Organization Culture Test Questions – Flashcards
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CULTURE AS A METAPHOR OF ORGANIZATIONAL LIFE
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what is culture for organization?
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Webs of significance; systems of shared meaning. -accountant, labeling members, Culture is not whole or undivided. Geertz points out that even close-knit societies have subcultures and countercultures within their boundaries.
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Culture
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Actions by which members constitute and re- veal their culture to themselves and others; ex: but people in organizations also gossip, joke, knife one another, initiate romantic involvements, cue new employees to ways of doing the least amount of work that still avoids hassles from a supervisor, talk sports, arrange picnics.6
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Cultural performance
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WHAT ETHNOGRAPHERS DO
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THICK DESCRIPTION:
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Mapping out social discourse; discovering who people within a culture think they are, what they think they are doing, and to what end they think they are doing. ex: no short cut in studying, start to finish. need the RAW material
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Ethnography
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A record of the inter- twined layers of common meaning that underlie what a particular people say and do.
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Thick description
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1. Accurately describe talk and actions and the context in which they occur. ' 2. Capture the thoughts, emotions, and web of social interactions. 3. Assign motivation, intention, or purpose to what people say and do. 4. Artfully write this up so readers feel they've experienced the events. 5. Interpret what happened; explain what it means within this culture.13
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Thick description (2)
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Thick description is tracing the many strands of a cultural web and tracking evolving meaning. No matter how high the stack of an ethnographer's notes, without interpretation, they would still be thin description.
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what does thick description do?
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- Corporate stories - Personal stories - Collegial stories
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THE SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION OF STORY
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Tales that carry management ideology and reinforce company policy. Ex: Every McDonald's franchisee hears about the late Ray Kroc, who, when he was chairman of the board, picked up trash from the parking lot when he'd visit a store.
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Corporate stories
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Tales told by employees that put them in a favorable light. Ex: Personal stories are those that company personnel tell about themselves, often defining how they would like to be seen within the organization
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Personal stories
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Positive or negative an- ecdotes about others in the organization; descriptions of how things "really work. Ex: collegial stories are positive or negative anecdotes told about others in the organization.
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Collegial stories
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Ceremonies through an organization celebrates and reproduces its values Planned events or routine activities
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Rituals
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"each organization has its own way of doing what it does and its own way of talking about what I is doing"
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Packanowsky & O'donnel-trjillo
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Prescriptive approach Top down approach
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what is this theory about?
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• Culture as something an organization has (commodity). • Culture as a variable It can be manipulated, managed, and controlled.
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what about culture?
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beliefs & visions that members hold for an organization Heart & soul of corporate culture. Ex: we share the value, the org. want to evaluate the value.
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Value (prescriptive and descriptive)
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Individuals who exemplify and foster an organization's values. Ex: organization likes to their hero by first name Heroes wants to celebrate those who are role models or markers of culture. Mr.Walt (Walt Disney) Organization is perishable.
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Heroes
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Communication system through which values are instituted & reinforced - Informal grapevine that carries culture values & organizational folktales □ Stories, rumors, gossip. Management should be storytellers
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Culture Network:
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One reason: organz. With strong culture tends to repel as many people as they attracts. - Repel people who identify their culture (good thing for organization) - Attracts people who don't
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Important about strong culture:
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Ex: job interview, more people than # of jobs available A woman interview, back to windows, people circle a bird cage.
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example of strong culture
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emotional abuse
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Strong culture Disadvantage:
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Community system thorugh which values are insitutuded and reinforces Informal grapevine that carries culture values and organization folktales
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CULTURAL NETOWRK:
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- Assumes management can fix things easily, without diversity or complexity -Provides practitioners with things to do
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ADVANTAGES of PRESCRIPTIVE APPRACH (STRONG CULTURE)
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- Assumes that members don't create their own culture - Top down approach - Assumes all culture are the same - Oversimplifies org. life Usually only reinforces the perspectives of management
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DISADVANTAGES of prescriptive appr.
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-Culture are complicated -Cultures are emergent: -Socially constructed -Contextual -Improvisational -Cultures are not unitary or unified
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Descriptive Approaches 4 underlying assumptions:
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Characteristics of Culture - Group phenomenon - Core assumption § Ex: change is bad. - Organization can change but only change a few.
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Edgar Schein's Model
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Interpretive Theory
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The cultural approach to organizations theory can be best classified as...
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Prescriptive
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The ______ Approach to Organizational Culture says an organization HAS culture.
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Responsibilities & rituals
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Which of the following is NOT one of the building blocks to strong cultures? Values Responsibilities & Rituals Heroes Cultural Network
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Ideology
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______ refers to the mental frameworks different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of the way society works.
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Make Meaning
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Hall says the primary function of discourse is to ....
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- 1st: One sense of this if we want to analyze if we want we can use a lens to analysis when trying to understand - 2nd: Organization culture is something that individual socialize into Opposite of this is commodification and control.
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Two ways to understand Descriptive Approach.
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Prescriptive
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Which approach HAS culture?
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Descriptive approach
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Which approach IS a culture?
