strategy, structure, and systems or

strategy, structure, and systems or scientific management. These lead to a fixation
on individual glory and the joys of winning through intimidation.
In contrast, the four soft S’s: staff, skills, style, and superordinate goals had
received a relative lack of emphasis in Western organizations. These four
skills provided the backbone of the successful Japanese corporation. The title
of Pascale and Anthos’ (1981) book, The Art of Japanese Management, nicely
highlights the issues they discuss throughout their analysis. For a moment,
consider the use of the word art at one end and the word management at the
other. With little doubt, one of the greatest difficulties Western management
seemed to have in adopting new tools such as soft management was that they
did not consider management an art. They perceived management as a quantifiable
science and art as a leisure activity. Hence, the number of organizations
who incorporated the 7-S model in the United States was not great. Pascale
and Anthos acknowledged that Westerners often find the concept “at best,
remote, at worst, elusive” (p. 35), and that few American business leaders will
mimic the Japanese style.
Theory Z The desire for more successful and productive organizations
remained, and to satisfy this interest many organizations and managers
turned to Ouchi’s (1981) Theory Z. He presented characteristics of Japanese
organizations and management that could be embraced by Western organizations.
Theory Z is not Japanese management, but a homogenized version palatable
to U.S. organizations. This was a wise approach because organizations
are living systems and they will, for the most part, reject radical changes.
Ouchi (1981) observed that most Western firms were characterized by
mutual distrust between employees and management, formal relationships,
decision making only at the executive level, specialized training, narrow
career paths, quick employee evaluation, and short-term employment. In contrast,
the Theory Z style is characterized by mutual trust between employees
and management, informal relationships, employee involvement in decision
making, nonspecialized careers, slow evaluation process for employees, longterm
employment, and flexibility and adaptation.
Effective managers, Ouchi (1981) argued, spend less time behind their desks
and more time with subordinates and colleagues. This leads in turn to increased
communication between supervisor and staff, better understanding by managers
of employees and their job requirements, a fuller appreciation for workrelated
problems, and improved relations between supervisor and employees.
The pursuit of quality—the remaining heritage of the 1980s’ efforts at
incorporating Japanese management techniques—has become a cornerstone
of practically every successful American organization (Griffin, 2005; Wind &
Main, 1998). Many U.S. and international organizations use kanban hoshiki or
just-in-time inventory control, kaizen or continuous improvement, and pokayoka,
which is Japanese for mistake-proofing involving a variety of devices
82 • Applied Organizational Communication
to prevent inadvertent mistakes (Liker & Meier, 2006). As with every other
system analyzed to this point, people remain a pivotal part of any success.
Understanding Organizational Cultures
When identifying a specific technique failed to make clear the reasons for
Japanese successes, organizations broadened their perspectives and began to
examine cultures. In a nutshell, culture is an organization’s shared beliefs and
values—its distinct identity (Harris, 1990). Culture is the “social glue holding
the company together” (Baker, 1980, p. 8).
As groups and organizations learn to survive, adapt, and solve problems
over a period of time, a culture emerges providing basic assumptions and
beliefs that are “taken-for-granted” (Schein, 1990). The factors that constitute
the culture include “the various rituals which members regularly or occasionally
perform” (Paconowsky & O’Donnell-Trujillo, 1983, p. 136). Culture is the
“way we do things around here” which can include any activities regularly
engaged in by organizational members. Goffee and Jones (1998) concluded
with culture is “the way things get done around here” (p. 9).
Perspectives on Studying Cultures
Prior to the early 1980s, organizational culture was recognized and studied
by many organizational development experts but the concept had not gained
mainstream recognition (Rothwell, Sullivan, & McLean, 1995). For example,
J. D. Edwards & Co., the 24th largest software company in the world was
founded in 1977 and had 1996 revenues of $478 million. Founder C. Edward
McVaney wrote a 20-page document entitled “Corporate Culture” in 1981. In
1995, the company, realizing the importance of a dynamic culture free from
political orientations, added injunctions against inter-office sarcasm, unprofessional
attire, office politics, “backbiting, manipulation, negative behavior,
and other divisive activities” that would be causes for termination (Jesitus,
1997, p. 18). Recognizing the continuing need for open communication, a
“never surprise your boss” dictum was also included.
Functionalist and Interpretionist The expanding interest in cultures saw
researchers pursue two different orientations that provide us with a useful
nomenclature for labeling perspectives (Smircich, 1983). Naturally, many
organizations were interested in the changes needed to make them successful.
This functionalist perspective is concerned with what an organization has
that constitutes the culture. If you examined the J. D. Edwards culture to see
what elements could be adapted to your organization, then you would be utilizing
a functionalist perspective. You would identify the current artifacts
and activities that can be observed and possibly altered, reinforced, eliminated,
or added to other cultures. The information produced by functionalistic
research is used to create and sustain a system of beliefs for knowing and
Understanding Organizations • 83
managing organizational experience. For many organizational leaders, these
are the factors that must be worked with to enhance the ultimate success of
the organization.
The interpretionist perspective focuses on the interactions that lead to a
shared meaning. This perspective is more interested in understanding the
process by which the culture is created and maintained (Bormann, 1983). At
J. D. Edwards, the ongoing events would be examined in order to reach some
conclusions regarding the shared meaning. The functionalist perspective is
oriented toward making the cultural aspects of the organization as effective
as possible in helping the organization obtain its goals, whereas the interpretionist
perspective is interested in explaining the various processes that lead
to shared meanings.
This division of the organizational culture concept is useful and both views
reaffirm our need to attend to the behavioral aspects of organizational life.
Organizational events include situations “where individuals assign symbolic
meanings [through] stories, myths, rituals, ceremonies, and nonverbal objects
of the organizational cultural inventory” (Putnam, 1982, p. 199). Once individuals
assign meaning, they are more likely to act as if it is reality. Clearly a
manager with a functionalist view would be wise to consider how he or she
can have an impact on this shared reality. Students of organizational communication
will find the interpretionist perspective their primary initial focus
for understanding the issues creating and sustaining the shared reality. Put
another way, if you chose a functionalist perspective, you will be an active
learner of the expected behaviors so you eventually can use the knowledge to
influence events. If you opt for an interpretionist perspective, you will gather
information so you can understand the general impact of culturally shared
meanings. Clearly, both perspectives have value.
Ethnographic and Clinical Using a different approach, Schein (1985) made the
distinction between ethnographic and clinical perspectives. “The ethnographer
obtains concrete data in order to understand the culture he is interested
in, presumably for intellectual and scientific reasons” (p. 13). The ethnographic
perspective brings to the situation a set of presumptions that motivated the
research in the first place. So, examining the impact of a particular type of
culture on member satisfaction, for example, presumes that member satisfaction
is important and should be tested.
On the surface, the clinical perspective is similar to the functionalist and is
more interested in the ongoing factors in an organization that must be changed
to enhance growth and development. The majority of organizational consultants
take this perspective. However, they do not always establish a dichotomy
between the functionalist and interpretative views of organizations. Instead,
they discuss the level of cultural analysis.
84 • Applied Organizational Communication
Levels of Cultural Analysis Schein (1985) outlines three levels of culture. Artifacts
and creations, Level 1, are the most visible. These elements constitute
the physical and social environment, the overt behaviors, and the central values
that provide the day-to-day operating procedures by which the members
guide their behaviors.
Values, Level 2, provide normative or moral functions in guiding the organization
or group members in dealing with certain key situations. These are
the “ought to be” concepts as opposed to Level l’s description of what actually
is occurring. These values have been with organizations through the years and
are reflected in statements like 3M’s “never be responsible for killing an idea”
or General Electric’s “progress is our most important product.” In studying
America’s most admired companies, Brown (1999) found in “every case, it’s
a matter of nurturing that unique, essential core” (p. 73). In the 1970s, B