Allie Sloan

Dr. Janet McPherson

Comm 250
March 17th 2015

Communication Theory Literature Review

Chapter 19
Cultural Approach To Organizations
Of Clifford Geertz & Michael Pacanowsky

BACKGROUND
The Cultural Approach to Organizations Theory has taken the ideas and
understandings from former University of Colorado professor Michael Pacanowsky
combined with Princeton anthropologist Clifford Geertz and his knowledge of culture.
The cultural approach looks for stories and shared meanings that are unique to a given
organization (pg. 243) and helps us have a better understanding of the importance of
members in a given organization. The history of this theory however does not stem from
our own American culture. Geertz gathered much of his research from the islands of
Indonesia and other parts of East Asia. It was in the 1970s and 80s when American
business men would travel to Japan to study methods of production and noticed strong
work ethic and loyalties to companies and qualities that they did not see in their own
culture. They had noticed these workers had a shaped cultural value of loyalty to each
other and to their corporation, which in part created a strong corporate culture that wasnt
seen in the US at that time. This theory, like others in this section, strongly challenges
the idea that members of an organization are like replaceable parts to a machine (pg.
243)
Geertz took his findings from cultures he had immersed himself in and
collaborated with an interpretive approach to his ideas of how corporations can properly
be managed. Geertz referred to himself as an ethnographer, one whose job is to sort out
the symbolic meanings of peoples actions within their culture (pg. 246). Pacanowsky
took Geertz knowledge of culture and applied it to his notion of organizational life and
connected the importance of communication to these ideas. Pacanowsky believed in
fully immersing himself as well, however not in foreign cultures like Geertz but in the

organizations where he would fully commit as a member. Within the company, W.L.
Gore & Associates, he took on roles such as problem solving mediator and later as a
consultant, so that he could fully understand the organization the same way the other
members experience the organization.

DESCRIPTION
So what is culture and how can a business possibly have its own? As defined in
our book, A First Look at Communication Theory, culture is webs of significance; a
system of shared meaning, shared understanding and shared sense making (pg. 244-245);
making it a traditional approach to management and a platform for organizational
communications. When you think about it, you see all of this in a companys system of
operation and how teams work together to get the job done. It is best stated in the
cultural metaphor of Geertz, man is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he
himself has spun (pg. 244). The webs illustrated in his metaphor represent culture and
what makes up culture is what holds the web together. Added to by Pacanowsky, if the
spun webs imply the act of spinning, then we need to concern ourselves not only with
the structures of cultural webs, but with the process of their spinning as well (pg. 244).
So how are these webs made? By communicating with those who we make shared
experiences with. We form realities based off of stories told and stories heard.
However just relating to what people say, though effective, is not enough to form a
constructive corporate cultural atmosphere. There are three forms of communication that
help us understand how organizations create their own shared meaning of
understandings. Metaphors, story telling, and rituals practiced are what Pacanowsky

claims to be what makes a corporation and its members flow properly and be successful.
Clarifying what is unknown or confusing by equating it with an image thats more
familiar or vivid, makes a metaphor (pg. 247). Like the web metaphor that Pacanowsky
and Geertz have come up with, there are layers of meaning that reflect a shared
understanding of the culture at hand in a given organization.
The idea of, what I like to think of as, office talk, gives you the insight and
understanding of the personalities of the organizations employees and its true
atmosphere. As an employee the stories that are told to you in the office give you a much
different understanding of your company rather than the ones you may hear from people
that are not your co-workers. Pacanowsky divided the symbolism of story telling in
organizational life into three types. The first being corporate stories, tales that carry
management ideology and reinforce company policy. Personal stories, tales told by
employees that put them in a favorable light. Then finally, collegial stories, which are
positive or negative anecdotes about others in the organization; descriptions of how
things really work (pg.249). With first hand stories of office life according to its own
employees, this gives a true picture and imagery to what personality that organization
may have. As stated before, a culture has many layers and people are what make those
layers happen through communication which helps shape the culture they work in.
The third aspect to forming a corporate cultural would be its own personal rituals. Texts
that articulate multiple aspects of cultural life, often making rites of passage or life
transitions are defined as a ritual (pg. 250). These are things that make up the companies
history and are most likely not likely to change. A companys history is what they are
founded upon and typically is what shapes their employees to model their organization in

a prideful way. Having a family like atmosphere in an organization is extremely

important when creating a strong corporate culture. This is what many managers take
into consideration as well when taking on new employees. They want to make sure they
will represent their organization well and properly. You can almost say they are looking
for a type that will make the perfect fit for the companies image. As a manager, they
want to find someone who will broadcast the company ritual and image to the world
outside of their organization well.

ETHICS
Group efforts and team building are what shapes the culture of an organization,
which helps answer the question as to whether or not the manager can be an agent of
cultural change. Geertz regarded shared interpretations as naturally emerging from all
members of a group rather than consciously engineered by leaders (pg. 251). A manager,
though most of the time the boss, can not operate the organization on his or her own. In
my own metaphor of this idea, one man or woman can not simply carry everything with
them on their back, especially if the load weighs more than them, they would simply
collapse. Culture is a group effort and enforced by all it can change, not just by one,
however that brings up the question if it should change. Some fall to the idea of, dont fix
what isnt broken motto when this question comes up. However is it still like that today?
Many managers are abandoning the nonintrusive style and giving themselves more roles
in their organizations and making it their decision to make changes or not. Typically the
role of ethnographers whose job it is to not just know employees but also know what
decisions are best for the corporation is now in the hands of managers.

RELATED LITERATURE
After fully dissecting the Cultural Approach To Organizations Theory, it was
interesting trying to look for related works of literature. However the first piece of work
I found stuck out to me the most. In, How Local Identity Helped Save The Honolulu
Star-Bulletin, the comparison was right in the title. The local identity of the style of
newspaper was created by positive stories told by both employees and the community
giving the paper its voice, or culture, which was more than popular with the Honolulu
community. How the community outside the newspaper saw the organization can also be
seen as a shard meaning of understanding that shape the identity and culture of the paper
that citizens came to know and love so much.
In the academic journal of Sue Colyer, she attempts to put forth the study of
organizational culture by developing cultural profiles for the sport organizations at hand
wherein the cases examined revealed the inherent tensions between two of the main
groups of people (employees and volunteers) in sport organizations (Colyer). By
figuring out the cultural dimensions of these two groups and pinpointing the significant
values of each inevitably determined their ability to perform. Similarly learned in chapter
19, the ritual of a company or group, like a sports organization, relies on the values of
each member. When those values or even shared goals dont match up, like we see here,
a rise in tension between members can be created.
In a conference paper written by Huiyan Zahang, she dives into the questions that
we saw asked in our book: whether an organizations culture can or should be changed.
She states transference of organizational culture to other cultural and societal contexts
becomes a challenge for multinational companies in their effort to expand their

businesses elsewhere around the globe (Zahang). This brings into the picture the
realization that more factors and elements will be shaping the identity of the organization
if they were to move, in part definitely changing the corporate culture.
Though this piece of literature I found is different, I had to dig for some common
similarities with chapter 19. Using ideas and many works of literature gathered together
for her study, Jennifer Vardeman shows how cervical cancer is portrayed to real women
in real women magazines. Vardeman showed that by using qualitative interviews and
focus groups, she found that although the women said they received health information
from television and womens magazines, most women interviewed did not recognize
cervical cancer to be a significant problem because they had not seen any media coverage
about it. This as we see creates a lens through which readers, particularly women, can
understand cervical cancer based on how the media portrays it. There are many layers of
meaning to the importance of properly broadcasting information to society. In this paper
women are similar to that of the employees of a corporation and how the media is
shaping their ideas is similar to how stories are told.
In the final piece of literature, New Voices In The Workplace, I found that This
paper develops a framework for understanding multicultural communication in
organizations that is based on the assumption of cultural difference (Fine). That being
said, the idea of shared meanings in shaping an organizations image and having those all
be different wouldnt make sense if we have only one corporate culture. I can definitely
see how this would be a rocky start to forming the culture of the office and can
understand how it made members upset, by their voices being silenced. We must not
forget that in order to properly run, everyone should be on the same page. Members

should feel safe in their organizations as well as when expressing their personal views;
with negative views forming that will only create a negative view to the organizations
culture.

CONCLUSION
It is hard to say if the cultural approach is still useful in todays society. After
looking to the internet for related works of literature, I saw how more and more big
corporate organizations are expanding and even changing their image that we as outsiders
to these organizations have recognized for years, which makes us question whether their
values are changing as well. The cultural approach may be useful in some aspects but it
is hard not to think it is all opinion based. While focusing a big part of this theory on
communication styles and the symbolic interpretation of story telling, you can easily
disagree with what you hear or even say with your coworkers. However you can never
stop communicating with those around you. Geertz and Pacanowsky
give thick description to their ethnography ways and have tracked evolving ideas that still
help shape corporate cultures. Culture is not something you can get red of; it is
something that will always be there and is important for an organization. In an
organization members will continue to share meanings, understandings and ideas with
each other creating a shared understanding of culture.

REFERENCES
Auman, A. (2007). SURVIVAL IN PARADISE: HOW LOCAL IDENTITY
HELPED SAVE THE HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN. Journalism & Mass
Communications Quarterly, 84(2), 373-391.
Colyer, S. (2000). Organizational Culture in Selected Western Australian Sports
Organizations. Journal Of Sport Management, 14(4), 321.
Fine, M. G. (1991). New Voice In The Workplace: Research Sirections In
Multicultural Communication. Journal Of Business Communication, 28(3), 259-275.
Griffin, Em. (2015). A First Look at Communication Theory. New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill Education. Ninth Edition.
Verdeman, J. (2007). Would I Survive Cervical Cancer?: The Framing Of
Cervical Cancer in Womens Popular Magazines. Conferences Papers -- International
Communication Association, 1.
Zhang, H. (2003). Studying Organizational Culture In Foreign Subsidiaries Of
Multinational Companies. Conferences Papers International Communication Association, 127. doi:ica_proceeding_11562. PDF