Phenomenological Study of Employee Perceptions of Managerial Behaviors as Personal Enactments of Organizational Culture

• Authors: Joanna Małgorzata Michalak , Robert J. Ristino
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Using a phenomenological methodology, this research study examines the phenomenon of organizational culture through the perceptions of those who experience it. Rather than studying how organizational culture affects organizational behavior and success, the researchers focus on employee perceptions of culture as a consequence of experiences with managerial behaviors as personal enactments of culture. The notion of personal enactments is drawn from the work of Edgar Schein. Schein [1985] has identified three levels of organizational culture: artifacts, values and beliefs. Among artifacts, Schein identifies the personal enactments of organizational values by senior managers as one of the more important. The researchers derived the data describing these personal enactments from 20 volunteer subjects reporting in self-administered questionnaires their experiences with managerial behaviors. Respondent perceptions are described in their own words, conveying their understandings, feelings, emotions and behaviors. Responses are categorized into units of relevant meaning, organized into clusters of similar meaning and then into themes. From these themes the researchers draw some insights and understanding of how system actors both live and experience culture in an organizational setting.

Keywords

EN

organizational culture; managerial behaviors; employee perceptions; organizational phenomenology; organizational ethnography

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Journal of Intercultural Management
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 63-73

Dates

published

2013-09-01

online

2014-04-25

Contributors

author

Joanna Małgorzata Michalak

• University of Lodz

author

Robert J. Ristino

• Clark University

References

• Bailey, K. D. (1978) Methods of Social Research, New York, N.Y.: The Free Press Boyd, C.O. (2001) Phenomenology the Method in P.L. Munhall (Ed.), Nursing Research: A Qualitative Perspective, 3rd edition, Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bart⌧lett Cresswell, J.W. (1994) Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Englander, E.M. (2012) The Interview: Data Collection in Descriptive Phenomenological Human Scientific Research, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, No. 43
• Eberle T.S., Maeder C. (2011) ‘Organizational Ethnography’ in D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research, 3rd edition, SAGE Publications Ltd, London Franklin, J. L. (1973) A Path Analytic Approach to Describing Causal Relationships Among Social Psychological Variables in Multi Level Organization, unpublished Doctoral thesis, The University of MichiganGroenewald, T. (2004) A Phenomenological Research Design Illustrated, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3 (1), April, pp. 1-26
• Husserl, E. and Trans D. Carr (1970) Logical Investigation,. New York: Humanities Press.
• Hycner, R.H. (1985) Some Guidelines for the Phenomenological Analysis of Interview Data. Human Studies, 8, pp. 279-303[Crossref]
• Lester, S. (1999) An introduction to phenomenological research, Tauton, UK: Stan Lester Developments Likert, R. (1961) New Patterns of Management, New York: McGraw-Hill Michalak, J.M., Ristino, R.J. (2012) ‘The Competent Culture Paradigm: An Alternative to the Strong Culture Hypothesis’ Journal of Intercultural Management, vol. 4, no. 4, December, pp. 70-84.
• Moss-Kanter, R. (1983) The Changemasters, New York: Random House Mudrack, P.E. (1989) Group cohesiveness and productivity: A Closer Look, Human Relations, 42 (9), pp. 771-785
• Moran, E.T. and Volkwein, J.F. (1992) The Cultural Approach to the Formation of Organizational Climate, Human Relations. Sage Publications, vol. 45, no. 19, pp. 19-47.
• Nelson, D. L. and Quick, J.C. (2000) Organizational Behavior. Cincinnati, OH: South- Western College Publishing Ristino, R. J. (2008) The Sociocultural Model of Public Relations/Communications Management Practice: A Critical-Cultural Perspective, International Journal of Strategic Communication. Routledge, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 54-73
• Schein, E. H. (1985) Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers Trevarthen, C. (1988) ‘Universal cooperative motives: how infants begin to know language and culture of their parents’ in G. Jahoda and I.M. Lewis (Eds.), Acquiring Culture: Cross Cultural Studies in Child Development, London: Croom Helm

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/joim-2013-0019