'Doing' Organizational Culture in the Saturn Corporation

Organization Studies, Jan, 2001 by Terry L. Mills, Craig A. Boylstein, Sandra Lorean

While Baudrillard's notions and writings are interesting, they lack the theoretical acumen of Foucault's analyses. This analysis of organizational storytelling does not forget Foucault as Baudrillard would suggest. Incorporating Lyotard's analysis of the 'image' as a singular, pulsating desire that intensifies life, with Foucault's notions of discipline, panopticism, and power/knowledge, provides an interesting peep into the world of Saturn Corp. storytelling. The Saturn story can be seen as a 'terrorizing', 'disciplining' grand narrative, subtly coercing consumers to interact within a singular discourse; making all involved believe they are acting, experiencing and interpreting their reality in ways they have personally chosen.

As can be seen, the late-modern/postmodern debate will not end here. Neither will the current analysis bring closure to the seemingly endless debate on the merits and misnomers of postmodern discourse (see Pescosolido and Rubin 2000). Nor will it clarify for all concerned what exactly is meant by postmodern discourse. Much like its underlying theme of fragmented, shifting worlds, one scholar's postmodern perspective may be another scholar's 'bastard child'. The proceeding analysis merely offers one example, that is one fragmented experience, of a postmodern critique of organizational storytelling.

Notions of Organizational Culture

During the 1970s, organizational theorists began to examine the emergence and impact of organizational culture (see Whyte 1961; Clark 1972; Pettigrew 1979; Turner 1973; Messenger; 1978). Yet it was not until the 1980s that organizational theorists and administrative management scholars began to embrace the concept of culture on a more widespread basis (Ouchi 1981; Schein 1981; Deal and Kennedy 1982; Peters and Waterman 1982). Schein (1985) developed one of the earliest theoretical contexts for analyzing organizational culture. For Schein, the key to understanding a culture is to identify the basic assumptions that operate within the social group such as those taken-for-granted beliefs about human nature and reality. Also important are values -- those emotional and symbolic meanings extending from the subjectively meaningful to those that are shared cultural norms. These values influence the selection of means and ends of actions, while also serving as the code by which objects or actions are evaluated.

A number of researchers have been critical of the Shein theoretical framework, arguing that organizational culture is not unitary (Barley 1983; Borum and Pedersen 1992; Gregory 1983; Louis 1983; Martin and Siehl 1983; Riley 1983; Van Maanen and Barley 1985; Young 1989). Others have challenged the notion that the function of culture is to maintain social structure; while several have recognized the apparent ambiguity found in culture (Feldman 1990; Martin 1993). Still, another set of researchers have used the symbolic--interpretive framework to inquire into symbols and symbolic behaviour in organizations (Alvesson 1987; Eisenberg and Riley 1988; Pettigrew 1979; Putnam 1983; Smircich 1983; Smircich and Morgan 1982; Turner 1989).