Organizational Culture (Wk 3, Lecture, Blog 4)

I like that this lecture continued the book’s discuss of organizations as cultures. (p. 2) I know that many people have been blogging about this topic (as have I), and I think that it is a really important one. As a break from traditional approaches to explaining organizational communication, the culture metaphor allows us to think about organization differently. I like the additional examples of looking at external cultural influences on an organization as well.

In our modern, globalized world (especially here in Silicon Valley), we are increasingly seeing a shift in the work force as it becomes more and more diverse. We are truly reaping the benefits of the world’s educated, hard-working and committed immigrants who have decided to work here. With them, come different cultural norms and practices. I would guess that the way people operate a business in India, Spain, Japan, and the US differ greatly from one another. We stand to benefit from a world-wide (informal) “best-practices” session, in which organizations located in the valley are being exposed to such a wide variety of different cultures and their approaches to work. The hurdle, of course, is that we also run the risk of increased misunderstanding poor communication, and employer/employee abuse.