Culture Analysis Pape
Instructions
Final Project Part 1: Culture Analysis Pape
This assignment allows you to demonstrate mastery of course outcomes:
1. apply knowledge of the levels, components, and development of culture to inform decision making about organizational practices
2. analyze and describe the impact of organizational culture on performance
You will be asked to analyze an organizational culture. This could be the organization you work with, or it could be some other organization to which you have access. Remember that clubs, associations, and churches can be considered organizations.
Research (data gathering) should include (but does not need to be limited to) mainly primary sources.
Primary data is the data collected by the researcher themselves, i.e.
1. interview
2. observation
3. action research
4. case studies
5. life histories
6. questionnaires
7. ethnographic research
Secondary sources are data that already exists
1. Previous research
2. Official statistics
3. Mass media products
4. Diaries
5. Letters
6. Government reports
7. Web information
8. Historical data and information
Collect your data and analyze it. Describe how you collected the data (observation, interviews, surveys).
Then, analyze the organizational culture along three dimensions: artifacts, values, and underlying assumptions. Give examples of behavior, speech, or symbols that illustrate your findings. This paper should be 5-8 pages in length. Any data used (interviews, surveys, websites, etc.) should be attached as appendices. You should use at least 3 course resources.
23
XXXXXXXXXXT H E T H R E E L E V E L S O F C U LT U R E
The purpose of this chapter is to show that culture can be analyzed at sev-
eral different levels, with the term level meaning the degree to which the
cultural phenomenon is visible to the observer. Some of the confusion sur-
ounding the defi nition of what culture really is results from not differ-
entiating the levels at which it manifests itself. These levels range from
the very tangible overt manifestations that you can see and feel to the
deeply embedded, unconscious, basic assumptions that I am defi ning as
the essence of culture. In between these layers are various espoused beliefs,
values, norms, and rules of behavior that members of the culture use as a
way of depicting the culture to themselves and others.
Many other culture researchers prefer the term basic values to describe
the deepest levels. I prefer basic assumptions because these tend to be taken
for granted by group members and are treated as nonnegotiable. Values
are open to discussion, and people can agree to disagree about them. Basic
assumptions are so taken for granted that someone who does not hold them
is viewed as a “ foreigner ” or as “ crazy ” and is automatically dismissed.
The three major levels of cultural analysis are shown in Exhibit 2.1 .
Artifacts
At the surface is the level of artifacts, which includes all the phenomena
that you would see, hear, and feel when you encounter a new group with an
unfamiliar culture. Artifacts include the visible products of the group, such
as the architecture of its physical environment; its language; its technol-
ogy and products; its artistic creations; its style, as embodied in clothing,
manners of address, and emotional displays; its myths and stories told about
the organization; its published lists of values; and its observable rituals and
ceremonies.
2
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AN: 335269 ; Edgar H. Schein.; Organizational Culture and Leadership
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24 O R G A N I Z A T I O N A L C U L T U R E A N D L E A D E R S H I P
Among these artifacts is the “ climate ” of the group. Some culture ana-
lysts see climate as the equivalent to culture, but it is better thought of as
the product of some of the underlying assumptions and is, therefore, a man-
ifestation of the culture. Observed behavior is also an artifact as are the
organizational processes by which such behavior is made routine. Structural
elements such as charters, formal descriptions of how the organization works,
and organization charts also fall into the artifact level.
The most important point to be made about this level of the culture is
that it is both easy to observe and very diffi cult to decipher. The Egyptians
and the Mayans both built highly visible pyramids, but the meaning of
pyramids in each culture was very different — tombs in one, temples as well
as tombs in the other. In other words, observers can describe what they see
and feel but cannot reconstruct from that alone what those things mean in
the given group. Some culture analysts argue that among the artifacts, you
fi nd important symbols that refl ect deep assumptions of the culture, but
symbols are ambiguous, and you can only test a person ’ s insight into what
something may mean if the person has also experienced the culture at the
deeper level of assumptions (Gagliardi, 1990, 1999).
Exhibit 2.1. The Three Levels of Culture.
XXXXXXXXXXArtifacts
• Visible and feelable structures and processes
• Observed behavior
– Diffi cult to decipher
XXXXXXXXXXEspoused Beliefs and Values
• Ideals, goals, values, aspirations
• Ideologies
• Rationalizations
– May or may not be congruent with behavior and other artifacts
XXXXXXXXXXBasic Underlying Assumptions
• Unconscious, taken - for - granted beliefs and values
– Determine behavior, perception, thought, and feeling
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T H E T H R E E L E V E L S O F C U L T U R E 25
It is especially dangerous to try to infer the deeper assumptions from
artifacts alone because a person ’ s interpretations will inevitably be projec-
tions of his or her own feelings and reactions. For example, when you see
a very informal, loose organization, you may interpret that as “ ineffi cient ”
if your own background is based on the assumption that informality means
playing around and not working. Or, alternatively, if you see a very formal
organization, you may interpret that to be a sign of “ lack of innovative
capacity ” if your own experience is based on the assumption that formality
means bureaucracy and standardization.
If the observer lives in the group long enough, the meanings of arti-
facts gradually become clear. If, however, you want to achieve this level
of understanding more quickly, you must talk to insiders to analyze the
espoused values, norms, and rules that provide the day - to - day operating
principles by which the members of the group guide their behavior. This
kind of inquiry takes you to the next level of cultural analysis.
Espoused Beliefs and Values
All group learning ultimately refl ects someone ’ s original beliefs and values,
his or her sense of what ought to be, as distinct from what is. When a group
is fi rst created or when it faces a new task, issue, or problem, the fi rst solu-
tion proposed to deal with it refl ects some individual ’ s own assumptions
about what is right or wrong, what will work or not work. Those individuals
who prevail, who can infl uence the group to adopt a certain approach to the
problem, will later be identifi ed as leaders or founders, but the group does
not yet have any shared knowledge as a group because it has not yet taken
a common action in reference to whatever it is supposed to do. Whatever
is proposed will only be perceived as what the leader wants. Until the group
has taken some joint action and together observed the outcome of that
action, there is not as yet a shared basis for determining whether what the
leader wants will turn out to be valid.
For example, if sales begin to decline in a young business, a manager
may say, “ We must increase advertising ” because of her belief that advertis-
ing always increases sales.