexity, chaos, and turbulence everywhere, and fail to pay attention to the fact that organizations are always reorganized and brought into a new state of integration (see, e.g., Alvesson 1993).

Moreover, what at first sight appears to be unclear or ambiguous may turn out to have much more structure after it has been investigated in greater depth. It is thus advisable to keep an eye out for processes of integration, differentiation, and fragmentation in organizations, as well as the fact that a relation can be indicated between these three processes (Koot 1993). A culture offers not only safety, security, and shelter, but also opportunities for the classification of who belongs to the in-group and who to the out-group. In other words, culture connects and integrates, but it also distinguishes and contrasts. When there are major clashes of interests, cultural differences may sometimes be used strategically—for example, by accentuating those differences—to keep the other at a distance and to create internal homogeneity and fighting spirit. This process takes place not only between but also within organizations. The chance of its taking place is very high if the organization is large, international, stratified, and functionally differentiated. Moreover, it appears that the rapid, forced attempt from above to bring subcultures together in order to satisfy the ideal picture of unity of culture that so many cherish actually produces differentiation. The current attempts by many managers and consultants to give their organization a contemporary culture of unity, with characteristics like self-direction, empowerment, and flexibility, are paradoxical and lead to a large degree of complexity. There is a desire for unity, on the one hand, while all (or some) are supposed to be flexible and self-directing, on the other hand. If a part of the organization is made flexible and is offered only a temporary contract, for example, this may cause contradictions between permanent and temporary staff. Besides, the temps keep introducing new cultural elements, thereby increasing the likelihood of cultural hybridization, fragmentation, and confusion. Finally, because organizations have been faced more and more with the new technologies of communication during the last few years, networks (of information) emerge between individuals within and outside the organization and virtual realities arise. The fixed cultural patterns therefore intersect more and more, and there is increasing overlapping between false and genuine.

In other words, processes of integration, differentiation, and fragmentation take place in every organization, and especially in a postmodern one. This complex interaction is the main object of research for a small group of researchers on organizational culture, a relatively large percentage of who have a background in ethnography. Neither the fragmentation nor the multiple perspective approach has met with much of a response from the practitioners in organizations so far. In most cases their reaction to the complexity that they experience is to try to control and standardize the processes of signification and attribution of meaning. It is probably here that the deeply rooted basic assumptions of the West like rationalization and individualization, both deriving from the ideals of the Enlightenment, clash with one another. Furthermore, they both entail consequences that are diametrically opposed to the point of departure: increased dependency through specialization versus the goal of liberation and control. It is likely that one of the major challenges to managers and their consultants in the twenty-first century will be to escape from this dilemma. Of course, it is also an exciting challenge for researchers: to describe, analyze, and explain the cultural paradoxicality and to draw up scenarios on this basis.

3. The Role Of Anthropologists In Research On Organizational Culture

Anthropologists were still emphatically present in the Hawthorne research of the 1920s with their method of participant observation and their interest in how people live their everyday lives. Apart from a few exceptions, their interest soon declined dramatically. There are a number of reasons for this. The traditional field of study of academic anthropology has led to a certain bias in the object of research. The emphasis has come to focus on (the study of ) marginal, oppressed, and exotic groups, along with a distaste for (the study of ) the power center. Moreover, there has always been more stress on description and analysis and much less on directing and controlling phenomena. Nor should one forget that the dominant research method of anthropologists, participant observation, is relatively time-consuming and expensive, as well as threatening to find too many skeletons in the cupboard for some authorities.

However, towards the end of the twentieth century a change has taken place in the attitude of some academic anthropologists and the practitioners in the world of organizations. First of all, that world is beginning, in a very cautious way, to realize that the management of a modern organization is an exceptionally complex matter because of all the processes of globalization, localization, internationalization, immigration, and virtualization. There is an ever-growing demand for theoretical and empirical knowledge about such issues as what bonding, identification, trust, and survival mean in the fragmenting and hybrid organizations of today with their high pressure of work and fast tempo of life. This calls for research into how people go about their daily lives. Some anthropologists have come to realize that this is an exceptionally interesting field of study, and that they must drop their traditional reservations with regard to companies and the issue of management.

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