Understanding Organizations Through Culture and Structure

Synopsis

Understanding Organizations Through Culture and Structure offers a new view of organizations and the communication processes within them. Presenting original research conducted by the authors, this volume examines problems related to task and relational orientations as they relate to organizational structure and function within predominantly African-American organizations. It also emphasizes the development of alternative theories and/or models of organizing which are rooted in African-American culture, such as team-based versus hierarchy-based interactions. The first five chapters consist of research that generates several emergent models with significant implications for organizational systems. The last two chapters apply the findings in a broader analysis of contemporary practices in organizational restructuring. The authors then develop a set of humanistically-based models that illustrate the ways in which the particular date--analyzed through a particular approach--reveal the hidden cultural processes that suffuse organizational life and manifest communicatively.