7.1 4

Chapter 4: Communicating Organizational Culture: A Problem-Solving Model.

Communication: is about creating message, production and reproduction of meaning.

Organizations are communication.

Gestalt Theory (figure and ground): sometimes the important part is thought of as the background

Organizational culture is an active process that shape organizations.

organizational culture is defined “as the shared communicative process through which meanings are constantly employed, negotiated, and contested to create a stable communication environment within which organizational life becomes patterned and persistent over time.”

organizational cultures does not mean shared meaning but shared process of meaning making.

Forms of communication:

• info sharing
  
• message production
  
• meaning making

organizational values as “those things, standards, and ideals through which we evaluate our organizational wellbeing.”

Types of values:

• Personal values
  
• Moral values
  
• Aesthetic values
  
• Status values: power allocation.

Organizational meanings

• Cognitive meanings
  
• Emotional meanings: people might mistakenly consider irrationality as emotionality.
  
• Social meanings sensemaking theory
  
• Identity meanings cultural contract theory of identity. 3 types of cultural contracts:
  + ready-to-sign contracts: assimilation (physical, behavioral,a nd mental assumption of dominant culture).
  + Quasi-completed contracts: allows adaption
  + Cocreated contracts: mutual valuation.
  
• Power meanings
  + can derived from formal hierarchy
  + or from relationships (as opposed to isolation).