DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE & COMMUNICATION CLIMATE - COM 425

Dimensions of Organizational Culture and Communication Climate

The culture of an organization describes the unique sense of place, its practices, and how that organization describes itself. The reaction to an organization's culture is the organizations communication climate (Shockley­ Zalabak 2009).

What is organizational culture and communication climate?

Organizational culture is the unique sense of the place that organizations generate through ways of doing and ways of communicating about the organization.  Organizational culture reflects the shared realities and shared practices in the organization and how these realities create and shape organizational events. Organizational culture is the unique symbolic common ground that becomes the self-definitions or self-images of the organization. Communication  climate is the reaction to the organization's culture; consists of collective beliefs, expectations, and values regarding communication  that are generated as organizational  members continually evaluate their interactions with others (Shockley-Zalabak 2009).

There are several dimensions of organizational culture, which will be discussed throughout this paper. Organizational culture is readily apparent in contemporary organizations.  Organizations publish vision and mission statements, conduct training programs that identify the values of the organization, and hold annual events of special cultural significance (Shockley-Zalabak 2009).

My organization's culture

Five years ago, before my current job, I was an independent contractor/full-time Realtor at one of the largest local real estate agencies on the Emerald Coast of Florida. I made a decision to change jobs based on declining sales and forecasts by the media and real estate industry. The prediction was that the so-called "economic bubble" was about to burst in the housing market. I heard about a job opening at a local medical clinic through a women’s networking organization that I belong to. After submitting my resume for the position, I was called in for an interview. To be quite honest, I was a little apprehensive about the interview; I had never worked in the medical industry before.

In preparation for the interview I researched several websites in an effort to find out what goes on in a multi-specialty clinic and what is expected in the position for which I was applying. I visited the organization's web site and there I found the company history, job responsibilities and duties for the position I was applying for, and the, mission, vision, and core values statements. The website provided a wealth of information and an overall snapshot about the organization's beliefs and practices.

 Armed with the information I had gathered and my past work experience, I interviewed with the CEO and I was hired on the spot! The mission, vision, and core values statements helped me to quickly acclimate to the culture within the organization over the next several years. The following are the White-Wilson mission, vision and core values statements: Mission statement: White-Wilson Medical Center is a multi-specialty group of professionals dedicated to providing comprehensive health care services to our community. Vision statement: White-Wilson Medical Center will be the community's choice for physician and health care services. Core values: Patient Centered, Excellence, Collegiality, Dignity, Compassion, Integrity, and Stewardship. Our colors are navy-blue and gold!

I have never worked for an organization where the mission, vision, and core values statements are so much a part of the culture in every aspect of what we do. I immediately developed a unique sense of place by adopting the organization's collective beliefs, expectations, and values. I wanted to be a part of and practice the organizations ideals.

One of our rites and rituals ceremonies is the annual awards banquet. It is primarily a service awards banquet. As a part of my organizations culture the CEO is adamant in regards to having organizational wide participation and attendance at the annual awards banquet. Awards are given out for service of five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five and forty years.   Associates are encouraged to decorate their departmental tables in whatever outlandish theme they choose. We are allowed to have noisemakers such as, bedpans, foghorns, party blowers, and anything that will make a big fuss especially when we have a member of our individual departments or satellite offices receiving an award. Door prizes are given out for the loudest and most outlandish and spirited tables. In January 2011, I will receive my five-year service award. I am a little nervous about this because my boss, the CEO, likes to make a big deal out of this ceremony. I am very proud of this award and look forward to receiving it.

Subcultures within my organization

In the overall culture of my organization we have multiple subcultures. For instance, the physicians, nurses', receptionist, administration, business office, accounting, and information systems personnel are all subcultures within our organization. I am affiliated with the administration subculture that consists of the CEO, Senior Management team, Human Resources, and Quality/Risk Management departments. I am also part of a fragmented culture.

Earlier, I mentioned that I am a Realtor and work for a local real estate agency on the Emerald Coast of Florida. My primary allegiance is to White-Wilson (the clinic), as a Realtor, I provide my services for White-Wilson's physician and executive level recruitment program. I escort recruits on real estate tours and I sell homes or help them find rentals. This aspect of my job makes for a very complex understanding of which organization I have allegiance to for all involved. I believe this to be a part of the rapidly changing nature of work and organizations that I read about in our text regarding the Fragmentation Approach.

In the Fragmentation Approach, few individuals expect to work for one organization throughout their work lives. Notions of change and flux are the norm, not the exception. Understanding culture from this perspective has been called the fragmentation approach (Shockley-Zalabak 2009).

On a side note, in reference to subcultures, my husband is an Engineer at an Engineering firm and most of the assembly staff work at workbenches, which are on tiled flooring while the offices in administration have carpet. A staff member at my husband's organization told me one day that my husband is called a “carpet people” and she said that they call me a “carpet people” too. This kind of collective belief by an organization's employees is what creates subcultures within an organization. I am not sure what the staff at my clinic refers to me as but I have been told that I am one of the people who reside in the ivory tower, in part, due to that the administration office is located upstairs on the second-level.

To that end, our CEO repeatedly reminds us, (the management team); that our behaviors set the tone for the overall communication climate of what type of organization we are and want to become. 

My organization's communication climate

In the October issue of our organizations newsletter our CEO communicated to the organization how we do things by way of teamwork. The cover page of the newsletter is always from the desk of the CEO. This month's article was titled; Teamwork is Vital to Our Success. In summary, he started the article by saying that we have become one of the largest and most respected healthcare organizations on Florida’s Emerald Coast. He went on to say that our success has been, in large part, due to the commitment of the physicians and all associates to work together as a team.

He then stated, and I quote, "Teamwork is the ability to work together towards a common vision. White-Wilson's vision is to be the "health care provider of choice on Florida's Emerald Coast." "With our continued individual commitment to the team, there is no doubt our vision will be achieved." He also talked about how we have developed a strong culture of teamwork at our organization over the years. He gave a recent example of team success.

On Friday, September 3rd, 2010 the power at the main facility was completely shut down in order to replace our main electrical distribution panel. The preparation for this shut down was tremendous and involved almost every office in the main facility and even included our Satellite offices too. Practice offices were asked to clean our refrigerators; inventory vaccines and refrigerated medicines and tum off or unplug computers, fax machines, and other electrical appliances. Medical records printed out superbills and completed pre-pulls for the following week to be prepared in the event of issues with systems reboot.

Lab and Imaging shut down the lab and radiology equipment and made special preparations for the machines. Business Office and Accounting staff worked diligently to finalize August month end reports prior to shut down. Information Systems shut down all the computer systems and rebooted the system when the power was restored on Sunday, September 5th.

The CEO thanked everyone who worked together as a White-Wilson team to make this process go smoothly and with very few issues. He then recognized the project’s success because of our joint efforts and our teamwork. He gave special thanks by name and photo to three key people in the organization that played instrumental parts. As he has said many times in the past, each of us has a role to play on the team from coordinating patient accounts to working in medical records department to directly caring for patients. While we each have different objectives, we all have the same mission... to provide the highest healthcare to our patients.

In conclusion, he stated, "as we've seen from our recent efforts, it takes each and every individual team member to create the whole-any broken link in the chain will break down the process. White-Wilson's future depends on what we do or do not do today and whether or not we work as a team." To me this article exemplified our CEO's quest for cultural intelligence by advocating proactive behaviors, which identify ways to help support others by being a team. In today's work force a leader must have a vision and have the ability to effectively communicate that vision.

In our CEO's continued efforts to promote leadership within the organization, last Christmas he gave the senior team a copy of John C. Maxwell's, "The Daily Reader", 365 Days off Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You. The following is one of my personal favorites:

All effective leaders have a vision of what they must accomplish. That vision becomes the energy behind every effort and the force that pushes through all the problems. With vision, the leader is on a mission and a contagious spirit is felt among the crowd until others begin to rise alongside the leader. First, in an organization, the vision becomes the distinctive, rallying cry of the organization. It is a clear statement in a competitive market that you have an important niche among all the voices clamoring for customers. It is your real reason for existence. Second, vision becomes the new control tool, replacing the thousand-page manual that is boxy and constrains initiative. In an age when decentralization all the way to the front line is required to survive, the vision is the key that keeps everyone focused. "Rely on Vision instead of Rules and Procedures to Guide you and Your Team." (John C. Maxwell,1947- The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 days of insight to develop the leader within you an influence those around you/John C. Maxwell)

Positive and negative views of climate communication that influences behaviors in an organization

Communication climate is the subjective reaction to the communication events that contribute to uniqueness or culture (Shockley-Zalabak). The following story will depict how positive and negative communication climate can effect an organization. On the very day that we read the positive news that our CEO wrote in his newsletter article about what a cohesive team we have all become, we found out that one of our key people had done something very unethical and possibly illegal, and was let go. In chapter four of our text, under the title, "Communication Behaviors Related to Information Collection and Dissemination", we read, in sum, professionals should exercise ethical standards; it is essential to their overall organizational effectiveness.

During the briefing about the event the looks of disbelief on individual faces were varied.  I cannot describe the overall disappoint that has been felt throughout our organization.  Each individual has his or her own subjective reaction to the event and morale is at an all-time low. It is too soon to tell how external publics will perceive this event. We are preparing ourselves for damage control as I type this paper. As we read in Sierra’s Theory of Communicativity, perception permeates an organization (p. 38). Perception is the conclusion people draw from the things your organization says and does (p. 39). I personally will be glad when we can move forward. By letting this associate go, effective immediately, our organization's leaders have exercised the thematic rule, which is, general prescriptions of behavior reflecting the values and beliefs of the organization (Shockley-Zalabak 2009).

Conclusion

Clearly, the culture of an organization describes the unique sense of place, its practices, and how that organization describes itself. The reaction to an organization's culture is the organizations communication climate. In addition to the dimensions of organizational cultures and climate communication we experience here in our organization and throughout the United States, most of us are aware of the many changes, usually referred to as globalization that technology has made possible for both individuals and organizations. It is fair to say that global cultural differences affect all of the basic assumptions we use as we work in increasingly diverse environments (Shockley-Zalabak 2009). From nineteen ninety-five to nineteen ninety-nine, I worked as the Vice President of Marketing for a company based in England. I was the United States liaison for the organization, which allowed the English based company to acquire U.S. government contracts. This was an exciting time for me. It was the beginning stages of the home-based work force. I distinctly remember hearing the term globalization but not nearly as often as I do now. I worked with many different countries and so cultural differences were profound. I found working in a global community to be very interesting. It is my belief that when people begin to understand who they are, culturally speaking, then they can proceed to the next stage of increasing their knowledge of other cultures. They can begin to understand how cultural differences influence such dimensions of an individual's working experiences. They can begin to make more sense of another person's behavior that may be strongly influenced by his or her culture (Shockley-Zalabak 2009).

References:

 

 (Shockley-Zalabak. Fundamentals of Organizational Communication:  Knowledge, Sensitivity, Skills, Values, 7th Edition.

Maxwell, John C., 1947 -The Maxwell daily reader: 365 days of insight to develop the

leader within you and influence those around you/John C. Maxwell. Lorenzo Sierra.  (2003, June). Sierra's theory of communicativity.  Communication World, 20(4), 38.  Retrieved October 4, 2010, from ABIIINFORM Global.

(Document ID: 357794181).