Chapter 20 Cultural Approach to Organizations

The cultural approach looks at a long term observation of the culture and function of organizations. The idea that the organization is the center focus that is made up of many different pieces that come together to form it. This theory specifically goes in to talking about ethnography. The idea of studying something, like an organization, for a long period of time and eventually analyzing one's findings to then be able to give an in depth evaluation and description of that organization. When we talk about "organizations" it includes various different types of organizations. I specifically think of ones that I have been a part of like my field hockey team and my summer job working in event planning. With in these organizations we form a culture of our own. For example during the summers I work for an wedding and event designer. With in that job we have our own community and culture. Geertz describes these communities as having a number of different aspects those include things like rituals, stories, and metaphor es. Before every event we all sit down together and go over our check list and make sure that everything is in order for set up, this would be an example of a ritual that we have. Along with that we have special words or phrases that we use that would sound completely foreign to other people. We use these phrases to either disguise what we are really saying or just for fun. We also have tons of stories that we tell all the time about past weddings and events and about specific people at work.

Chapter 18 Adaptive Structuration Theory

The adaptive structuration theory is very difficult to grasp, but I found that once you understand it, it is very interesting and has a lot of truth to it. It is a very interesting way of looking at the way in which a group functions. I personally like this theory more than the functional perspective on group decision making theory in chapter 17 because it is less structured, while at the same time still being structured. An example from my life that best represents this theory would be my field hockey team. My team is a group of individuals set out to solve the "problem" of winning games. In order to win games we must come up with a way in which to do so. This is where adaptive structuration comes into play and the idea of production and reproduction. Everyday our coaches tell us what to do in practice and how to do it. by doing this they are producing methods in which we should use to win games. By following these methods we are then reproducing what they told us by using these methods. After that we then come to "Structure". We have rules that are given to us, for example, were are to be on time to practice, work hard, positive attitude and compete with each other. Because we all follow these rules according to Giddens, they count as rules. If only one or two of us followed them, they would not be considered rules. We then have resources, everyone on the team contributes something whether that be a certain talent, leadership, or athleticism, we all have something to bring to the table. Faithful and Ironic appropriation also play a major role. For example, our team adopted the idea that each year before our home games we would kiss our hands and hit our KENT STATE sign. We tried to incorporate in into our pre-game ritual but not everyone did it, and it didn't have the same meaning that it did before. This would be an example of ironic appropriation because even though we tried to adopt this tradition it wasn't practiced in the spirit that it was intended to be. Finally duality of structure comes into play. We practice everyday, we run, we lift weights, and we do team building activities that result in winning games. When we win games those games inspire us to work hard even more to continue to win more games. This shows Giddens idea that decisions are affected by the structure and structures are affected by the decisions and outcomes.

Chapter 17 Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making

The main idea of the theory of functional perspective on group decision making, is that we need to follow a specific outline in order to be successful in group decision making and that outline consists of four functions. Each function is very important but depending on the circumstances each function might have more of an importance than the other. While discussing this theory in class my first thought was of the group that I am in in my art of theatre class. We were given the assignment to create a production company and over the semester produce and perform one of the five plays that we've been studying. After solving our problem of what play it is that we will be doing, when and where we will be doing it, we are now in the stage of brainstorming and goal setting. As we were doing so one night, one of my group members kept getting side tracked, he continued to talk about how much work he had to do and what his plans were for the weekend. I found it incredibly hard to focus on our project and incredibly irritating. This would be an example of the disruptive role of communication. After he continued to talk one of my group members told him to stop and was able to help us re-group and continue our brainstorming. This person took the promotive role of communication by keeping us on track.

Chapter16 Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The cognitive dissonance theory is the idea that their is discomfort when our attitudes and behaviors do not match up. The theory goes into explain that the level of dissonance will always depend on how important the issue is and also depends how much of a difference their is between the attitude and behavior. When i think of this theory in terms of my own life, the first thing that comes to mind is when I get a bad grade on a paper or test, I talk myself into thinking that the test really wasn't that big of a deal, or the paper won't really effect my grade that much. By doing this I am trying to change my attitude towards the importance of the paper or test so that I feel somewhat better about the results. Another example of this that comes to mind that have a smaller level of dissonance would times when I would decide not to go out on a weekend and that weekend something fun or crazy would happen. I would then try and tell myself that it was better that I didn't go because I could have gotten into trouble or if I had gone that I would't of been ab;e to any work done the next day.

Chapter 15 Elaboration Likelyhood Model

In class we talked about how the Elaboration Likely hood model describes the idea that when we receive a message in two different ways and depending on which way we receive it will effect the change in the audience. The following night I was up late watching TV and an infomercial came on for space vacuum bags. I did use the example in class about the "magic bullet" infomercial, but after seeing that infomercial on TV that it really made me think of the Peripheral route. These Infomercials can be so persuasive in a way that they make you feel like you have to have the product that they are selling right that second. They say things like, "if you order in the next 5 minutes we'll take off a payment and add an extra space bag!!". After hearing something like that people tend to make their decision to buy that product before they even give themselves a chance to really think about what it is that they are buying and whether or not they should even buy it. After seeing that I tried to think of an example of something that would be just the opposite of that, something that would cause a person to go the central route. I thought of a high school senior making their decision on what college to go to. This decision is most commonly well thought out and involves a lot of careful thought, seeing as how this could effect the rest of their life. In class we also talked about the idea that peripheral cues can often times motivate someone to use central processing. An example of this that I thought of again was inspired from television. The "feed the children" foundation airs a commercial that shows hungry children from around the world that need our help. I think that often times people see those commercials and say that they are going to help and it makes people realise that the issue of hunger is out there. But typically after a few days or even hours those ideas and thoughts are lost.

Chapter 13 Constructivism

The constructivism theory talks about the idea that we all individually hold personal constructs that help us distinguish differences in people. In class we talked about how young children typically have the most simple constructs, and tend to categorize people in simple groups like old people and young people, or mean people and nice people. As we grow older we increase the amount of constructs that we categorize people in. So "the more personal construct-the more cognitively complex" we are. After reading the instructions in the book, I decided to do the Role Category Questionnaire. I found it very interesting to see how I look at people and have specific characteristics that I look for in people to separate them from others. I actually repeated the RCQ instructions for two different people to look for patterns in what I wrote. I definitely found similarities in the two. I found that I categorise the people that I cared for in categories such as loving, selfless, honest and caring. While I categorized people whom I did not care for in categories such as, selfish, ungrateful, and inconsiderate. I do however feel that after reading over my notes from class and doing the questionnaire, I have found this theory to be one of the more difficult theories to grasp on to. I'm not sure why, but I felt that I had to really focus more on the readings and class note to fully understand it.

Chapter 11 Relational Dialects

In the relational dialect, it is said that their are three "dialectical tensions" that cannot be gotten rid of. Of these three tensions there is both an external and internal side. After reviewing these in class, and talking about each individual tension, I began to think about what the dialectical tensions where in my relationships. I found that these tensions seem to always be the base of arguments in my relationships because they are simply something that will not go away. One specific example is that I am currently in a long distance relationship and because of that there are things that my boyfriend doesn't know about me that he would otherwise know if we where living very close to one another. These things being everyday activities, events or just small accomplishments through out the week. I feel that this is a great example of the expression-non expression dialect. I do not always tell him every detail of my day and of the things I do because their isn't a need to do so, and the same goes for him. However, if their is something that one of us doesn't tell one another about that we tell each other much later about, we both tend to get a little upset. With that said one can see that in the external part of this dialect, the balance between revelation and concealment is always an issue. A good example of the Integration-Separation dialect that I have seen would be in a the movie "The Break-up" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. In the movie they constantly argue over the fact that he doesn't spend enough time helping her out around the house and with other aspect in their relationship. While on the other hand he thinks that he spends more than enough time helping her out. As the movie progresses this issue eventually becomes the downfall of their relationship. In this film Jennifer Aniston is internally seeking connectedness, while Vince Vaughn is internally seeking separateness.