Synopses & Reviews
Understanding Organization Through Culture and Structure: Relational and Other Lessons From the African American Organization presents an innovative view of organizations and the communication processes that constitute them. Arguing that human beings are communicatively embedded in their cultures, Anne Maydan Nicotera and Marcia J. Clinkscales, working with Felicia R. Walker, examine issues concerning task and relational orientations and the ways they and other cultural dimensions connect with organizational structure and function for predominantly African American organizations. Utilizing the results of their own research on organizations, they develop a set of humanistically-based models that illustrate how hidden cultural processes suffuse organizational life and are manifest through communication.
Emphasizing the development of alternative theories and models of organizing which are rooted in African-American culture, such as team-based versus hierarchy-based interactions, this book explores such organizational functions as leadership and management, power, authority and control, communication and interpersonal dynamics, and cultural identity and human development. Applying their findings in a broader analysis of contemporary practices in organizational restructuring, the authors present research that serves as the foundation for generating several emergent models with significant implications for organizational systems.
Understanding Organization Through Culture and Structure stimulates and inspires current researchers of organizational communication, and is certain to raise greater awareness of the operation of culture in organizing. The text is intended for scholarsand students in organizational communication, management, organizational psychology, African studies, and related areas.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-297) and indexes.
Table of Contents
Cultural and Organization -- Organization and Culture -- Theorizing Organization -- A Baseline Model of Interpenetrating Structures -- Our Take on Diversity -- Communication and Two Predominantly African-American Organizations -- The Organizing Scheme for Reporting Our Data, Findings, and Theory -- Organization I: The Human Service Organization -- Organization 2: The Elementary School -- Method, Interpretation, and Emergent Theory -- African-American Rules and Resources -- Comparison to the Baseline Model -- Afrocentric Theory -- Traditional African Organizational Forms -- Interpentration of Contradicting Structures: The divergent Organization -- The Contradictions -- The Enculturated Organization -- The Divergent Organizations Communicative Downward Spiral -- Difficulties in Communication Processes -- The System as a Whole -- Briefly Revisiting History: Some Underpinnings of the System as Depicted -- Contemporary African-American Organizational Experiences -- African-American Communication in Predominantly -- White Corporations -- Theoretic Applications -- Predominantly African-American Organizations -- Organizations With European-Based Cultural Membership -- Why Divergence Has a More Negative Impact on African-American Organizations -- Field Observations and Prescriptions That Validate Our Downward Spiral -- Where Do We Go From Here? Conceptualizing The Convergent Organization -- The Task Before Us -- Implications for Organizational Diversity -- Implications for African-American Organizations -- Turning Divergence Into Convergence -- The Foundation for a Humanistic Model of Organizational Communication: A Baseline for Theorizing the Convergent Organization.