Organizational Symbolism

Barry A. Turner

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9783110110517
• eBook ISBN: 9783110851618
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Part I. Symbolic Aspects of Organizations
• Chapter 1 Painting Over Old Works: The Culture of Organization in an Age of Technical Rationality
• 1.1 The Misplacement of Culture
• 1.1.1 Recent Literature on Culture and Organization
• 1.1.2 The Fundamental Shift That Wasn’t
• 1.2 Technical Rationality: The Culture of Organization
• 1.3 The Managerial Metamyth
• 1.4 The Culture of Organization: A Case Example
• 1.4.1 The Washington State Ferry System
• 1.4.2 Setting the Stage for the Imposition
• 1.4.3 The Imposition Begins in Earnest
• 1.4.4 Enter: The Managerial Metamyth
• 1.4.5 The Role of Automation
• 1.4.6 Aspects of DOT Ascendancy
• 1.4.7 The Imposition of Cultural Elements
• 1.5 A Culture-Sensitive Approach to the Study of Organization
• Chapter 2 Interrelations Between Corporate Culture and Municipal Culture: The Lüneburg Saltworks as a Medieval Example
• 2.1 Introduction
• 2.2 The General Conditions
• 2.3 The Organizational Symbolism
• 2.4 The Interrelations of Corporate and Municipal Culture
• 2.5 Conclusions
• Chapter 3 Corporate Culture, the Catholic Ethic, and the Spirit of Capitalism: A Quebec Experience
• 3.1 Foreword
• 3.2 Genesis of Capitalism and Evolutionary Differences Between the Ethics of Northern and Southern Europe from the 13th to the 18th Century
• 3.3 The ‘Unorthodox’ Management Style of the Cascades Company of Quebec: Crystallization of Elements of Another Capitalist Ethic?
• 3.4 Conclusions
• Chapter 4 Dependency and Worker Flirting
• 4.1 Introduction
• 4.2 Flirting
• 4.3 Parasexual Behavior in the Relations Between Press Operators and Fitters
• 4.4 New Workers and Worker Flirting
• 4.5 Conclusions
• Chapter 5 Culture and Crisis Management in an English Prison
• 5.1 The Prison
• 5.2 The Role of the Governor
• 5.3 The Christmas Rota
• 5.4 The New Governor
• 5.5 The Manpower Team
• 5.6 Conclusion
• Part II. Power as a Symbolic Domain
• Chapter 6 Zombies or People - What Is the Product of Work? Some Considerations About the Relations Between Human and Nonhuman Systems in Regard to the Socio-Technical-Systems Paradigm
• Chapter 7 Organizations as Networks of Power and Symbolism
• 7.1 Introduction
• 7.1.1 Literature Review
• 7.1.2 From Networks to Networking
• 7.2 Interorganizational Relations as Networks of Power and Symbolic Action
• 7.2.1 Power Relationship and Symbolic Action as Dynamic Interdependences
• 7.3 A and B: Two Networks of Mental Health Organizations
• 7.3.1 The Organizations
• 7.3.2 Method
• 7.3.3 A and B: Power Relationships and Symbolic Actions
• 7.4 Conclusion
• Chapter 8 Crashing in ’87: Power and Symbolism in the Dow
• 8.1 Introduction
• 8.2 The Falling Sky: On Power, Culture, Control, and Consent
• 8.3 Postmodernism, Commodities, and Consent
• 8.4 Setting Your Own Stage
• 8.5 Let’s Listen to Dad
• 8.6 Smart Guys Don’t Lose and Corporations Can’t
• 8.7 In the Aftermath: Theory Redux
• Part III. Management, Consultancy, and Metaphor
• Chapter 9 Merchants of Meaning: Management Consulting in the Swedish Public Sector
• 9.1 Organizational Talk and Organizational Control
• 9.2 The Study
• 9.3 Diagnostics and Labels
• 9.4 Modelling and Metaphors
• 9.5 Creating Talking Networks
• 9.6 Teaching Languages
• 9.7 What Do Consultants Do?
• Chapter 10 Metaphor Management: On the Semiotics of Strategic Leadership
• 10.1 Strategy Shaping as Culture
• 10.2 The Management of Meaning Paradigm
• 10.3 Metaphors in Strategic Decision Making
• 10.4 “Tangibilitation”
• 10.5 The Roots of Leading Symbols
• 10.6 A Study of Values Behind Symbols
• Chapter 11 Culture and Management Training: Closed Minds and Change in Managers Belonging to Organizational and Occupational Communities
• 11.1 An Introduction: The Impact of the Cultural Approach on a Management Centre
• 11.2 The Research Project
• 11.3 The Main Findings of the Research Project
• 11.3.1 The Effect of the Programme on Individiual Dogmatism
• 11.3.2 Individual Dogmatism and Reference Cultures
• Chapter 12 The ‘Commando’ Model: A Way to Gather and Interpret Cultural Data
• 12.1 The Concept of Organizational Culture
• 12.2 Some Starting-Points and Foundations
• 12.2.1 Perspective
• 12.2.2 Level of Abstraction
• 12.3 Data Gathering
• 12.3.1 Interviews
• 12.3.2 Observation
• 12.3.3 Secondary Data
• 12.3.4 The Cultural Keys
• 12.3.5 Selection
• 12.3.6 Simulated Situations and Metaphors
• 12.4 Interpretation
• 12.5 Presentation
• 12.6 Operation Hot Cat
• 12.6.1 The Task
• 12.6.2 The Birth of the Commando Model
• 12.6.3 Three Steps
• 12.7 Summary
• Part IV. Style and Aesthetics
• Chapter 13 The Collusive Manoeuvre: A Study of Organizational Style in Work Relations
• 13.1 Organizational Style
• 13.2 An Organizational Problematic
• 13.3 Material and Culture Values in Job Evaluation
• 13.4 The Situational Frame
• 13.4.1 Usurpationary Challenge
• 13.4.2 Corporate Impediment
• 13.4.3 Key Organization Personnel
• 13.5 The Blocking Phase
• 13.6 The Collusive Phase
• 13.7 Analysis
• 13.8 Conclusion
• Chapter 14 Aesthetics and Organizational Skill
• Part V. Whole Organizations
• Chapter 15 Computers in Organizations: The (White) Magic of the Black Box
• 15.1 Introduction
• 15.1.1 The Mysteries of Cybernetically-Based, Computer-Assisted Management Control
• 15.1.2 A Note on Microcomputers
• 15.1.3 We Agree That It Is There, but We Disagree on What It Means
• 15.2 The Analyst: From Analogy to Model to Utopia
• 15.3 The Participants: From Mystery to Magic to Alchemy
• 15.4 Is There a Pilot in This Aircraft?
• Chapter 16 The Organizational Sensory System
• 16.1 Introduction
• 16.2 Visual and Acoustic Space
• 16.2.1 Visual Space
• 16.2.2 Acoustic Space
• 16.2.3 The Relationship Between Eye and Ear
• 16.3 Tactile Space
• 16.4 Organizational Senses and Spaces
• 16.4.1 Senses
• 16.4.2 Spaces
• 16.5 The Empirical Case
• 16.6 Methodological Issues
• 16.6.1 Methodological Problems
• 16.6.2 The Applied Method
• 16.7 Some Empirical Manifestations
• 16.7.1 Introduction
• 16.7.2 Media and Their Interplay
• 16.7.3 Cultural Context
• 16.7.4 Space Dynamics
• 16.7.5 Organizational Tactility
• 16.8 Concluding Remarks
• Chapter 17 The Dynamics of Organizational States of Being
• 17.1 Vision
• 17.1.1 Qualities and Characteristics
• 17.1.2 Operating Principles
• 17.1.3 Implications
• 17.2 Fusion/Diffusion
• 17.2.1 Qualities and Characteristics
• 17.2.2 Operating Principles
• 17.2.3 Implications
• 17.3 Confusion
• 17.3.1 Qualities and Characteristics
• 17.3.2 Operating Principles
• 17.3.3 Implications
• 17.4 General Implications for Organizations
• 17.4.1 Critical Assumptions
• 17.4.2 Dynamic Principles
• 17.4.3 Entropie Principle
• 17.4.4 Evolutionary Principle
• 17.4.5 ‘No Rules’ Principle
• 17.4.6 The Dynamics of Subsystems
• 17.4.7 Entropie Approach
• 17.4.8 Evolutionary Approach
• 17.4.9 Critical Mass Approach
• 17.4.10 ‘No Rules’ Approach
• 17.5 Conclusion
• Part VI. Against Conclusions: Comments on Theory and Post-Modernism
• Chapter 18 Seeing Through: Symbolic Life and Organization Research in a Postmodern Frame
• 18.1 The Frame of “Seeing Through: Symbolic Life and Organization Research in a Postmodern Frame”
• 18.2 It Is Impossible
• 18.3 What Is Metafiction?
• 18.4 Seeing Through?
• 18.5 Travers in One of His Own Voices
• 18.6 The Writing on the Wall
• 18.7 Research
• Chapter 19 Organizational Bricolage
• 19.1 Organizational Bricolage
• 19.2 What Is Bricolage
• 19.3 Sperber and Symbolism
• 19.4 The New Semiotics
• 19.5 Eco and Anthropology
• 19.6 Textuality
• 19.7 One Green Bottle
• 19.7.1 The Production and Employment of Objects Used for Transforming the Relationship Between Man and Nature
• 19.7.2 The Economic Exchange of Goods
• 19.7.3 Kinship Relations as the Primary Nucleus of Institutionalized Social Relations
• 19.8 The Name of the Roses
• 19.9 After the Fact, as Theory Arose
• 19.10 Against Conclusions
• Authors’ Biographical Notes