CHAPTER ONE

LITERATURE REVIEW, RATIONALE, AND STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Introduction and Overview

There is no denying it: Some organizations are simply more successful than others. They adapt to the environment more easily; they have a more positive image; they perform better than their competitors. Why do some organizations prosper while others struggle? Although there is a virtual galaxy of potential answers to this question, some organizational communication scholars would argue that culture — a metaphor that represents shared, symbolically constructed assumptions, values, and artifacts of particular organizations (Mohan 1993) — underlies organizational effectiveness.

Culture serves both as a description of the organization of activities and meaning in organizations, its structure, and as a description of the activities by which these meanings come to be produced and shared in organizations . . . [A]n organization's culture consists of whatever a member must know or believe in order to operate in a manner understandable and acceptable to other members, and the means by which this knowledge is produced and transmitted (Deetz, 1982, 132-33).

Moreover, "most researchers and practitioners agree that central to the notion of organizational culture are the complex communication processes in which organizational members engage" (Shockley-Zalabak and Morely, 1989, 484) — or, as Hall wrote so succinctly, "Culture is communication, and communication is culture" (1959, 191).

Beyond the idea of culture as specific to organizations, however, a growing body of research confirms the phenomenon of identifiable industry cultures, suggesting that "industries exert influences that cause cultures to develop within defined perimeters [and that] within industries, certain cultural characteristics will be widespread among organizations, and these [are] different from [those] found in other industries" (Gordon, 1991). If this is the case, then it is vitally important to uncover, not only those assumptions that might be held in common by members of an industry grouping, but more importantly perhaps, to locate "the source of extant cultural assumptions in particular industries" (Phillips, 1994, 399).

To arrive at such an understanding, however, one must move beyond a functionalist perspective, wherein cultural assumptions are conceptualized as variables to be manipulated, and where organizations are examined mainly in terms of economic or material outcomes (even though it cannot be denied that the temper of organizational culture likely exerts a significant influence upon those outcomes). Instead, to more fully understand how culture evolves — particularly across the time and space continuum of entire industries — it is also necessary to examine organizational culture from the interpretivist perspective, wherein "organizations" are conceptualized as "subjective experience" and analyzed "in terms of their expressive, ideational, and symbolic aspects . . . [by investigating] the patterns that make organized action possible" (Smircich 1983, 347). In short, organizational researchers must be willing to set aside immediate utility as the prime justification for their investigations, and concede the value of describing the "generative processes that yield and shape meanings and that are fundamental to the very existence of organization" (353).

However, adopting one perspective need not exclude the use of another. In fact, the rich description and depth-of-understanding generated by interpretive research may serve to enhance functionalist studies, while the functionalist perspective may serve as a frame for interpretation.

The interpretive paradigm supplements the functionalist view, particularly in its conceptualization of communication as a process of organizing. Organizing, in turn, becomes a process of communicating. The two concepts merge not only in their perspective of communication, but also in the role that language and symbols play in constructing social reality (Putnam, 1982, 205).

Thus, the goals of this study are (1) to uncover the cultural assumptions of the student travel industry, relying upon protocols previously established within the functionalist perspective; and (2) to examine basic communicative processes in an effort to explain how that culture was created and/or how it has evolved across a distinct time and space continuum. Communicative processess, "the unfolding of which are occasions when sense-making is accomplished" (Bormann, 124), comprise the manner in which the industry's culture is made manifest; thus, understanding these processes is endemic to any understanding of culture.

This study was initially guided by the question, "What is the culture of the student travel industry?" From the data generated, there emerged detailed descriptions, both of the industry culture and of communicative processes endemic to its creation and evolution. To chronicle this process is

as much a recounting of an 'odyssey' as a reporting of research. Decision points surface, positions are determined, and findings are reported . . . but the richness of the experience eludes the linear format. What of the experience can be captured is presented in the following sequence (Phillips, 1990, 3).

The remainder of Chapter One provides a background and overview of the topic, inlcuding a review of related research, and sets forth a rationale for this particular study as well as for the perspective(s) from which its is examined. Chapter Two describes the study's methodological protocols, and outlines the various processes though which data were gathered and analyzed. Chapter Three describes the culture of the student travel industry by examining communicative processes endemic to the creation and evolution of that culture. Finally, Chapter Four analyzes the study's findings in light of the research goals originally set forth, identifies limitations to the instant study, and suggests possible directions for future research.

Organizational Culture

The notion of culture as a phenomenon applicable to organizations arguably has its roots in what Eisenberg and Goodall (1993) have called "the end of empire" — roughly the two decades following World War II, when the United States found itself the economic master of a world that was fast-gaining "an awareness of how dominant Western interests were accomplices in the political and economic subordination of a Third World" (123). As American business moved onto the global scene, roughly between 1945-1980, "economic and political concerns . . . dramatically influenced critical scrutiny of organizations" (123). Indeed, William Ouchi's Theory Z (1981), which contrasted U.S. and Japanese organizational performance standards, was "the first book to popularize the concept of organizational culture [when it] announced that the survival and prosperity of organizations depended heavily on their ability to adapt to their surrounding cultures . . . [and suggested] incorporating new cultural values into the work environment" (Eisenberg & Goodall, 131).

During the 1980s, organizational communication scholars became increasingly interested in moving beyond quantitative, behaviorist-centered approaches to social science, and in returning to the more qualitative, interpretive modes of inquiry that had characterized the discipline's beginnings (Eisenberg & Goodall, 131). One such mode of inquiry, rooted in the symbolic interactionist perspective, is the study of culture — an examination of meaning as it is created among and between societal groupings, including organizations. Although definitions of culture "range from abstract webs of significance to pragmatic frames of reference" (Mohan, 1993, 10), it is generally agreed that to study an organization's culture is to try to uncover

a pattern of basic assumptions — invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration — that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems (Schein, 1985, 9).

Thus, an organization's culture shapes meaning for its members. As applied to business and industry, the study of culture is an attempt to understand "the meaning of work" (Eisenberg & Goodall, 131), which may, at least for some, lead to an understanding of "the workplace in its role as a mediator of behavior" (Deal & Kennedy, 1984, 6).

Initially, the metaphor of "culture" as a means of guiding research in organizational communication was offered as an alternative to the sputtering "systems" metaphor (Eisenberg & Goodall, 1993), whose chief weakness was identified as a lack of utility when applied to research in organizational communication (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983). Early research, primarily conducted from the functionalist perspective, tended "to focus on static, structural features of culture," and to "document the existence of such cultural features as organizational jargon, stories, ideologies, and strategic knowledge" (Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983, 126). Subsequently and in response, another group of scholars (see generally Putnam & Pacanowsky, 1983) offered a competing interpretivist perspective, one that "introduce[d] process notions into our understanding of organizational culture by looking at organizational communication as cultural performance" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983,126).

During the past two decades, research in organizational culture has tended to crystallize around these two competing perspectives: culture as critical variable (the functionalist view) vs. culture as root metaphor (interpretivist view) (Smirich, 1983, 339). These labels are derived ultimately from Burrell and Morgan's (1979) depiction of the various approaches or "paradigms" that represent one's view of the nature of reality and affinity for change (Morgan, 1980). "Functionalists" view society as objective and orderly, assuming that behavior is concrete and tangible and that society has a real systematic existence" (Putnam, 1982, 194). From this perspective, "the external world shapes individual options for appropriate behaviors" (Putnam, 1983, 36). Interpretivists, on the other hand, assume that reality is created within the individual, is constructed socially through shared meanings, that behavior (individual or societal) is neither objective, orderly, concrete, or tangible, and that "social reality is constituted through words, symbols, and actions" (Putnam, 1983, 40). In other words, individuals "have a critical role in shaping environmental and organizational realities" (Putnam, 1983, 36). Thus, the "critical variable" approach to organizational culture is functional in nature, and may be differentiated from the interpretive, "root metaphor" approach; moreover, "these different conceptions give rise to different research questions and interests" (Smircich, 1983, 339).

The Functionalist Paradigm

Primarily, "the research agenda arising from the view that culture is an organizational variable is how to mold and shape internal culture in particular ways and how to change culture, consistent with managerial purposes" (Smircich, 346). In other words, the "critical variable" or "functionalist" view regards culture as something an organization has, suggesting that it may be manipulated to serve administrative ends. This perspective, which has dominated organizational theory and communication research from the beginning, tends to conceptualize the organization as either a "machine, an organism, or a cybernetic system" wherein communication "is primarily mechanistic, with an emphasis on transmission effects, selection of channels, and information processing" (Putnam, 1982, 195-198).

Not surprisingly, management strategists have flocked to this perspective, and it is primarily they — not communication scholars — who have published a lion's share of the research in organizational culture. Perhaps the most widely-known functionalist studies are two that enjoyed popularity throughout the 1980s: Deal and Kennedy's Corporate Cultures The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (1982) and Peters and Waterman's In Search of Excellence (1985). In an extensive longitudinal investigation of Fortune-500 corporations, Deal & Kennedy found high correlations between "shared meaning" and "outstanding performance" while finding "no correlations of any relevance" among companies that did not articulate or share "qualitative beliefs and values" (1982, 7). The authors interpreted these findings to suggest that shared meaning or "strong culture" enables employees to "do their jobs a little better" by providing "informal rules" for behavior and by enabling workers to "feel better about what they do, so they are more likely to work a little harder," all presumably resulting in a more efficient, effective, and above all, productive workplace (15-16).

In a similar study, involving 62 companies identified as "excellent" by their employees and by external analysts, Peters and Waterman concluded that "the dominance and coherence of culture proved to be an essential quality of the excellent companies" (1985, 75). Going beyond Deal and Kennedy's findings, however, Peters and Waterman found that "poorer-performing companies often have strong cultures too, but dysfunctional ones" and that the difference in whether culture is positive or negative in its impact depends upon how well it shapes meaning for everyone in the organization, not just the top fifty who are in the bonus pool" (75).

As well, the nature and "effects" of culture have been investigated extensively by a plethora of other researchers (see generally Mohan, 1993) whose general orientation is that "shared understandings of a firm's culture enhance strategy implementation, organizational change, and positive images of the firm" (Chatman & Jehn, 1994). Functionalists' studies of culture have examined a wide range of issues within a variety of different frames. For example, within a "systemic" frame (Mohan, 1993), researchers have examined the effects of cultural patterns found in "variables" such as hierarchy, relationships, and decision making (to name but a few) and have tried to determine how these variables impact an organization's response to its environment ( O'Toole, 1979; Pettigrew, 1979; Schein, 1990; Wilkins, 1983). In addition, from within a "cognitive" frame (Mohan, 1993), functionalists have examined the effects of congruent cultural value orientations within organizations (Cooke & Rosseau, 1988; Harris & Cronen, 1979; O'Reilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991; Kilman & Saxton, 1983). Other researchers have linked cultural variables with the relative efficacy of socialization processes, corporate life cycles, management, strategy, leadership, and productivity. Indeed, the functionalist view of culture and its significance is perhaps most pragmatically described as follows:

If values, beliefs, and exemplars are widely shared, formal [strategy] can be parsimonious. A well-developed organizational culture directs and coordinates activities. By contrast, if an organization is characterized by many different and conflicting values, beliefs, and exemplars . . . [then] considerable more direction and coordination will be required, [including] formalized plans, procedures, programs, budgets, and so forth (Bresser and Bishop, 1990, 590-91).

Levels of Culture

Working within this perspective, and using qualitative methods to generate data, Edgar Schein (1985) conceptualized and described a notion, widely accepted among functionalists (and many interpretivists, for that matter), that culture is a multi-level construct containing three levels or "layers," ranging from the obvious and concrete to the more subtle and abstract: (1) artifacts and creations are manifestations of (2) values, which in turn are engendered by (3) basic assumptions. Artifacts and creations comprise the most "visible" level of culture and include the "constructed physical and social environment . . . physical space, technological output . . . written and spoken language, artistic productions, and . . . overt behavior" (Schein, 1985, 14). Of special interest to communications research are verbal artifacts, which include "language, stories, and myths" as well as behavioral artifacts such as "rituals and ceremonies" (Mohan, 1993, 16). The "middle" or values level is generally said to be both conscious and subconscious (Schein, 1983, 16-17) and "is distinguished by goals, ideals, and standards that represent members' preferred means of resolving everyday problems . . . socially shared rules and norms applicable to a specific context . . . as well as what 'natives" perceive as constituting boundaries of acceptable behavior" (Mohan, 1993, 16). While these concepts normally prompt certain behaviors, they may remain only "espoused" (Argyris & Schon, 1978), in which case there is a discrepancy between what the organization and/or its members claim to value and in how they actually behave.

The most abstract level, that of taken-for-granted reality, includes the group's basic assumptions, or "tacit beliefs members hold about themselves, their relationships to others, and the nature of the organization" (Mohan, 1993, 15). These assumptions underlie and determine "meaning systems" in the organization; moreover, unless we have some understanding of this "paradigm by which the members of a group perceive, think about, feel about, and judge situations and relationships, we cannot claim that we have described or understood the group's culture" (Schein, 1983, 111). It is upon this "layer" (e.g., these assumptions) that the cultural infrastructure rests (Deetz and Kersten, 1983).

Based on the work of Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961), who outlined a typology of five questions "common to all human groups" (10), Schein (1985) proposed a typology for analyzing cultural assumptions in organizations whose utility is in being able to chart and thereby identify a culture's relative cohesion or "strength." Schein argues that "strong" cultures come to operate within a coherent "cultural paradigm" that is characterized by members' general adherence to "interlocking" or consistent assumptions (Schein, 1985, 109); moreover, Schein also argues that "unless we have searched for [this] pattern among the different underlying assumptions . . . and have attempted to identify [its] paradigm . . . we cannot claim that we have described or understood the group's culture" (Schein, 111). The typology's five categories as well as a brief topical description of each are listed in Table 1.

TABLE 1: SCHEIN'S TYPOLOGY OF CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS

Table adapted from E.H. Schein (1985) Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; and Margaret Phillips (1990) Industry as a cultural grouping, Doctoral dissertation, Anderson Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, No 9017663.

Although Schein hails primarily from the functionalist perspective, the idea of an interrelatedness between "culture" and some type of "basic assumptions" — whether they be called assumptions, "webs of significance" (Geertz, 1973, 124), "cultural structures" or "performances" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983, 129 ), "psychic prisons" (Morgan, 1980, 618), "iron cages" (Weber, 1947), "unconscious processes" (Smircich, 1983, 355), or something else entirely — is a notion that underlies any investigation of culture. As Smircich points out, regardless of the perspective assumed, "A cultural analysis moves us in the direction of questioning taken-for-granted assumptions, raising issues of context and meaning, and bringing to the surface underlying values" (355). This issue will be addressed in more detail, below.

The Interpretive Paradigm

Whereas the functionalist research agenda is concerned primarily with "managing" the culture an organization has or possesses, "culture as a root metaphor promotes a view of organizations as human forms, manifestations of human consciousness," whose research agenda "is to explore the phenomenon of organization as subjective experience and to investigate the patterns that make organized action possible" (Smircich, 1983, 348). This perspective regards culture, not as something an organization has and is able to manipulate, but as what the organization is. One way to illustrate the difference between "what a culture has" and "what it is" might be to examine how each perspective views the communicative processes endemic to culture (e.g. myths, legends, rites, rituals, stories, and the like). To the functionalist, these constructs are perceived of as cultural "artifacts" or "symbolic devices [that] can be used to mobilize and channel the energies of organization members" (346); however, to the interpretivist, these are instead the very

generative processes that yield and shape meanings and that are fundamental to the very existence of organization . . . .When culture is a root metaphor, the researcher's attention shifts from concerns about what do organizations accomplish and how may they accomplish it more efficiently, to how is organization accomplished and what does it mean to be organized? (353)

Two early proponents of the interpretive (e.g. culture as "root metaphor") approach are Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo (1982) who have suggested that communication processes engaged in by an organization's members should be perceived of as "cultural performances" (1983) that "center on the study of meanings . . . [and on] the way individuals make sense of their world through communication behaviors" (Putnam, 1983, 31). Along these lines, Mohan (1993) describes the interpretivist perspective as a "symbolic frame" wherein "salient symbols emerge directly from the native point of view, rather than imposing a researchers' objectified scheme" (59), resulting in an understanding of the "shared meanings" attached to cultural (communicative) performances, and thereby of "cultural assumptions and patterns" (55). Also, an examination of various symbolic communicative processes (e.g. stories, rituals, and the like) reveal an organization's ideological underpinnings (Dandridge, 1983). Thus, the "root metaphor" is "an enacted symbolic process" — e.g. a performance of symbols, the interpretation of which fosters an understanding of "how formal and informal behavior shapes cultural patterns" (Mohan, 1993, 57). More specifically, the root metaphor or " 'dominant myth' is the fundamental generator" (Mohan, 1993, 55) of a group's assumptions, and thereby of its characteristic behaviors, policies, and practices.

Research generated by this perspective has its roots in the Chicago School and more specifically in symbolic interactionism, as engendered by George Herbert Mead (1934) and later articulated by Blumer (1969). Blumer identified three "premises" of symbolic interactionism:

(1) that human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them; (2) that the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of . . . social interaction; (3) these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things [encountered] (1969, 2).

Thus, the discovery of meaning is central to the interpretivist perspective, and meaning is unveiled by observing the social interaction (e.g. communication) that "forms human conduct instead of being merely a means or a setting for [its] expression or release" (Blumer, 8). Moreover, meaning is shaped through communicative processes.

The idea of communication as process is not new. Early in the 20th century, Whitehead wrote, "process is the becoming of experience" (1929, 252), an idea to which Berlo referred when he articulated The Process of Communication (1960):

Communication theory reflects a process point of view. . . . The basis for the concept of process is the belief that the structure of physical reality cannot be discovered by man; it must be created by man (24).

Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo cite sociologists Berger and Luckmann (1967) in describing communication as that which "creates and constitutes the taken-for-granted reality of the world" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1982, 121) — in other words, communication creates and sustains cultural assumptions. This claim is well-founded. In fact, Berger & Luckmann (1967) portray reality as a world that is constructed and inhabited "with others . . . in [a] dialectic between nature and the socially-constructed world [wherein] the human organism itself is transformed . . . [and wherein] man produces reality and thereby produces himself" (168). Their use of the term dialectic implies, of course, an array of communicative processes, a "dialogue" as it were, wherein "man" communes with himself and others.

More recently, Carey (1989) has taken up the banner of communication as culture. Noting the influences of Dewey (1935) and Durkheim (1947), he espouses a "ritual" view of communication wherein "communication is...the basis of human fellowship [and] produces the social bonds . . . that tie men together and make associated life possible" (22) and where "reality" is "brought into existence, is produced by communication" (25).

If, as the foregoing discussion suggests, "the search for meaningful order . . . begins with what . . . persons say to each other about the meanings of . . . things " (Eisenberg & Goodall, 1993, 117), then it becomes obvious that organizational culture may indeed be construed as "a common frame of reference for interpreting and acting toward one another; a network of shared meanings" (Daniels & Spiker, 1994, 118). Moreover, this "network of shared meanings" is evidenced in "cultural performances" — i.e., in communication that occurs within the organization (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983).

Noting that organizations (and their members) both act and talk about that action in unique ways, and citing Geertz (1973), Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo (1983) describe this phenomenon as "webs of significance that man himself has spun" (5) ; more to the point, they note that "spun webs imply some act of spinning" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1982, 123). They further argue that the agenda for cultural research needs to include "not only the structures of cultural webs, but . . . the process of their spinning as well" (129). It is this "process of spinning" that the authors denote as "cultural performances" (1983).

As Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo point out, " the idea of performance has two somewhat different connotations" (129). One connotation "suggests theatricality and play-acting . . . and invites one to look at each organization as a stage and at the organizational members as . . . actors with varied parts, roles, masks, and scenes to play" (130). This notion of performance, popularized primarily by Goffman (1959), suggests (1) "that organizational members are choice-making individuals [and] do not 'conform' to behavioral laws but rather . . . choose to act . . . in ways which [sic] reflect (or flout) the social conventions of other organizational members" and (2) " that organizational communication is situationally relative and variable" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983, 130, authors' emphases retained).

The other connotation, derived from Turner (1980), is culled from the French root, parfournir, loosely meaning to "accomplish" or "bring to completion" (160). Thus, and in a Burkean sense (Burke, 1968), it is in this "processual sense of 'bringing to completion' or 'accomplishing' that . . . performance brings the significance of meaning of some structural form — be it symbol, story, metaphor, ideology, or saga — into being" (Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983, 129). Put another way, communicative "performances are those very actions by which members constitute and reveal their culture to themselves and to others . . . reality is brought 'to life' in communicative performances" (131).

Based upon existing literature and empirical data, Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo (1983) created a typology or "heuristic list" of categories to help frame a study of cultural performances . Each category represents a specific type of performance wherein organizational culture is performed (see Table 1-2).

Beyond these "heuristic" delineations of performance types, Daniels and Spiker (1994) have identified three specific methods whereby interpretive scholars have examined communicative processes (e.g. "performances" of culture); these include fantasy theme analysis (Bormann 1981); metaphor analysis (Koch & Deetz, 1981; Smith & Eisenberg, 1987); and the analysis of "reflexive comments" or "account analysis" (Harre & Secord, 1972; Tompkins & Cheney, 1983; Geist and Chandler, 1984). Other researchers have examined cultural/communicative performance as "oral 'scripts' constructed by organizational actors" (Mohan, 1993, 57), thus emphasizing language use as a

TABLE 1-2:

PACANOWSKY & O'DONNELL-TRUJILLO'S "HEURISTIC LIST" of PERFORMANCE CATEGORIES AND TYPES

Table adapted from Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo (1983). Organizational communication as cultural performance. Communication Monographs, 50, 126-47.

reflection of culture and/or as a means by which to "forge a collective vision" (Mohan, 1993, 58). Most common among these studies are analyses of narratives, "fantasies," sagas, and stories. More to the point, both Evered (1983) and Frake (1972) argue that analyzing language use is key to understanding and interpreting organizational cultures. In fact, various language-based approaches to culture have been integrated under the aegis of organizational communication culture (OCC), which denotes both a perspective — e.g. "to label the symbolic entity that is an organization" — and a method, that being "a strategy for understanding organizations founded on the analysis of messages" (Bantz, 1993, 1).

In summary, Morely & Shockley-Zalabak (1997) have more recently noted that "the study of culturally based interpretative processes within organizations has generated a renewed interest in communication . . . [and in] important questions about communication processes" (253). Indeed, Daniels and Spiker (1994) have observed that "if the study of organizational culture is intended to . . . understand the process by which culture is created . . . through communication, then interpretivist methods are the most appropriate for this purpose" (120, emphasis added).

Paradigm Interplay

When Burrell and Morgan (1979) articulated their theory of paradigm diversity, they conceived of each paradigm as self-sufficient and self-contained, meaning that there could be no "crossover" in their application; research perspectives, in other words, would rely upon one paradigm or the other. Although their theory may have been heuristic (and perhaps even elegant) at the time it was articulated, this study rejects the notion of self-contained paradigms as being too simplistic to fully address the complexities of contemporary cultural inquiry. Along the same lines, Schultz and Hatch (1996) have found the notion of paradigm integrity unsatisfactory because it requires one to "ignore the multiplicity of perspectives that make up our field of study" (530). They argue in favor of a "new paradigm-crossing strategy [labeled] 'interplay' [and] defined as the simultaneous recognition of both contrasts and connections between" the functionalist and interpretive paradigms (530-31), between culture as a variable and culture as a root metaphor. Similarly, Sypher, Applegate & Sypher (1985) have argued that culture should be construed as integrative instead of divisive, not only with regard to paradigms, but also with regard to methodology. Even Schein (1990) has advocated combining the positivist/functionalist approach with an anthropological orientation to facilitate effective penetration of the various layers of culture, while Van Maanen and Barley (1985) have described the utility of the cultural approach in terms of its linking of competing paradigms.

More specifically, Schultz and Hatch (1996) have identified three connections between functionalism and interpretivism: (1) both perspectives "frame culture as underlying patterns of assumptions or meanings . . . [and] assume that culture binds the organization together"; (2) both construe culture as "an essence upon which surface or outer manifestations or forms are based"; and (3) both "offer more or less static representations" of culture, such as "maps, programs, metaphors, images, and themes" (540-542) — which are especially static when contrasted with postmodernist recognition of more dynamic notions such as "disparity, difference, and indeterminacy" in contemporary organizations (Cooper & Burrell, 1988, 101). Thus, "paradigm interplay" may be visualized as somewhat of a "meta-paradigmatic" approach that works from within the common ground shared by otherwise competing paradigms.

Here, it should be noted that "paradigm interplay" is not analogous to the "integration of paradigms" view espoused by many postmodernists, who "either ignore paradigm boundaries . . . or decompose" them (Schultz & Hatch, 1996, 530); neither is it commensurate with the work of those organizational theorists who "practice integration by merging paradigms without respecting their differences" (530). Instead, Schultz & Hatch advocate paradigm interplay as a "third metatheoretical position that resists both incommensurability and integration [and operates as] the simultaneous recognition of both contrasts and connections between paradigms" (530). The utility of this metatheoretical stance should be obvious: it allows researchers to "transpose the findings from studies conducted in one paradigm into the theoretical frameworks offered by another [which in turn] allows the findings of one paradigm to be recontextualized and reinterpreted in such a way that they inform the research conducted within a different paradigm" (535). Put more simply, "the use of combined perspectives allows researchers to obtain a more holistic view" of the organization (or industry) and its contexts and to "discover aspects of . . . culture that may have been overlooked previously" (Mohan, 1993, 60). Indeed, one might argue that the "bedrock" assumption made by cultural researchers of every stripe (e.g. that observable cultural patterns exist and derive from commonly held assumptions) serves as prima facie evidence that paradigm-crossing is in fact endemic to cultural research. Therefore, this study adopts the metatheoretical perspective of "paradigm interplay," as described and advocated by Schultz and Hatch (1996), primarily because it seems to be a credible description and accurate labeling of the "paradigmatic reality" that cultural researchers have already "created" through the course of their collective study.

Origins of Culture

Thus far, the literature review has suggested that to study organizational culture is to identify or bring to the surface "taken-for-granted assumptions" held by the organization's members. These cultural assumptions have also been described as "webs of significance," the existence of which "imply some act of spinning" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1982, 5). Further, it is argued that this "spinning process" is in fact synonymous with communicative processes, for which the term "cultural performances" (5) is coined. Perhaps it is now appropriate to discuss the "spider" — the architect of the "web," the promulgator of the "spinning" — or as Phillips (1994) put it, "the source" of extant cultural assumptions.

One strand of research that has been of particular interest in this regard deals with founders and how they may create, embed, and/or promulgate the culture of the organizations they establish. From one general perspective, "whatever happens [in an organization] is credited in large part to the founder's unique personal attributes and actions" (Martin, Sitkin & Boehm, 1985, 100). Among the proponents of this viewpoint is Schein (1985), who argues that the most effective organizations remain true to their founders' original vision, even during times of growth and change — a phenomenon primarily attributable to the founder's initial and positive " . . . impact on how the group defines and solves its external adaptation and internal integration problems" (210). Deal and Kennedy (1982) also describe the founder's role as central to the creation of a strong culture, citing IBM, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and other notable Fortune 500s, as organizations whose "cultures [their founders] were so careful to build and nourish [that they] have sustained their organizations through both fat and lean times" and, not incidentally, have also sustained their companies' positions as "leaders in the marketplace" (5). This "integration" perspective is perhaps best described by Kimberly (1979):

Whether one chooses to call [the founder] an entrepreneur, a leader, or a guru, the fact is that his personality, his dreams, his flaws, and his talents [are] largely responsible for . . . structure and results (454).

A second, divergent perspective accuses the first of painting a "rosy portrait" of founders' influence that tends to "gloss over the internal conflict and differentiation that are characteristic of complex institutions" (Martin, et.al., 102). These critics say that founders receive "undeserved credit for having created cultures" when in fact the founder is "cast into a system molded by forces beyond his or her individual control" (102). From this perspective, the founder's role is said to be relatively minor; instead, to use the language of cultural performance, webs of significance are spun, not by a "founding" individual, but instead by various elements in the organization's environment, often in conjunction with elites in the organization, only one of which is the founder (Gordon, 1985, 1991, Kimberly, 1979; Van Maanen & Barley, 1984).

Finally, some evidence suggests that "both the integration and the differentiation portrayals of the culture creation process may be simultaneously accurate" (Martin, et.al., 1985, 123) . Generally, this perspective argues that the influence of the founder upon an organization's culture, although significant, may be tempered to some degree by a plethora of other forces, which may serve in turn to narrow the leader's options and thereby constrain the eventual forms the culture will take (Martin, et.al., 1985). In sum, "one of the most mysterious aspects of organizational culture is how it originates" (Schein, 1985, 148).

Industry Culture

Whereas the phenomenon of organizational culture has been firmly established in the literature, can a similar phenomenon be observed with regard to entire industries — that is to "the group of firms producing products that are close substitutes for each other" (Porter, 1980, 5)? Beyond that, would it be possible to locate origins of an industry's culture and/or describe its evolution?

The Phillips Study

In her landmark 1990 empirical study of industry culture, Phillips identified a good body of theoretical and empirical evidence (albeit of a somewhat preliminary nature), that, taken together, supports the notion that observable "industry culture" exists. Theoretical support was found to reside within "several streams of management literature, specifically, strategy, organization theory, and marketing" (26-27). However, previous to 1990, Phillips (1990) found only two empirical efforts to "uncover the existence of industry-based cultural groupings" (28) — one by Ginyer and Spender (1979) and another by Gordon (1985). This dearth of empirical evidence was in large part remedied by Phillips' (1990) empirical investigation, Industry as a Cultural Grouping. Her study of some 96 informants across twelve different organizations comprising two industries (wineries and art museums in California) offered strong evidence of "discrete industry cultures" wherein the basic infrastructure of the "assumption set" common to each industry "transcends organizational, transorganizational, and suborganizational boundaries within its particular industry" (xv). Moreover, Phillips found that these cultural similarities or "industry mindsets" are observable, not only "with regard to strategic issues," as previous work in the field had seemed to indicate, but also with regard to "interpersonal work relationship issues, such as patterns of communication, . . . and to social issues, such as the purpose of work" (Phillips, 1994, 399).

Relying primarily upon data generated from informant interviews and corporate literature, Phillips (1990) "remodeled" Schein's typology for cultural assumptions in organizations to apply to industry settings:

Some of these needed adjustments were found to stem from general conceptual difficulties; some were found to emanate from [Schein's] focus on organization settings (120). . .[Modifications resulted in] a categorization scheme that is both theoretically driven and inductively derived (204).

The alterations Phillips (1990) made in Schein's (1985) categories for cultural assumptions provide, according to Phillips' (1990) data, more relevance for examining assumptions held in common across an industry, as opposed to those held in common within discrete organizations. In fact, Phillips' (1990) data suggest three categorical changes in Schein's typology.

First, Phillips' (1990) data indicated that "Nature of Truth and Reality" could be more accurately labeled "Origins of Truth," primarily because "what is 'real' was the sum total of what was being investigated . . . therefore, what was 'real' to the informants was being captured in all categories [and] was not confinable to this single sub-category" (122). Consequently, Phillips discarded the sub-category, "reality" (122). As well, Phillips' data suggested that the constructs of "time" and "space" "were taking on separate and distinct meanings" (123) within each industry; thus, "because time and space are both . . . physical dimensions, these latter two subcategories of the original Schein classification were included together within one category" (123).

Next, themes emerging from Phillips' data suggested that "the grand scope of 'human activity' in general . . . seemed to be circumscribed by the work context in particular" (124); hence, the title was changed to "purpose of work" (124). Likewise, data suggested that "the nature of human relationships" category should be confined to "informants' assumptions about the narrower sphere of work relationships. Therefore, the title of this category, as well as the focus of the analysis with regard to it was changed to the 'nature of work relationships'" (126). These alterations are pictured in Table 1-3 below.

TABLE 1:3 A COMPARISON OF SCHEIN'S AND PHILLIPS' CATEGORIES

Table adapted from E.H. Schein (1985) Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; and Margaret Phillips (1990) Industry as a cultural grouping, Doctoral dissertation, Anderson Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, No 9017663.

Phillips (1990) also found that her data did not support some of Schein's specific foci within several categories; hence, she proposed several "internal" revisions to more accurately reflect her findings. A summary of the Phillips' (1990) typology follows, arranged and discussed by category.

Category 1: The relationship between the group and the environment

Phillips' (1990) data indicated that Schein's (1985) category was too simplistic for effective industry analysis, mainly because no single perception or position emerged with regard to the environment en toto.

Rather, there appeared to exist assumptions about the relative importance of different elements within the environment and about the need for different positions in relation to these different elements. In this regard, there was more . . . an awareness of coping with weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats in the Steiner (1977) . . . modes of strategic thinking, than the all-powerful sense of domination, [or] the helpless sense of subjugation, or the peaceful sense of harmoniousness as implied in the Schein . . . typologies" (120-121).

The result is that Phillips' environment category encompasses three issues: (1) identification of group boundaries — e.g. criteria for membership, etc.; (2) "critical elements" in terms of what elements in the environment are "constraining," "empowering" or "harmonious"; and (3) any remaining issues relative to the competitive environment (Phillips, 1990, 233).

Category 2: The origins of truth

Phillips' (1990) "global" changes in the second/third categories have been discussed, above. Beyond these observations, however, Phillips' data was somewhat inconclusive. Her primary finding is that research is needed to "look beyond the means by which 'truth' is determined to the origins of those means in order to flesh out assumptions within this category" (216).

Category 3: The nature of time and space

First, Phillips notes that although Schein grouped them together, the "assumptions about . . . time and space are unrelated and do not overlap" — at least, in the industries Phillips studied. With regard to time, two subcategories surfaced: one dealing with its "basic nature" (223) — e.g., whether time is cyclical, linear, or something else — and the other dealing with the industry's "orientation" to time, that is, to the past, present, or future (223).

Phillips' findings regarding "space" are sketchy at best, and in any case inadequate for delineating "special dimensions . . . for investigation" (218). However, Phillips does note that these two physical dimensions make a "unique contribution to . . . industries' assumptions" and thus "appear to warrant continued investigation in studies of industry culture" (218).

Category 4: The nature of innate human nature

Although she does not modify this category in Schein's (1985) original typology, Phillips (1990) did note that "the richness of assumptions in this category requires an investigation beyond that suggested by the authors of earlier typologies" (219); more specifically (1) that the "level of aggregation . . . needs to be considered" (219) as do (2) "assumptions regarding the immutable and/or potentially mutable aspects of their being" (219).

Category 5: The purpose of work

Several issues surfaced in Phillips' (1990) data with regard to the dimensions of this category, beyond those general changes outlined, above. Schein originally identified

three dimensions within which a cultural group's assumptions about human activity might fall: (1) oriented toward "doing" or actively pursuing goals; (2) oriented toward "being" or spontaneously expressing a predetermined or "given" personality; and (3) oriented toward "being-in-becoming", or seeking opportunities for personal development" (Schein, 1985, cited in Phillips, 1990, 124).

Phillips' (1990) data, however, indicated that the "doing" dimension was further sub-divided with regard to the relative tangibility of rewards for doing. More specifically, these rewards ranged "from the physically tangible . . . through the less tangible . . . to the intangible . . . [and] themes were classified along this tangibility continuum" (125). As well, the data suggested a "fine line between the 'doing' and the 'being-in-becoming' dimensions" (125) and that the demarcation of this "line" depended upon what motivated informants' actions and/or expressions, which in turn were coded as themes and later assigned to this category (125). For example, if the thematic result appeared to belong in the "being-in-becoming" category, but was in fact motivated by the desire for tangible rewards, then it was classified as a "doing" result (125). Although these conclusions are somewhat complicated and admittedly debatable, the important thing to remember is that the dimensions of this category are not so clear cut when studying industries as they are when examining single organizations. Therefore, future research should closely attend data regarding "purpose of work," to more fully examine possibilities that may exist.

Category 6: The nature of work relationships

Phillips' (1990) reasons for revising the title of Schein's (1985) original category have been discussed above; however, in addition, Phillips also saw fit to alter dimensions within the category. Specifically, these were re-named "hierarchical and collective/collaborative, respectively, [in order to] better reflect the organizational nature of the themes . . . [and to] be more reflective of the concept of working with and/or together to achieve common goals" (126-26, author's emphasis retained). Phillips proposed no alterations in the "individualistic" category; thus, her model would classify work relationships as being either hierarchical, collective-collaborative, individualistic or some combination of same.

Significance of Phillips' study

Taken together, the findings in Phillips' (1990) study not only offer strong evidence of industry cultures, but also serve to modify Schein's (1985) typology for cultural assumptions in organizations into a new, albeit similar, typology to help "analy[ze] . . . the informant interviews" and to create a "reporting structure for the cultural assumption sets of the fine arts museum industry and the wine industry . . . and therefore to provide a valuable structure for surfacing industry cultural assumptions" (207).

Since Phillips' (1990) study was published, several researchers have continued to observe and examine the phenomenon of industry culture. Levsen (1992) analyzed the relationship between culture and performance in the computer industry and found evidence that an industry culture may be "underlying" corporate cultures. Levsen's choice of verb, underlying, is interesting because it implies that the industry is a potential influence and/or source of organizational culture. Along these lines, Gordon observed in 1991 that "organizational or corporate culture is strongly influenced by the characteristics of the industry in which the company operates" (396), and identified "competitive environment, customer requirements, and societal expectations [as] the driving force[s] behind industry-based assumptions [that] cause companies within an industry to have common elements to their cultures" (406). Likewise, Huff (1982) concluded that industry members tend to share the same onotological landscape, and Reynolds (1986) suggested that discrete industries produce unique "perceived work contexts" (343). More recently, Morley and Shockley-Zalabak (1997) identified several cultural "dimensions" related to "communication processes" common across ten Italian "high technology companies (253), while Chatam & Jehn (1994) compared "the cultures of 15 organizations within and across industries . . . [and] found that stable organizational culture dimensions existed and varied more across industries than within them" (522). Thus, the phenomenon of "industry culture" — encompassing not only strategic or "external" but also relational or "internal" issues as well (Phillips, 1990, 1994) is established in the literature, both theoretically and, to a degree, empirically.

Rationale and Statement of Problem

Despite an emerging body of literature that examines the phenomenon of industry culture, much of what is known about culture en toto is confined to data gleaned from investigations of individual, Fortune 500 corporations. In addition to a paucity of empirical, multi-organizational research that examines the phenomenon of industry culture, per se, is an even more pronounced lack of empirical research into the culture of entrepreneurial-type industries.

Moreover, "the surfacing of industry-based cultural assumptions . . . should lead . . . scholars to pursue an ensuing set of questions: (1) what is the source of extant cultural assumptions in particular industries? and (2) what effect do [these shared] assumptions . . . have upon the evolution of that industry?" (Phillips, 1994, 399). Few, if any, studies have pursued either of these questions, which might be answered by "mov[ing] backwards in a historical analysis of the cultural evolution of industries" (Phillips, 1994, 399). The idea that "companies 'share' certain aspects of culture is an important and necessary starting point for understanding why and how cultures develop" (Gordon, 1988, 410). In sum, research is needed to determine how the industry "mindset" (Phillips, 1994) or "culture" is created, disseminated, and/or maintained, particularly in developing entrepreneurial industries, thereby expanding existing theories of organizational culture in general and industry culture in particular. To extrapolate from Schein (1985), understanding the industry culture may be "so central to understanding organizations . . . that we cannot afford to be complacent" (327).

Also, assuming that organizational culture is synonymous with cultural performance, an investigation of how an industry's culture evolves would expand current knowledge regarding the general role that communication plays in the "spinning" (Geertz, 1979) of these "performances" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1983). Moreover, if culture does indeed evolve within single organizations, primarily by means of certain communicative processes (e.g. cultural performances), as current literature suggests, then additional research is needed to ascertain whether these same kinds of processes (performances) are observable when cultural assumptions are "spread" across an entire industry. Research of this nature could also be expected to (1) "serve as a necessary, pre-quantitative description . . . for quantitative measures for further research;" (2) "provide . . . an overall picture" of the industry; (3) "reaffirm the centrality of communicative behaviors in organizational inquiry;" (4) assist in re-evaluating the "managerial constraints" of traditional organizational communication research; and (5) help "expand the universe of discourse" (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1982, 127-130).

In addition to enhancing theoretical knowledge, however, examining the processes through which culture evolves is significant on a practical level. For one thing, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial-based industries seem to be a wave of the present, as well as of the future:

Small time entrepreneurs have seized multibillion-dollar markets from well-heeled businesses. Individual entrepreneurs are playing larger roles in the world economy. Entrepreneurship is playing a stronger role in the arts . . . [and] technology is empowering the individual (Naisbitt and Aburdene, 1990, 301-302).

Thus, an enhanced understanding of today's ever-more-entrepreneurial business environment does not appear to be optional. More to the point, understanding culture at the industry level of analysis may assist entrepreneurs and executives to better "think about parameters of what's possible, what the boundaries of likely action or possible success are" (Kantrow, 1986, 82). Put another way, " If the quality of executives' judgment is to improve and if executives are to be able to draw with confidence and intelligence on the experience of others, they must first know how to read the lessons embedded in that experience" (81). Thus, the study should prove significant for both theory and practice.

Here, it is prudent to remember that the theoretical benefits of examining industry culture need not be consigned to the perspective from which that examination is conducted, be it from a functionalist perspective, an interpretivist perspective, or from employing a combination of one or more perspectives — e.g. via "paradigm interplay" (Schultz & Hatch, 1996). Returning to Schultz & Hatch (1996), it is hereby reaffirmed that a multi-paradigm study permits information gleaned from one perspective to inform and enrich that gleaned from another, without ultimately violating the tenets of either perspective.

Focus of the Study and Research Questions

The student travel industry provides an excellent lens through which to observe the phenomenon of industry culture. Virtually contained within a 100-mile radius of Boston, Massachusetts, the industry is anchored by three large corporations and is rounded out by a smattering several smaller entities. These organizations annually provide educational travel experiences (tours) for nearly 200,000 students and teachers, hailing from approximately 25,000 (mostly secondary) schools, and accounting for some $325 million in annual revenues (estimates are gleaned and averaged from various interview sources). It is a relatively young industry, having been founded in the early 1960s, and it is characterized by an entrepreneurial framework and spirit, which among other things, have (1) spawned a "genetic" growth pattern — i.e. a splitting of older companies' executives to form newer companies — and (2) sustained the entry of several "non-genetic" competitors to the field as well. Many of the industry's top executives not only remember first-hand but also participated in the founding and early formative years of student travel.

Moreover, this author has access to industry executives, having come up through the ranks from 1975 to1990 to a position in senior management at what was then the one of the industry's oldest institutions. It is self-evident that without access to the industry's major players and the companies with whom they are associated, a study of this nature would not be possible. Executives in this very competitive industry normally would not disclose the kind of information needed to conduct a fruitful industry-wide study; however, in this case, most were eager to cooperate. In sum, this industry may be studied without undue geographical, historical, logistical or political barriers.

Thus, the goals of this study are (1) to describe cultural assumptions held in common by companies in the student travel industry, and (2) to explain how these assumptions may have evolved across their distinct time and space continuum by examining basic communicative processes (i.e. "performances") wherein industry culture is made manifest. Corresponding research questions include:

1. What is the culture (e.g. what are the cultural assumptions) of the student travel industry?
2. What is/are the source(s) of the culture and/or how has it evolved?

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All dissertation material copyright © Linda Gayle Lyle, 1998. All rights reserved.
E-mail: llyle@utk.edu