I think shein's model of culture is grand,so it is adapative some abstract conception for the country even whole society,you can select the hofstede's four dimensions of coulture to be apply into the organization

Thanks Lijinwei. I shall research Hofstede's dimensions to add to it. Are there any other models that you would recommend?

There was a fascinating, but huge model for the description of cultures (an almost 100 element matrix) in the book of E.T. Hall: The Silent Language, written in the 1950-s. Unfortunately I have not seen anyl application, atlhough I am sure that smaller subsets of it would be useful.

Hi Gyorgy I will take a lok and see what it is like - 100 elements sounds a bit too detailed but, as you say, smaller subsets may be useful or relevant to my studies.

Dear Norman, Do you have the book? It would take some time to have the table typed - I have a not too good xerox copy of the original, a scanned verison would not be enjoyable. Nevertheless, if you want I will type it into an excel table.

Gyorgy that is a very generous offer and much appreciated. However, I have been able to locate a copy of the book so I won;t be imposing on you. Thank you for your help.

It is interesting that so far there are only two answers to this question. One is in favour of the Schein model I am familiar with, the other has directed me to Hall's model of culture which, while complex and not easily translated into my studies, is also very interesting. Are these the only two models relevant to organisational culture? Is this a topic that is a) under-researched? b) too hard to do? c) too embedded in ethnic cultures to be studied in a generic manner?

I remember that Hall in his books (Hidden dimensions, Dance of Life, Beyon culture, Hidden differences) made very interesting comparisons between monchronic/polychronic cultures and bureaucracies, very good points in comparing Anglo-Saxon and German, French and German, European and Japanese organizations withs respect to time and space utilization. Differences in implicit/explicit communication (high and low context cultures, or the use of these two modes of communication by the same people, e.g. by the Japanese) are also important. These are not systematic models, but very useful for the practical manager. Other differences in the Hofstede dimensions (http://geert-hofstede.com/organisational-culture.html) can also be very important. Trompenaars also has a lot to say about organizations (http://www2.thtconsulting.com/) in the inter-cultural context - but I am sure you know these models better than myself.

I suggest take a look at Smircich article classical one, and also at Martin approach of culture: integration, differentattion and fragmented view of culture. Also I would take a look at Mary Jo Hacth.

Gyorgy, thanks for the pointers. I don't know these models but will get to know them as they sound really useful.

Marlene, thanks also for the references - I will get digging online and in the libraries!

Hello Marlene

That Smircich(1983) paper puts the question of having or being culture. But we can also consider the cultural patterns, significant symbols, from Geertz (1989) and the fragmentation perspective from Martin (2002). There is also Hofstede ( 1991), Schein (1992) and Trompenaars (1994) that present the idea of culture levels.

Thanks Vitor I will track down references for Geertz. It seems that Hofstede and Trompenaars are indicated strongly so I will begin with those.

The Schein model I think is a very clear and simple model showing the effect of the lifecycle of an organisation on its culture.

The Hall model is good at expressing culture as communication but may prove too unwieldy for my research (100 elements may be very powerful for analysis but quite difficult to identify) especially as the triads he refers to are not only interelated but also interchangeable as the analytic focus shifts.

Perhaps I should enlarge on the research I am doing. The topic is the institutioanl abuse of adults in health or social care settings. Starting with Goffman's 'Asylums' and Wardhaugh and WIlding's 'Corruption of Care', there are, clearly, elements of the organisational culture that play a part in staff attitudes. I don't accept that the behaviour of poor or abusive care staff, nurses and doctors is entirely down to their own personal behavioural and attitudinal repertoire. There have been numerous surveys showing that staff feel compromised in their professional duties and prevented from providing the level of care they feel is appropriate. This may be due to bureaucratic influences or inter-professional rivalries.

I am also interested at looking at the interaction of the wider environment on the culture of the organisation, as in Lipsky's "Street-Level Bureaucracies" so Hall's model would be useful to explore some of the issues.

Sine Ed Schein came out with his basic model on OC there is a debate about how to research the "hidden knowledge" in organizations. Michael Polanyi has written a wonderful book on the "Tacit Dimension", which is highly recommendable. the debate today is increasingly important because organizational structures are becoming more and more fluid and non-hierarchical. Even in hierarchical structures (like nursing homes or financial administrations) employees will will tell you that there is a implicit dimension of organization, which makes things work beyond (and sometimes instead) rules. in our research we are using two approaches to understand "fluidity" in organizations: 1. Improvisation research (already mentioned in MJ Hatch´ book) which shows that it makes sense to learn from musical or dance improvisation (ie Jazz) to understand implicit knowing in organizations. 2. Chis Alexander´s "Pattern Language" (developed for architecture and widely used in agile software development) is a powerful tool to explore "patterns of implicit knowledge" in organizations and social systems. both, pattern language and improvisation go together to find out "how does an organization sound like?"

Stark and Melanie, you have both given me much to think about here.

Stark, I think the difficulty I will face in this project is the time available versus the time needed for research. As a part-time student with a full-time job I will need to restrict my methodologies to suit the time available. On this basis the idea of interviewing to ascertain 'implicit knowledge' will be very beneficial.

Melanie, thank you for summing up current views on culture and ethnography for me - it is interesting to see that org sci is of the same opinion as anthropology even if it is for different reasons. As the aim of the research is to identify problem sources, I will have to give consideration to ethnographic methods other than interviews.

Thanks Melanie, your help is much appreciated.

Maybe this is a bit off the main thread here, but I like to bring in the perspective that culture (organizational or not) ultimately is grounded in human activity (think Vygotsky, Leontiev, Dewey etc.). This is where Polanyi and Smircich become very interesting.

For Polanyi, tacit knowledge is a precondition for meaningful focal knowledge, and there is no explicit knowledge without subsidiary, marginal, and tacit meaning structure that underlies all focal knowledge. This means that knowledge is always about something; an object of the activity. The tacit stock of knowledge is the background from which the knower attends to the focal knowledge, which in turn is a prerequisite for action and, in the long run, the emergence of culture.

Smircich says (1983, p. 351) that “the human mind has built-in constraints by which it structures psychic and physical content. … Culture displays the workings of the unconscious infrastructure; it reveals the form of the unconscious”.

Thus, we have to acknowledge our biological, inherited predispositions for coordinating and integrating our actions in order to understand culture. My research is along those lines, focusing on something I call “activity modalities”, which is well aligned with the ideas of Polanyi and Smircich. A short into can be found here: http://neana.se/am.doc The scenery in fig 1, the mammoth hunt, can surely be thought of as a “mammoth-hunting culture”, I think.

I welcome any comments!

Hi Lars. Thanks for the comment - I don't know whether it is 'off-thread' or not but it has certainly given me something to think about in terms of institutional care. I think I have the concepts of the 'activity modalities' right in which case the giving of care would be visible in the following ways:

The "objectivation" would be looking at the person receiving care as the object and focus of the activity, the "contextualization" would be both the care home or hospital where the care is being given and the needs of the recipient of care as providing the reason for the activity, the "spatialization" provides a context for the type of activity in the sense that if it is in the person’s room it will be personal care or delivering a meal but in a bathroom it is helping the person bathe or toilet, the "temporalization" gives the sequence in which actions are performed such as running the bath, helping the person undress, helping them get in the bath, washing them, etc., "stabilization" I have a little difficulty with but I would see as the activities being focused on the care recipient and "transition" would be the motive for care such as preventing sores and infections by bathing, preventing a downturn in health by assisting with eating or providing a meal/medication.

While I can see this as being a useful way of analyzing the activity, I am not entirely sure how this would relate to the beneficence or abusiveness of the culture. For example, I am not sure how the modalities reflect what happens if the care recipient is being difficult or resisting the help. Is this the equivalent of an unsuccessful mammoth hunt? If so, there is always going to be an element of unsuccessful care as individuals receiving care will differ (in the same way as the mammoths are not identical).

Are you able to elaborate on this for me?

Hi Norman,

Thanks for your answer; it gave me important clues to what I need to improve in my account for the activity modalities. You got the general idea quite right. An activity about care-giving would have the person receiving the care as its object; this is what the activity is all about. The reason for establishing the activity should be more emphasized since that will influence how the activity is manifested. For example, is the reason primarily to give care to someone in need or to make a profit out of running a health-care center? In Sweden right now there is a move from national, tax-financed non-profit organizations to profit-driven organizations, which will have a substantial impact on the care-giving activity.

Now, the contextualization modality focuses the attention to the fact that the patient will pass through a number of different contexts: registration, investigation, x-ray, treatment, discharging etc. (I’m not sure about the English terms but you got the idea). In each context, certain things are relevant and others are not. In your example, for example, delivering a meal is not relevant when in the bathroom. Also, in each context there is a spatial dimension, which enables you to orient yourself in the context. In the patient room, there will be an entrance, a window; the bed will be placed somewhere, etc. Temporalization you got quite right.

The stabilization modality is about that which is considered relevant actions in the context: “this is the way we do things around here”. You might think of it as norms, rules, routines, codes of conduct; whatever lends a stabilizing character to the activity. In the care-giving activity that may, for example, be “always disinfect your hands before operation” or similar.

The transition modality is simply the ability to make a transition from one context to another. For example, if you are going to move the patient from the patient room to the bathroom, you must make sure that the patient can walk, or maybe he need a wheel chair in order to make the transition.

The idea is that all these modalities are mutually interrelated to each other, and that all of them are necessary prerequisites (but perhaps not sufficient) for performing any kind of action. This in turn goes back to the idea that the modalities are part and parcel of our cognitive and neural equipment, brought about by the evolution of mankind.

Regarding your last question, I would say that the way the modalities are manifested is always in a kind of flux; nothing is fixed. Stabilization comes about from performing a number of successful and not so successful hunting experiences (in the mammoth hunt activity), and as time goes by the actors learn how to do successful mammoth hunting. But this can always be questioned, by for example the introduction of new hunting tools. In your example, I would probably look for how the modalities are affected by say, resisting help. This would include both manifested expressions of the modalities (processes, spatial arrangements, code-of-conduct, etc.) as well as the ways of talking and thinking about the activity.

I’m not sure if I have elucidated something, but I hope so. In any case, I think that you need some kind of framework in order to get a grip on this elusive thing called “culture”. The notion of activity modalities is just one possible way and still very much a work in progress. It differs, however, from other approaches in that it tries to anchor culture in our biological predispositions for acting in the world.