scholarly journals The influences of corporate cultures on business communication: An ethnographic and textual analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-43
Author(s):  
Mohammad Awad AlAfnan

It is proven that corporate cultures have a great impact on productivity, job satisfaction, and turnover. This study, through ethnographic and textual analysis, aims to investigate the influences of corporate/organizational cultures (Cooke & Szumal, 1993) on management and business communication. To form a comprehensive, holistic, and in-depth understanding of the organizational culture and its direct and indirect effects on professional communication in the workplace, participant observations were conducted, interviews were carried out and interorganizational and intraorganizational textual data was collected from an educational institute. The ethnographic and textual analysis revealed that the act of adaptiveness to the organizational culture shaped the communicative practices, the linguistic structures, and the behavioral norms of the place discourse community. As the employees were bound by the rules and regulations, they made direct and indirect references to the policies using referential intertextuality, functional intertextuality, and conventional formulaic expressions. As the employees were also bound to be supportive, friendly, and respectful, they strived to use proper opening and closing markers, positive and negative politeness, and affiliative humour to create a positive environment and reduce stress. Employees also used ellipsis, substitutions, hedges, and emoticons to mark excitement in conversations and writing. The study revealed that organizational cultures influence business communication through shaping the “I think”, “I feel”, and “I act” attitudes in different situations.

This article is devoted to the features and benefits of a professionally-oriented approach to teaching a foreign language in non-linguistic high schools on the example of engineering education. According to the latest standards of higher education (FSES 3++), students must have sufficient knowledge of a foreign language for business communication in oral and written forms. However, teachers of high schools face a number of difficulties in the formation of a foreign language communicative competence offuture engineers, namely: a constant decrease of a number offoreign language practical classes in a curriculum of a high school and a weak motivation of students. In our opinion, a professionally-oriented approach to teaching helps to solve these problems and make the process of learning a foreign language more intensive, focused and effective. That is, now, the development of strategies, methodological models and tools for teaching English, with a focus on professional communication, is an actual task for an English teacher at the University. This article presents some methods and techniques that stimulate students of engineering faculty to professionally oriented communication in English. Much attention is paid to both active teaching methods used during practical English classes, and individual work, which allows students to get more useful information and skills within the practical classes given, and also allows students to develop the need for individual knowledge acquisition and comprehension, thereby providing the increased interest of communication in a foreign language and increasing motivation to learn a foreign language.


2021 ◽  
pp. 027507402110103
Author(s):  
Emily Rose Tangsgaard

Many situations in public service delivery are characterized by uncertainty about the potential negative consequences following decisions. These risky situations make the behavior of frontline professionals particularly important. But what shapes the risk perception and subsequent behavior of frontline professionals in risky situations? This article explores the idea that organizational culture provides part of the answer. To examine this, a comprehensive qualitative study with participant observations and interviews at five public hospital wards was conducted. The findings demonstrate the importance of organizational culture on risk perception and behavior in risky situations. Basic cultural assumptions related to professional discussion, administering medicine, grading of adverse events, and prioritizing follow-up activities matter to behavior in risky situations. In organizational cultures with high levels of trust and dialogue about decision-making, the health professionals rely on each other and ask for second opinions, when making decisions in risky situations. Conversely, in organizational cultures with little trust and professional discussion, the health professionals are less likely to ask for second opinions and follow up on risky situations, which increases the possibility of unintended, negative consequences. In this way, organizational culture can be a driver of risk-reducing and risk-seeking behavior among frontline professionals.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Matricano ◽  
Laura Castaldi ◽  
Mario Sorrentino ◽  
Elena Candelo

PurposeOrganizational culture plays a central role when dealing with the issue of digital business transformation (DBT). Managers handling a DBT and involved in digital strateging are expected to modify the organizational culture of firms to make it more fitting with the paradigm of digital economy and having more chance of success. Thus, it is noteworthy to inspect the role they can have over DBTs. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavior that managers assume when they approach DBTs by investigating whether they act as mentors/facilitators or entrepreneurs/innovators, as coordinators or decision makers.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the above purpose, ten case studies about manufacturing firms have been selected. Case studies, retrieved by the Digital Innovation Observatories of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, are studied and analyzed by means of a qualitative content analysis on textual data. This allows getting specific insights into organizational culture before and after DBT and about the role played by managers.FindingsAchieved results disclose that managers need to modify the organizational culture of their firms to handle a successful DBT. However, firms can assume different organizational culture and thus the role assumed by managers handling a DBT can change as well.Originality/valueTo the authors knowledge, this paper is among the first that aim to investigate the role that mangers assume when handling DBTs. In particular, originality lies in the fact that assumed roles are rebuilt in reference to their ability to modify organizational culture.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Prasiska Ramadyaning Utami ◽  
Maria Kristine Sitohang

Background: Organizations need to pay attention to the job satisfaction of their members to achieve their goals. In 2011, the Airlangga Healthcare Center surveyed job satisfaction with the target of 80%. However, the target has not been achieved.  Job satisfaction can be affected by several factors, and one of them is the culture within the organization.Aim: This study aims to analyze the effect of organizational culture intensity towards job satisfaction of the Airlangga Healthcare Center’s employees.Method: This study was conducted in November 2011 – June 2012 with a cross-sectional research design. The sample of the study used the population total technique. The independent variable of the research was the organizational culture intensity. While the dependent variable was job satisfaction. The data were analyzed descriptively by employing cross-tabulation analysis between organizational culture intensity and job satisfaction.Results: The most influential aspect of the organizational culture was cooperation that reached 73.9%. Job satisfaction aspects with a very satisfying level were job and co-worker aspects that reached 78.3%. The most influential aspect of organizational cultures that affect job satisfaction is trust that amounted to 83.3%. However, the organizational cultures affect job satisfaction with a percentage of  92.3% overall.Conclusion: The research concludes that the organizational culture intensity is a factor that affects job satisfaction of the employees at the Airlangga Healthcare Center. The recommendation for the organization is to improve the togetherness aspect of organizational cultures.Keywords: organizational culture intensity, job satisfaction, organization. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey M. Clegg

This article explores pedagogical frameworks closely associated with d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons from the perspective of a disabled instructor to increase student awareness of the needs of diverse audiences they will encounter in the workforce. The author argues that students and instructors can use captioning theory to strategize one of the harder business communication genres, the presentation, for d/Deaf audiences to make communication more accessible. By raising critical awareness of the limits of technology, current trends in pedagogy, and disability, this article seeks to further the conversation about providing accessibility for disabled users in the classroom.


2015 ◽  
pp. 1279-1305
Author(s):  
Łukasz Sulkowski ◽  
Joanna Sulkowska

This chapter sets out to analyze the problem of defining the concept of organizational culture as well as models and typologies used in reference materials. It presents various issues of organizational culture: paradigms of organizational culture, definitions of organizational culture, and two-dimensional typologies of organizational culture. The single-dimensional classifications present the following dichotomies: 1) weak culture – strong culture, 2) positive culture – negative culture, 3) pragmatic culture – bureaucratic culture, 4) introvert culture – extrovert culture, 5) conservative culture – innovative culture, 6) hierarchic culture – egalitarian culture, 7) individualist culture – collectivist culture. Furthermore, this chapter includes: multidimensional typologies of organizational culture, corporate identity – alternative approach to organizational culture and relations between culture, and structure, strategy, and organization setting. Moreover, based on the quality pilot study, it strives to explain peculiarity of this concept in relation to Polish hospitals. Results of pilot studies of organizational cultures of hospitals in Poland relate to four hospitals in Lodz Province.


Author(s):  
Łukasz Sulkowski ◽  
Joanna Sulkowska

This chapter sets out to analyze the problem of defining the concept of organizational culture as well as models and typologies used in reference materials. It presents various issues of organizational culture: paradigms of organizational culture, definitions of organizational culture, and two-dimensional typologies of organizational culture. The single-dimensional classifications present the following dichotomies: 1) weak culture – strong culture, 2) positive culture – negative culture, 3) pragmatic culture – bureaucratic culture, 4) introvert culture – extrovert culture, 5) conservative culture – innovative culture, 6) hierarchic culture – egalitarian culture, 7) individualist culture – collectivist culture. Furthermore, this chapter includes: multidimensional typologies of organizational culture, corporate identity – alternative approach to organizational culture and relations between culture, and structure, strategy, and organization setting. Moreover, based on the quality pilot study, it strives to explain peculiarity of this concept in relation to Polish hospitals. Results of pilot studies of organizational cultures of hospitals in Poland relate to four hospitals in Lodz Province.


Author(s):  
William Irvin Sauser Jr. ◽  
Ronald R. Sims

This chapter distinguishes among four corporate cultures with respect to ethics—cultures of defiance, compliance, neglect, and character—and outlines a plan for constructing an ethical organizational culture. Some proven ideas are then shared for showing business students how to contribute to such a culture. These include (a) describing how to establish an effective learning context for teaching about business ethics, (b) offering a number of practical suggestions for student assignments and experiences that can empower students to understand, appreciate, and contribute to ethical organizational cultures, and (c) explaining how to enhance experiential learning by conducting an effective debriefing session. The chapter concludes with three examples from the authors' experience illustrating how these ideas can be incorporated into programs designed to teach business students how to contribute to organizational cultures grounded in moral character.


1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Linstead ◽  
Robert Grafton-Small

The study of organizational cultures has been dominated by an interpretative approach which has emphasized the production of culture at the expense of the creativity shown by the consumers of cuiture, organizational members. 'Corpor ate culture' is distinguished from 'workplace' or 'organizational' cultures, and a number of other problems emerging within the literature are identified. These are presented as organizational culture versus cultural organization; cultural plurali ties ; rationality and the irrational; common knowledge and its constitution; power and ideology; and individualism and subjectivity. It is then argued, after a detailed discussion of concepts drawn primarily from a close reading of the work of Jacques Derrida, that a postmodern approach to organizational culture would recast the problems in terms of a revised conceptualization of subjectivity, and would formulate culture as paradox, otherness, seduction, and discourse. This would entail studying the 'bricolage' of organizational members within the 'microphysics' of what de Certeau calls the 'tactics of everyday practice'.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-123
Author(s):  
Maria Jabłońska-Wołoszyn

Abstract Using competencies to manage business organizations and to base a competency model on attributes of a preferable organizational culture is a common practice in business. Competency criteria allow improvement of workers’ performance by informing them what behaviors further achieving the required organizational goals. Public organizations, faced with challenges of being a part of the European Union, have been learning how to use competencies to pursue new goals and create new organizational cultures of the offices. The goal of this article is to present practices of the competencies evaluation usage in the Customs Service to shape behaviors accordingly to its preferable organizational culture.


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