A three‐perspective approach to understanding culture in retail organizations
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00483489810369269 |
| Published date | 01 April 1998 |
| Date | 01 April 1998 |
| Pages | 104-123 |
| Author | Lloyd C. Harris,Emmanuel Ogbonna |
Personnel
Review
27,2
104
A three-perspective approach
to understanding culture in
retail organizations
Lloyd C. Harris and Emmanuel Ogbonna
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff, UK
Introduction
Recent theoretical contributions could be taken as an indication that the concept
of culture has regained much of the credibility it lost in the 1980s when it was
hijacked by those seeking tools of behavioural conformance in line with the
prevailing management agendas (see for example, criticisms identified by
Carroll (1983); Mitchell (1985); Ray (1986); Saffold (1988); Soeters (1986). Indeed,
many authors now argue that there is a resurgence of academic interest in the
concept as researchers have sought to maximize its strengths as a tool for
understanding and analysing organizations and behaviours within them (for
example, Denison, 1996; Frost et al., 1991; Kunda, 1992; Schultz and Hatch,
1996. An important recent contribution to this genre is the work of Martin
(1992) which develops three perspectives of organizational culture: integration,
differentiation and fragmentation. The three-perspective framework forms the
basis for the discussion in this article.
Through the analysis of three in-depth case studies, this article demonstrates
the analytical value of Martin’s (1992) framework and argues that the three
perspectives provide greater insight into the culture of retail organizations. The
findings indicate that the ways in which organizational members view their
roles and relationships (their organizational world) are consistent with the
integration, differentiation and fragmentation perspectives. Furthermore, the
article demonstrates that these perspectives relate to the hierarchical positions
of organizational members: head office personnel (particularly those at senior
levels) commonly project views that are consistent with “integration”, store
managers tend to lean towards “differentiation” and shopfloor staff frequently
hold views which can be approximated to “fragmentation”.
The article starts with a review of recent contributions to extant literature on
organizational culture in order to locate Martin’s (1992) three perspectives in the
context of broader organizational culture theory. This is followed by a
discussion of the three-perspective framework developed by Martin (1992)
comprising an evaluation of each of the three perspectives. This is preceded by
a brief discussion of the design of the research and the methodology. The
remainder of the article is dedicated to the presentation and analysis of the
findings of the research and the development of conclusions and implications.
The rationale for this paper is founded on the argument that Martin’s (1992)
framework is an important development in the study of organizational culture
Personnel Review,
Vol. 27 No. 2, 1998, pp. 104-123,
© MCBUniversity Press, 0048-3486
Received February 1997
Revised/Accepted June
1997
Understanding
culture in retail
organizations
105
not only because of its theoretical significance but also because it highlights
some of the fundamental problems inherent to the practitioner perspectives of
organizational culture. In order to demonstrate the degree of fit and analytical
value of the three perspectives, the article presents empirical data generated
from interviews with managers and staff at three major retail companies.
The concept of organizational culture
The confusion surrounding the definition and the boundaries of the concept of
culture continues despite the increasing number of articles devoted to the
subject (Denison, 1996; Hatch, 1993). Indeed, since Kroeber and Kluckhon’s
(1952) assertion that numerous definitions of the concept abound, more
researchers have gone on to propose their own definitions to the point that it is
now widely acknowledged that there are as many definitions as there are so-
called “experts” on the subject (Ogbonna and Wilkinson, 1990). However, it is
possible to propose that an emerging trend is the polarisation of the definition
of organizational culture enabling the identification of two principal categories
of definition. First, there are those studies which define culture in terms of its
utility as an organizational variable or the purpose it serves in helping
organizational members make sense of their social world and cope with
problems of adaptation (see for example, Harris, 1996; Pacanowsky and
O’Donnell-Trujillo, 1983; Schein, 1992). Second, there are those studies which
describe culture primarily in terms of its merit as a tool of social research (see,
Kreps, 1984; Smircich, 1983b; Zamanou and Glaser, 1994).
Notwithstanding the differences in the methodological approach employed in
studies subscribing to these two broad views, it is clear that most contemporary
definitions of culture embrace one or more elements of what Pettigrew (1979)
describes as a “family of concepts”. Prominent components of Pettigrew’s (1979)
“family of concepts” include “values”, “beliefs”, “assumptions”, “myths”,
“rituals” and “symbols” which organizational members share in common and
which guide their everyday survival. Increasingly, researchers are now
recognizing the usefulness of conceptualizing culture as a “family of concepts”
(for example, Harris, 1996; Ogbonna, 1993). However, the benefits derived from
such a loose conceptualization are arguably outweighed by the methodological
difficulties this causes. Foremost among these is the concern that if culture is an
amalgam of opaque and nebulous concepts such as those identified above, how
does one study it and how does one distinguish it from similar organizational
concepts such as “climate” and “norms”? (Denison, 1996). This issue is
compounded by the fact that different studies emphasize the significance of
diverse components of culture. For example, while acknowledging that culture
has different levels, Schein’s conception focuses on underlying and unconscious
assumptions (see for instance Schein, 1992). In contrast, Martin and Siehl (1983)
argue that greater insight could be gained by the specific examination of values.
Moreover, popular managerialist literature commonly equates culture with
organizational rituals (Deal and Kennedy, 1982) and visible manifestations such
as artefacts and creations (Peters and Waterman, 1982).
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