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.