last updated 9/15/2006

Culture is Created and Maintained by Communication

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1. Characteristics (Definition) of Organizational Culture
1. A system of shared meanings and patterns of interaction
2. expressed through various symbolic forms
3. which hold people together
2. Culture makes sense of organizational reality and creates it.
1. The dialectic of organizational culture and individual identity.  

   [ culture <--> individual ]

2. Organizational culture is a product of national culture
3. Organizations are cultures!
1. members share how to perceive, interpret and explain and perform within the organization.
2. cultures are historical, including:
1. past events and their interpretations (as typified by heroes and in rites and rituals)
2. expectations, formal and informal (values)
3. symbolic forms (rituals, myth, metaphors)
3. Organizations don't have a culture (It's not an owned property.) The organization; IS a culture. 
4. Although organizations have (intentionally or not) a "cultural network"  (a communication systems that transmits and reinforces the culture) still, managing culture is hard to do.
5. Actions are symbolic as well as instrumental
6. Organizations have sub-cultures. ( e.g. athletic teams, fraternities, sales groups, etc.
4. Features of Organizational Culture
   1. It is learned
   2. It is shared
   3. It is trans-generational and cumulative (over time)
   4. It is symbolic
   5. It is patterned
   6. It is adaptive