Does organizational culture exist? A view from the road less travelled

In his latest blog post, Stephen Billing asks if there is such a thing as organizational culture. This is another of Billing’s interesting provocations, arising from his complex responsive process view of organizations (as advocated by Ralph Stacey and his colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire, UK). In this case, his declared aim is to prove that organizational culture doesn’t exist. 

Like Billing, I also view this question from a vantage point on what might be thought of as ‘the road less travelled’. Unusually, though, I beg to differ on this aspect of organizational dynamics.  So this post summarizes my argument in support of the concept, as a contribution to the interesting discussion that he has initiated.

To begin with, I agree with Billing’s central proposition that ‘global’ organizational outcomes emerge from the self-organizing interplay of myriad ‘local’ (ie one-to-one and small-group) interactions.  At the same time, I don’t believe that it follows from this that there is no such thing as organizational culture.  In fact, I would argue the opposite.

Culture as articulated

As Billing points out, some of these ‘global’ outcomes enter the formal arenas of the organization as structures and strategies; processes, systems and procedures; formally stated goals, visions and values; physical artefacts; and so on. I suggest that it is this idealized set of characteristics (that he has described elsewhere as “social objects”, after Mead) which would be drawn upon to describe the ‘organization’s culture’ in official publications, presentations and the like.

This represents what I would call the “culture as articulated”. It is here also, amongst the idealized designs, plans and programmes, that conventional cultural change practice is situated. 

Culture as experienced

If we focus next on people's perceptions of what it’s like to work inside the organization, we would find a mixture of the openly acknowledged ways of seeing, thinking and acting and, at the same time, consciously held but informal/covert ways of seeing, thinking and acting. This interweaving of formal and shadow-side dynamics might usefully be thought of as the “culture as experienced”. 

Elements of the idealized ‘culture as articulated’ will both enable and constrain what goes on at this local level. But it is the specific interactions that will determine what actually happens, not the idealized statements. Only to the extent that the local sense-making conversations reflect these formal, global themes are they likely to be realized in practice. Otherwise outcomes will be determined primarily by the dominant shadow themes that emerge.

‘Deep’ culture

It is here, in the give and take of everyday conversational interaction, that I would argue that a third dimension of culture emerges.

The more that people make sense of things in particular ways the more likely it is that they will continue to make similar sense going forward. In other words, the ongoing sense-making process creates expectancy - or a generalized tendency to think and act in certain ways.  And it is here that we find the essence of what we think of as organizational culture (or the “deep culture” of the organization).

These taken-for-granted ‘cultural patterns’ act back imperceptibly on this ongoing process of shared sense making.  Importantly, it is this tendency to make sense of events in particular ways that enables the organization to function.  Without it, people would have to think afresh every time that they encountered a particular situation. At the same time, though, they can become ‘locked into’ these socially constructed patterns of assumptions and the characteristic patterns of thinking and behaviour that flow from them.

On the one hand, these help to reduce internal complexity and uncertainty by ‘codifying’ norms of behaviour, expectations and so on. However, the patterning that helps people to create a sense of meaning, and that allows them to negotiate their way through the organizational world in an ‘orderly’ way, can also constrain their ability to act in other ways. Established ways of thinking and acting tend to trap individuals - alone and collectively - within their own, socially constructed worlds and prevent them from noticing and engaging with other emerging possibilities.

Implications

There are a number of implications of this view of organizational culture.

• First, culture is not a ‘thing’, which can be designed and built by management. It is embedded within (and emerges from) the ongoing, local processes of sense making that exists ‘within and between’ the heads of people in interaction.
• Secondly, although some broad assumptions are likely to be commonly held within a well-established organization, these need to be overlaid by the recognition that much more fragmented and dynamic patterns will co-exist and interact with them locally.
• Thirdly, although the ongoing patterning processes create expectancy, the dynamics of local interaction retain the possibility that something novel (or seemingly “counter-cultural”) will emerge.
• Fourthly, the pattern and content of local conversational interactions should provide the primary focus for understanding the dynamics of culture in a particular situation.
• Fifthly, managers are part of the process, not external observers of other people’s actions. The everyday role-modelling interactions of these local leaders will therefore have significantly more impact on local sense making and the patterns of assumptions that emerge (“deep culture”) than will the idealized statements that are disseminated through the formal, structured communication channels. This is why, in Informal Coalitions, I talk about managers “thinking culturally”, rather than thinking about culture.

As always, I look forward to reading the next strand of Stephen Billing’s argument.  And I'm keen to know what thoughts you might have on this?

Related posts:
Organizational culture – In at the deep end

Organizational culture – Thinking out of the box(es)

Comments

[Adrian Raynor]

I really like the three part division of culture you propose here. The third one for me is the real powerhouse, and helps me to relate leadership to complex processes of relating, and to see that our intuition about how leaders really do affect things whilst still being part of them can work. It is so important that leaders are culture shapers, and this suggests why.

[Chris Rodgers]

Hi Adrian,

Many thanks for your comment. It's rewarding to know that my conception of organizational culture makes sense to you and that it is helpful to your thinking.

I hope you find other posts of interest on the blog.

Regards, Chris

[Bas Reus]

Hi Chris. Great blog.

The duality of culture as articulated and culture as experienced can be compared to the Community of Practice theories from Etienne Wenger I believe. His duality of reification vs participation to negotiate meaning is quite alike.

What do you think?

[Chris Rodgers]

Hi Bas,

Many thanks for your intriguing question re this post and your kind remarks about the blog as a whole.

Interestingly, I’ve only recently come across Etienne Wenger’s work. But I find that much of what he writes resonates strongly with my own thoughts on organizational dynamics. I’ve reflected on your suggestion that there appear to be parallels between his “reification-participation duality” in the negotiation of meaning, and my notions of the culture-as-articulated and the culture-as-experienced. I agree.

Indeed, when we talk about “culture” itself we are reifying (or “thingifying”, as I call it) what is a mental and social construct - see Leading is a ‘doing word’ at http://bit.ly/JCPeL. And it is a construct that is born out of Wenger’s notion of participation. We often hear people blame “the culture” when things go wrong. That is, it tends to be seen as something tangible and spoken of as if ‘it’ can do things in its own right. The downside of this is that it can divert our attention away from what’s going on in the here and now. This causes us to lose sight of our own and others’ parts in the ongoing process of interaction. And it is through this that outcomes actually emerge - including those that are brought together as the culture-as-articulated. At the same time, of course, the idealized design of this formally articulated aspect of culture provides a context and formal ‘frame’ within which the day-to-day sense-making interactions (participation, again) take place. So, as Wenger points out, and as I mention in the final sentences of the ‘thingifying’ post, reification has an important facilitative role in this ongoing sense-making (participative) process.

I would like to end with three more important points of clarification.

First, some of the reifications that emerge from the local sense-making process will be rife in the shadow-side conversations but will be undiscussable ‘in the open’. The perceived political dynamics of the organization might be one of these, for example. Although this makes them no less powerful in the process described above, these will be part of the culture-as-experienced, rather than the culture-as-articulated.

Secondly, not all of the aspects of the culture-as-experienced will be reified. Much that is experienced will remain tacit. Or it will be felt but not expressed in language.

Thirdly, as discussed in the main post, taken-for-granted patterns of assumptions emerge from the ongoing sense-making process. So “deep culture” is both an outcome of participation and a shaper of it. This is therefore a mirror image of the relationship between participation and reification but deals in the currency of taken-for-granted assumptions rather than formally stated designs.

Thanks again for stimulating further my interest in Wenger’s work.

[Bas Reus]

Chris, you make some important points indeed. It's been a while since I completely read the communities of practice book of Wenger, so I might not be complete in this comment.

Some discussions are politically of nature, and therefor occur not in the open. They occur on the boundaries of the practice while the practice is not shared. But they can evolve and move more to the core of the practice as well. They move from peripheral participation to into full participation.

I can recommend reading more on boundaries, the peripheries shared practices. And to myself as well ;)