Rethinking Organizational Culture

What is organizational culture? Why does it matter? This book demonstrates that conventional wisdom on this fundamental business topic has surpassed its usefulness. The author wants neither to praise scholarship on culture nor to bury it – rather he wants to build something fit for purpose by reflecting on the power of stories and storytelling. Rethinking Organizational Culture argues that that the entrenched models of organizational culture wrench thinking, feeling, and action from a context that intuition warns us are complex and problematic. Arguing that novels and novelists offer an opportunity to redeem ‘organizational culture’, the text invites readers to recognise that stories of organization offer connections with organizational profanity, organized polyphony, and the organizationally prosaic. A stimulating and provocative read, this book will be welcomed by students, scholars, and reflective practitioners across the business field.

Organizational or corporate ‘culture’ is the most overused and least understood word in business, if not society. While the topic has been an object of keen academic interest for nearly half a century, theorists and practitioners still struggle with the most basic questions: What is organizational culture? Can it be measured? Is it a dependent or independent variable? Is it causal in organizational performance, and, if so, how? Paradoxically, managers and practitioners ascribe cultural explanations for much of what constitutes organizational behavior in organizations, and, moreover, believe culture can be engineered to their own designs for positive business outcomes. What explains this divide between research and practice? While much academic research on culture is challenged by ontological, epistemic and ethical difficulties, there is little empirical evidence to show culture can be deliberately shaped beyond espoused values. The gap between research and practice can be explained by one simple reason: the science and practice of culture has yet to catch up to managerial intuition.Managers are correct in suspecting culture is a powerful normative force, but, until now, current theory and research is not able to adequately account for cultural behavior in organizations. Rethinking Culture describes and presents evidence for a new framework of organizational culture based on the cognitive science of the so-called cultural mind. It will be of relevance to academics and researchers with an interest in business and management, organizational culture, and organizational change, as well as cognitive and cultural anthropologists and sociologists interested in applications of theory in organizational and institutional settings.

The purpose of this book is to reimagine the concept of culture, both as an analytical category and disciplinary practice of dominance, marginalization and exclusion. For decades culture has been perceived as a ‘hot topic’. It has been written about and deployed as part of ‘a search for excellence’; as a tool through which to categorise, rank, motivate and mould individuals; as a part of an attempt to align individual and corporate goals; as a driver of organizational change, and; as a servant of profit maximisation. The women writers presented in this book offer a different take on culture: they offer useful disruptions to mainstream conceptions of culture. Joanne Martin and Mary Douglas provide multi-dimensional holistic accounts of social relations that point up similarity and difference. Rather than offering totalising or prescriptive models, each author considers the complex, polyphonic and processual nature of culture(s) while challenging us to acknowledge and work with ambiguity, fluidity and disruption. In this spirit writings of Judi Marshall, Arlie Hochschild, Kathy Ferguson, Luce Irigaray and Donna Haraway are employed to disrupt extant management cultures that lionise the masculine and marginalise the concerns, perspectives and contributions of women and the diversity of women. These writers bring bodies, emotions, difference, resistance and politics back to the centre stage of organizational theory and practice. They open us up to the possibility of cultures suffused with multifarious potentiality rather than homogeneity and faux certainty. As such, they offer new ways of understanding and performing culture in management and organization. This book will be relevant to students and researchers across business and management, organizational studies, critical management studies, gender studies and sociology.

The world in which conventional organisational behaviour was established - one of high employment and first world economic domination - is very different to contemporary organisational settings. This book re-examines organisational behaviour.

Organizational or corporate "culture" is the most overused and least understood word in business, if not society. While the topic has been an object of keen academic interest for nearly half a century, theorists and practitioners still struggle with the most basic questions: What is organizational culture? Can it be measured? Is it a dependent or independent variable? Is it causal in organizational performance, and if so, how? Paradoxically, managers and practitioners challenge cultural explanations for much of what constitutes organizational behavior in organizations, and, moreover, believe culture can be engineered to their own designs for positive business outcomes. What explains this divide between research and practice? While much academic research on culture is challenged by ontological, epistemic and ethical difficulties, there is little empirical evidence to show culture can be deliberately shaped beyond espoused values, the gap between research and practice can be explained by one simple reason: the science of culture has yet to catch up to managerial intuition. Managers are correct in suspecting culture is a powerful normative force, but, until now, current theory and research is not able to adequately account for cultural behavior in organizations. Rethinking Culture describes and presents evidence for a new paradigm of organizational culture. It will be of relevance to academics and researchers with an interest in business and management, organizational culture, and organizational change, as well as cognitive and cultural anthropologists and sociologists interested in applications of theory in organizational and institutional settings.

This book assembles multi-disciplinary contributions to delve deeper into ReThinking Management. The first part provides some foundational considerations and inspirations. Further chapters offer more specific links to the arts and creativity sectors as well as empirical research and case reflections. ReThinking Management pursues the main idea that management theory is not merely a sub-discipline of economics, but rather a cross-disciplinary and critical field of research and practice, with a decidedly cultural perspective. While questioning the status and practices of conventional management, the book opens up for new understandings, turns and perspectives.

Research has shown that having a diverse organization only improves and enhances businesses. Forbes and Time report that diversity is an $8 Billion a year investment. However, poorly implementing diversity programs have damaging effects on the organization and the very individuals these programs attempt to help. Poorly implemented programs can cause peers and subordinates to question decisions and lose faith in leadership. In addition, it can cause even the most confident individuals to doubt their own skillset and qualifications. Many organizations have turned to training to solve this complex issue. Yet still, other organizations have created and filled diversity and inclusion positions to tackle the issue. The effects of these poorly implemented programs are highlighted during strenuous times such as the latest COVID-19 pandemic. Marginalized people are more marginalized, and resources and support do not reach everyone. Tasks such as providing technical support, conducting large group meetings, or distributing work obligations without seeing employees on a daily basis becomes more challenging. Complex problems cannot be solved with simple solutions. Using organization development (OD) to develop a comprehensive change initiative can help. This book outlines how properly conducting an OD change initiative can effectively increase an organization’s diversity and inclusion -- it is grounded in research-based literature on diversity and OD principles. Many organizational leaders realize the key importance of diversity, equity, inclusion and multiculturalism in modern organizations. It is only through such efforts can organizations thrive in a networked world where much work is done virtually—and often across borders. But a common scenario is that leaders, recognizing the need for a diversity program, will pick someone from the organization to launch it. Perhaps the person identified for this challenge is in the HR department but has had no experience in launching diversity efforts—or even in managing large-scale, long-term, organization wide change efforts. But these are the challenges to be faced. This book quickly identifies some reasons why diversity programs fail and how to avoid those failures. The majority of the book highlights how to use OD to improve organization culture and processes to not only increase diversity and inclusion but develop overall organization talent and prevent personal preferences and biases from hindering the selection of the best talent for positions.

Qualitative methods of business research are emerging as vital tools. Business anthropology is at the heart of this movement. Although many recent books provide nuts-and-bolts advice regarding the field, Rethinking Business Anthropology: Cultural Strategies in Marketing and Management discusses the intellectual traditions from which the discipline has emerged and how this heritage opens up new vistas for business research. Gaining these broader perspectives is essential as business anthropologists transcend being mere research technicians and seek to influence organizational policies and strategies. Opening chapters deal with the current status of the field and its relationship to ecological and cultural sustainability. This is followed by discussions of the intellectual foundations of anthropology and their continued importance to business anthropology. An array of chapters provides illustrative applications of business anthropology in order to demonstrate the field's unique and powerful potentials within both scholarly and practitioner research. The book concludes with a discussion of the role of business anthropologists in dealing with indigenous people, rural populations, and cultural enclaves. Increasingly, businesses seek to connect with such communities even though mainstream leaders and negotiators often lack the skills necessary to effectively do so. Business anthropologists, with their dual background in business and cultural diversity are poised to excel in this capacity. An appendix by Robert Tian, editor of the International Journal of Business Anthropology, provides a useful overview of the field as it now exists. As business anthropology comes of age, this timely monograph provides the perspectives needed for the growth and further development of the field and those who work within it. Excellent for the professional bookshelf and as a textbook.