Journal of Managmt Studies 3 1:6 November 1994

0022-2380

THE EFFECT O F ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE O N

COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION*

ANDREWD. BROWN
KENSTMEY
School of Management and Finance, Universip ~ ~ o t ~ ~ ~ h a r n

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the importance and utility of the notion
of organizational culture for scholars and practitioners in the field of information
studies. It presents a theoretical and empirical examination of the effects of
culture on communication and information in organizations. First, the concepts
of organizational culture, information and communication are briefly explored.
Then a case study of the effects of organizational culture on communication and
information is presented. In particular, we make a detailed examination of how
attitudes to communication and information that had their roots in a dominant
organizational culture were a strong influence on the demise of the company
(which was ultimately acquired by a stronger firm).

INTRODUCTION

This article examines the usefulness of the cultural perspective for information
and communication studies with reference to one detailed case study. It is
premised on the belief that one needs to understand the culture of an organiza-
tion to make sense of that organization’s way of managing its communication
processes and their information outcomes. The idea that organizations either are
cultures or possess cultures was one of the dominant themes of the management
literature in the 1980s, as witnessed by the special issues devoted to it by the
Administrative Science Quart+ (September, 1983), Organizational Qnamics (Autumn,
1983) and the Journal of M a n a g m t Studies (May, 1986). Despite the attention
culture has received from specialists in organizational behaviour, organizational
theory and organizational design, comparatively little notice of culture has been
taken by students of information and communication studies (two notable excep-
tions are Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey, 1988, and Phillips and Brown, 1993).
Yet, we argue, the concept of culture may well offer new insights to researchers
interested in organizational information and communication phenomena.
According to the cultural perspective information and communication struc-
tures, processes and events are subject to interpretation as social products or

Address for reprints: Andrew D. Brown, School of Management and Finance, University of Notting-
ham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.

c) Basil Blackwell Ltd 1994. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 IJF, UK
and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
808 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

‘cultural artefacts’ which embody and reflect the cultural proclivities of the
organization in which they feature (Beyer and Trice, 1988; Bormann, 1983;
Pacanowsky and O’Donnell-Trujillo, 1982; Trice and Beyer, 1984, 1985,
1986). In short, information and communication phenomena are surface mani-
festations of complex configurations of deeply felt beliefs, values and attitudes.
The sort of analysis this view of organizations facilitates, and the kind of
explanations of information and communication phenomena it offers, are the
primary concerns here. In brief, we wish to suggest that the culture of an
organization is an important factor affecting attitudes to, and systems and pro-
cesses pertaining to, the management of information and communication, and
that recognition of this social fact can further our understanding of manage-
ment and organization.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Within the organizational culture field there is as yet no single pre-eminent point
of view or methodology for the study of culture, but rather a rich mixture of
ideas and approaches, which range from anthropology to social psychology and
organizational sociology (Ouchi and Wilkins, 1985). In our analysis culture is
understood to refer to sets of shared values and beliefs which are themselves
articulated by participants-in-the-culture (Van Maanen, 1973) in the form of
shared meanings and understandings of organizationally significant phenomena -
‘a set of beliefs, widely shared, about how people should behave at work and a
set of values about what tasks and goals are important’ (Sadler, 1988, p. 118; see
also Eldridge and Crombie, 1974;Jaques, 1952; Smircich, 1983).
O u r concept of organizations defines them as ‘culture-bearing milieux’ (Louis,
1983). This view does not imply, as some have implicitly suggested, that they are
(or should be) governed by consensually agreed norms and expectations
(Kilmann, 1984; Peters and Waterman, 1982). Quite the reverse. While some
belief/value sets may be pervasive within an organization others are likely to be
held only by certain groups, which thus constitute identifiable sub-cultures
(Gregory, 1983; Starkey, 1992). In certain instances, such as the case study orga-
nization described here, these sub-cultures will differ radically from each other,
compete for status, power and resources with each other, and invest the cultural
fabric of the organization with considerable political tension (Martin and Siehl,
1983). In short, a collective cultural identity founded on shared understandings
may simultaneously co-exist with cleavage, tension and dissension.

Communication

Communication, like culture, is a contested term that has been subject to a

multiplicity of definitional formulations (Dance and Larson, 1976). Here we
adopt the view of communication as consisting of two types of actions: (1)
those that create messages or displays; and (2) those that interpret messages or
displays. A ‘display’ consists of information not necessarily intended as a
message but from which one can derive meaning. Organizational communica-
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 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION 809

tion, like other forms of communication, involves making and interpreting

message-displays. It forms a part of an ‘ongoing process that includes patterns
of interaction between organization members that both emerge from .and shape
the nature and actions of the organization and the events within it’ (Fisher,
1983, p. 4). This recalls Mary Douglas’s view (Douglas, 1987) of culture as a
pattern of meanings inherited from the past that provides a means (Douglas
uses the term ‘canopy’) for the interpretation needs of the present. Such a per-
spective suggests a definition of organizational communication as an evolu-
tionary, culturally dependent process of sharing information and creating
relationships (Wilson et al., 1986).
Thus our conception of culture as a living metaphor to understand organiza-
tional behaviour and events and our notion of communication as a symbolic
form or cultural product are inextricably bound. On the one hand culture is a
product of social interaction mediated through communicative acts, and on the
other, communication is a cultural artefact through which organizational actors
come to understand their organization and their role within it (Berger, 1969;
Geertz, 1973; Ingersoll and Adams, 1986; Pfeffer, 1981; Phillips and Brown,
1993). T o outline a hermeneutic approach to understanding cultural and com-
municative phenomena in the abstract is relatively easy: tracing the specific inter-
relationships for any given organization in any plausible and convincing manner
is, however, a considerable interpretive task, as we shall demonstrate.

Infoonnation

A key part of organizing and managing is the encoding of information which can
be defined as ‘data that has been processed into a useful form and hence has
value to the user’ (Barnatt, 1994, p. 197). For institutional economists (for
example, Williamson, 1975), information is a resource to be bought and sold.
According to this view, one needs to study the flow of information in the same
way that economists study the flow of commodities. The economic theory of
social institutions (Schotter, 1981) analyses institutional structures in terms of the
‘encapsulation’ of past experiences in a manner that acts as a source of knowl-
edge for structuring the future.

The more fully the institutions encode expectations, the more they put uncer-
tainty under control, with the further effect that behavior tends to conform to
the institutional matrix: if this degree of coordination is achieved, disorder and
confusion disappear (Douglas, 1987, p. 48).

This view raises the question of what happens when the past no longer serves as
a good basis for organizing/structuring the future, when the ‘canopy’ of order
breaks down. Stability depends upon the acceptance of communication which
adopts a particular method of classifjmg information. But existing organization
‘bias’ based upon a particular culture of communication can threaten the long-,
term viability of the organization when its environment becomes more dynamic
and less predictable.
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810 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

Ehents Df Communication and Information

We identifjr five major elements of communication and information.

The management information system (MIS). While a large number of definitions of the
MIS concept have been suggested, that given by Stoner best describes its use in
this article:

. . . a formal method of making available to management the accurate and

timely information necessary to facilitate the decision making process and
enable the organization’s planning, control and operational functions to be
carried out effectively (Stoner, 1982, p. 645).

Ad hoc communications. This refers to all those operational communications that

do not take place within the context of the formally specified channels of the
MIS.

Informal communications. This refers to grapevine communication which may be

loosely work-related but does not involve required operational information.
Grapevines, which bypass the formal authority and information mechanisms, are
a feature of most organizations, and in large concerns are often complex, diffuse
and multi-channelled, and focused on key liaison individualdinternal gatekeepers
(Caplow, 1964).

The information medium. We distinguish between two major types of communication

media, ‘oral’ and ‘written’. An oral information culture is defined as an organiza-
tional culture, the values and accepted norms of which support a high degree of
word of-mouth communication. The behavioural side of the oral information
culture is an observable tendency for individuals to transmit and receive informa-
tion orally. In contrast to the oral information culture is the written information
culture, the beliefs and mores of which encourage and foster communication in
writing. In their purest forms the oral and written information cultures represent
two ends of a broad continuum in which many gradations between the two
extremes are observable (Brown, 1992).

Degree ofinfomation consciousness. This refers to the value placed on information as

a resource and the information and communication systems that have been
implemented to retrieve, manipulate and transmit information. It represents an
evaluation of an organization’s sophistication and attitudes towards the concept
of ‘information management’. Information consciousness refers to the company’s
attitude towards both internal and external information. In particular, it is con-
cerned with the value placed upon information by the organization, and its
possible implications for the resources devoted to information/communication
activities, and the resources devoted to information seeking, evaluation and dis-
semination.
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 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION 81 1

Culture, Communication and Information

Our view of the relationship between culture, communication and information

can be set out in the form of the following flow diagram:

CULTURE + COMMUNICATION --+ INFORMATION

Culture conditions attitudes towards communication and communication pro-

cesses and systems. The resulting forms of communication impact upon attitudes
to and the quality of information upon which organizations base their decisions.
As Cyert and March (1992, p. 21) argue, once organizational objectives and
decision strategies are determined, ‘the organization can be viewed as an infor-
mation-processing and decision-rendering system’. What we analyse in the fol-
lowing case study is how organization culture impacts upon an organization’s
ability to manage communication and process information.

CASE STUDY

3% Company

Candy Inc. was a PLC with operating profits of nearly L4 million on a turnover
approaching El00 million. Founded in the 1840s as a small family business, by
1988 it consisted of a holdings board and five principal subsidiaries, including
four manufacturing units and an export company. In addition to the main sub-
sidiaries the organization owned a small distributing company in the United
States and part-owned two others in West Germany and Hong Kong. The group
was controlled by a holdings board which was composed of four executive and
two non-executive directors. It employed approximately 3,000 people of whom
the vast majority were women and more than half of whom were part-timers.
The management team was, however, pLedominantly male.
The principal activities of the company were the manufacture, distribution and
sale of confectionery world wide. Within the UK it had two products in the top
twenty selling sugar confectionery brands. Its place in the industry was as one of
the leading manufacturers of sugar confectionery in a market dominated by
manufacturers of chocolate. While some sectors of the UK market have con-
tracted steadily over the past decade in 1988 the market for sugar confectionery
was still worth E l billion, with medicated sweets, gums, jellies and pastilles
showing promising rates of growth. Nevertheless, this has been a declining
market, and in 1988 there were 40 fewer manufacturers of sugar confectionery
registered with the Confectionery Alliance than in 1980.
The company had been run as a family business until 1978 when the last
family chairman retired. While the business had never been especially profitable,
particular problems developed in the late 1970s as a result of an ill-advised
diversification strategy. In 1980 the main board was largely replaced with a
younger and more professional team, many newly acquired companies were sold
off and in 1986 the core sugar confectionery business was restructured. Under
the new management the company’s profitability began to improve dramatically,
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812 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

and in 1989 (just after the period of data collection) the company was acquired
by a larger competitor.
The case study was based on visits to six of the sites where the company had
offices and/or factories, The data were collected over a period of two years from
January 1988 onwards. Sixty-six semi-structured interviews with a representative
sample of managers and other employees, including secretaries and line workers,
were conducted at the holdings board and each of five principal subsidiaries. It
should be noted that the orientation of this research is heavily biased towards the
managerial (and especially the senior managerial) perceptions of the organization.
These interviews were recorded on audio tapes of which 56 were transcribed
before being subjected to analysis. Observation was thus limited to tours of the
four factory sites, In contrast, semi-structured interviews offered a situational
context in which the exigencies of the organizational and business environments
were (generally) distanced from the respondents. A form of triangulation was
employed by this research, namely that derived from the interviews having been
conducted over a wide time-span with a variety of respondents at different levels
in the organizational hierarchy, and within different subsidiary companies
situated in geographically diverse locations.

The particular mode of qualitative data analysis employed was the style known as
‘grounded theory’ as developed by Glaser (1978)’ Glaser and Strauss (1967) and
Strauss (1987). Grounded theory is an inductive theory-discovery methodology,
the rnodur operandi of which is based on the logic of comparison. As the name
implies the grounded theory approach seeks to generate theoretical statements
and, ultimately, complex theories vindicated by the substratum of evidence from
which they have emerged. The value of grounded theory for the elucidation of
organizational cultures had first been suggested by Turner (1971) and later by
Martin and Turner (1986). Further impetus for using grounded theory was
provided by the burgeoning number of authors in a range of disciplines who
have used the technique to examine activities as diverse as hospital planning pro-
cedures (Trimble et al., 1972), the information-seeking behaviour of academic
social scientists (Ellis, 1987) and corporate growth (Johnson, 1981), and who have
commented on its value.
Grounded theory, then, is an inductive theory-discovery methodology which
provides explicit guidelines for the practice of qualitative research (Glaser and
Strauss, 1965a,b, 1967; Turner, 1981, 1983). Our understanding is ‘grounded’ in
the ‘grounded theory’ sense of qualitative analysis using theoretical sampling,
field observations and intensive interviewing as data-gathering techniques to
grasp actors’ viewpoints (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987) in a dialogue
with Candy management. This research was conducted within the interpretive
perspective (‘inquiry from the inside’), in which the researcher was immersed in a
stream of organizational dialogue (Geertz, 1973) in an inductive attempt to create
categories and hypotheses that were constantly revised and reformulated through
an iterative process of interaction and integration of data with observed experi-
ences (Putnam, 1983, p. 44).
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 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION 8 13

Once access to Candy Inc. had been gained and the principal focus of the
research established (i.e. to examine issues of culture and communication) the
process of semi-structured interviewing began with the four executive directors
on the holdings board. The transcripts of these four interviews were then
scrutinized in considerable detail, with literally dozens of potentially interesting
themes being discovered, noted, and written up as short descriptive notes (or
as Glaser and Strauss call them ‘theoretical memos’). Attention was then
switched to the organization’s largest subsidiary (Company 1) where the same
semi-structured questions were discussed with a cross section of employees.
While a back-log of tapes requiring transcription soon developed, as each
transcript became available it too was subject to careful critical examination in
the search for interesting themes (‘categories’). As more interviews were con-
ducted with respondents at other subsidiaries so hundreds of categories
emerged. The fate of these categories varied considerably. Over time some
were pieced together to form putative causal relationships, some were col-
lapsed together to form more general themes, others were discarded as irrele-
vant or uninteresting.
From the mass of transcript data a fairly consistent set of ‘core categories’
emerged that most respondents thought significant to any adequate description
of Candy Inc.’s culture and communicative activities. Certainly there were
some notable variations in response both between different subsidiaries and
different functions. These differences aside, there was, nevertheless, a robust
core of agreement on the essentials of the total organization’s culture and
dominant patterns of information exchange. It was from this emergent con-
sensus that the cultural and communication profiles were constructed, and the
empirical linkages between aspects of them drawn. As new potential elements
for both profiles were detected (both in ‘old’ and ‘new’ data) so they were fed
back to respondents for their opinion, so ensuring that the final versions were
recognizable and acceptable to the organizational participants themselves. In
this way it was hoped to avoid making any serious errors or omissions which
might reduce the validity of the narrative generated. In the following sections
we examine the relationship between culture, communication and information
at Candy Inc., beginning with an examination of culture in the company.

CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION AT CANDY INC.

Culture

What emerged in the dialogue with Candy managers was a dominant cultL,e, a
product of tradition, and a nascentlemergent, dissonant culture defined in terms
of a reaction to Candy’s traditional culture. Dissonant beliefs reflected dis-
juncture within the cultural fabric of the organization, i.e. they were recog-
nized as company traits but were not uniformly supported. While both the
dominant and dissonant cultures had an impact, it was the dominant culture
that had the most influence upon communication and information processes at
Candy Inc.
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814 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

Dominant Culture

Personnel Orientation. This refers to a complex set of beliefs concerning the organi-
zation’s attitude toward its employees. The core prescriptive beliefs were that the
organization should provide jobs, ensure that working conditions and wages were
acceptable, have a high regard for the rights of individual employees and treat
individuals as equals. The comments of the two non-executive directors were
typical:

We tend to think that the wages and conditions are pretty reasonable;
. . . we also have responsibilities to our people, and we should not consciously
try to do things with the minimum of people. One of our roles, particularly in
the . . . late twentieth century is to provide jobs.

Loyal&. A reciprocal loyalty upwards from the employees to the company formed
the credit side of the personnel orientation. Following Kanter (1972) and
Buchanan (1974) loyalty (or commitment as they refer to the concept) is defined
as the willingness of participants to give energy and loyalty to an organization, to
be effectively attached to its goals and values and theieby to the organization for
its own sake. In its most basic form loyalty to an organization implies not only a
belief in its ethical code of conduct, but also an empathetic identification with at
least some of its major objectives and past achievements.
In this case high levels of loyalty, both to Candy Inc. as a whole and its sub-
sidiary companies, was both a result and a determinant of large numbers of
employees spending much of their working lives within the organizational
umbrella. This corporate trait was also associated with a ‘spirit of tradition’
which permeated the company. Loyalty to the organization was manifested in
several ways. There was considerable attachment to the products manufactured
and sold by the company. In addition, individuals were generally very much
aware that the organization had a lengthy history and this seemed to satisfy their
emotional need for security at a time of high unemployment. Both the traditional
ambience and perceived stable employment opportunity offered by the company
fed into and enhanced loyalty to it.

Infomali&. The company was an extremely informal organization, and this

informality was evident at all levels in the hierarchy of management and at all
the sites where data collection interviews were conducted. Some of the most
important indicators of this corporate trait included the extent to which indivi-
duals of differing rank were on first name terms and a lack of formalized systems
(especially communications systems). The comments of two senior managers from
Subsidiary 1 were typical:

We have a department which is very loose, there’s no formality, there’s no

‘Mr-’ (general manager, trade development).
We are a fairly close-knit team. . . . But it’s very informal (unit engineering
manager).
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 ORGANIZAIIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORVA'TION 8 15

Democracy. The company belief system prescribed a highly democratic organiza-

tion which possessed both strong consensual and participative norms and an
open, flexible style. According to Candy Inc.'s company solicitor:

Candy Inc. has a very recognizable corporate culture which is one of a very
democratic type of style (company solicitor).

The strength of the organization's commitment to its democratic principles was

reflected in its structure and style of operation, which tended to decentralize
power from the holdings board to the subsidiaries. Furthermore, within the sub-
sidiaries much decision-making tended to be accomplished in groups or by com-
mittees and questioning from subordinates concerning decisions was a feature of
working life.

Co-operation. The working environment of the organization was co-operative, and

internal competition between individuals and departments was greatly dis-
couraged. There was evidence of competition between individuals being encour-
aged at the lowest levels in production and saledmarketing departments, i.e.
shopfloor operatives and salesmen in the field. But even here competitive activity
was generally understated in accordance with the cultural heritage of the organi-
zation, which led employees to associate a competitive ethos with political
intrigue, a problem which had plagued the organization until comparatively
recently. Candy Inc.'s development director summed up the general feeling:

Competition between the individuals is not a good thing (development direc-

tor).

All the manufacturing subsidiaries identified the company interest with their own
individual achievements and prospects, and interestingly, the holdings board had
introduced a couple of rules which restricted inter-subsidiary competition, osten-
sibly for commercial reasons, but arguably (at least in part), as a result of the
cultural proclivity for a non-competitive internal environment. The fact that
nearly all the respondents interviewed recognized that they worked for a
company, that many individuals had been employed in more than one of the
subsidiaries, and the various product-related interdependencies between the sub-
sidiaries, were further restraints on the degree to which competition had devel-
oped.

Strate..focus. The company saw itself as a focused player in its industry. Its nar-
rowness of outlook was best exemplified by its concentration on a few small
sectors of the sugar confectionery market, and an apparent unwillingness to
consider a variety of opportunities even within the sphere of confectionery.

Marketing-hd and production-constrained. The company had traditionally been a pro-

duction-led organization which valued its manufacturing expertise as the key to
its continued growth and success. In addition, the senior production team's pre-
ference for manufacturing what could be made quickly, easily, and in bulk, had
outweighed the need to produce the variety of products needed to pursue a mar-
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816 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

keting-led strategy. The general cultural association of the organization’s future

profitability with the skills of the production departments in the four manufactur-
ing subsidiaries, together with those departments’ sheer size, also meant that the
production directors were extremely influential figures within the organization.

Pace Ofactivip. The company was a slow-moving, cumbersome organization, in

which work activity was conducted at a relaxed pace. In short, it was not a risk-
taking, fast-action, quick-changing company. A traditionally stable marketplace,
familiarity with which had grown up over several generations, had done nothing
to inculcate an ethos of innovation (see also, Gordon, 1985; Scholz, 1987). This
cultural bias towards slow, considered decisions, had helped to create highly
bureaucratic decision-making mechanisms. In the words of one of the non-
executive directors:

There are occasions when [Ihaving the sort of culture that we do] can slow
things down. . . . When someone is patently incompetent we all carry them for
longer than a lot of companies (non-executive director).

Dissonant Beliefs

Pr$essimalism. For some, the company was characterized by generally low levels
of professional competence, with terms such as ‘casual’, ‘comft‘ and ‘slovenly’
commonly applied by respondents in describing their organization and fellow
employees. Professional competence was hardly evident in the lowest managerial
ranks and almost non-existent on the shopfloor. The senior management team
(below director level) was more able, and levels of professionalism were improv-
ing. The evidence for this came in the form of more people taking an interest in
the longer-term strategy of their subsidiary and the company, greater efforts now
being made to plan and co-ordinate effectively, and to achieve budget targets,
something which had previously been considered almost inconsequential. There
was, though, especially among the more senior executives, a recognition of some
serious problems:

It’s not really relaxed, it’s ‘does it matter? - it doesn’t matter to me’. The age
structure doesn’t help. We’ve got quite a few senior managers who are on the
glide path to retirement now and are not striving for themselves any more
(assistant production manager).

The overall picture was thus one of isolated pockets of professional competence,
mostly concentrated in senior positions, while the great majority of employees
were low-skilled, relatively uneducated and narrowly experienced. In a manu-
facturing industry where the basic production processes were straightforward,
wages no better than average and many individuals employed as part-time
workers and/or on short-term contracts, this finding is not surprising. However,
the organization itself had over the years accentuated the problem by making
little investment in stafF training and promoting internally rather than bringing in
experienced individuals from outside the company.
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 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION 8 17

Promotion and management development had undoubtedly suffered in the

company over previous years through inbreeding and always promoting from
within. Over promotion in many cases (managing director).

The lack of professionalism was manifested in a rich diversity of ways. The orga-
nization itself was notable for its poorly-defined job responsibilities, few formal
control mechanisms, a certain diffuseness of authority in some areas, a reliance
on outdated information systems and often slow decision-making processes. Com-
plementing these organizational traits was the unwillingness of many individuals
to take up the challenges of the commercial environment or to take responsibility
for problems and mistakes as and when they arose. There were also difficulties in
introducing, and gaining acceptance for, new ideas, with employees being largely
content to rely on old concepts and methods.

Over-tolerance. The core dissonant belief here was that the company was tolerant of
under-performing employees, had a benevolent (some respondents said paterna-
listic) attitude towards its employees and failed to link rewards to Performance. In
fact, the dissonant beliefs were strongest in subsidiary 1 where they were asso-
ciated with an older generation of managers. But even the newly-formed sub-
sidiary 2 was finding it difficult to dilute the strong egalitarian principles espoused
by the company, and which made tolerance of poor performance, benevolence
and non-differential remuneration difficult to avoid. Problems of management
control were seen to be exacerbated by a lack of clear lines of authority within
what were often very loosely-structured departments.

Democracy. In dissonant groups, views differed as to whether the company was

democratic enough or too democratic. For some, there were definite limits to
company democracy. Thus predictably, strategic decision-making for the
company was the preserve of the holdings board and the more significant sub-
sidiary decisions tended to be made by the directors and senior managers. In
subsidiary 2 the dominating personality of the managing director distorted what
was an essentially democratic culture, while in subsidiary 4 the managing director
and senior management team were attempting to introduce a more democratic
ethos into a company where the underlying beliefs and values were less than
sympathetic to open and participative democracy. Moreover, the democratic style
of the company could occasionally become less open and flexible than combative
and adversarial, especially in subsidiary 1 where personal and political antagon-
isms were most in evidence. There were others, however, who complained that
the organization was too democratic for its own good, and that its decision-
making processes and speed of response to external change were impaired by
decentralization of responsibility and the perceived need for prior consultation
and discussion with peers and subordinates:

Committees design camels, committees come to compromise decisions with

everyone’s input into some situation. . . . I don’t like compromise solutions
(managing director).
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818 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

~rodu~tionoriented. During the past few years senior personnel within the company
had increasingly come to believe that the manufacturing capabilities of the orga-
nization should be tailored to better service the demands of the market. In short,
that the company should shift from being production to marketing-led. However,
despite the wishes of the holdings board and many subsidiary executives the
organization was finding it difficult to adapt to the needs of individual market
sectors, and production priorities were still often favoured over customer needs.
There was evidence that some production directors had used the power implicit
in their already privileged positions to preserve their department’s ‘star’ role. A
fuller explanation of the difficulties involved in initiating such a radical change in
corporate outlook must implicate the company’s traditional deference to produc-
tion, the problems imposed by the limited skills and knowledge-base of produc-
tion employees, and the constraints imposed by the existing equipment. Due to
the lack of a professional marketing perspective, changes and opportunities in the
environment were neither detected nor responded to with any degree of imme-
diacy:

There is a tendency to pull it [Candy Inc.] towards the marketing orientation

which I believe is the only feasible one in this day and age. . . . We’re moving
in the right direction, but it is still traditionally very much ‘let’s keep the plant
occupied - if in doubt keep the wheels churning and we’ll find a way of selling
it’ (non-executive director).

Strategy: focused, narrow and introspective. There was a strongly held dissonant view
that the company was over-narrow in its strategy, too introspective and too resis-
tant to change in its focus. This view was as strongly voiced in the subsidiaries as
it was at the holdings board:

Company 4 has been a company with . . . limited horizons (account manager).

I think as a company we tend to be too blinkered (non-executive director).

Role of the centre. The holdings board itself was seen as unwilling to force a
dramatic alteration in the company’s internal operation, reflecting the cultural
preference for gradual and subtly induced modification - ‘our goal, our objective,
is to co-ordinate’ (chairman and chief executive. The executive directors and
senior managers of the subsidiaries were thus almost wholly responsible for deter-
mining their own pace of activity. As the managing director of subsidiary 3
asserted:

Because the managing directors of Candy Inc. subsidiaries are encouraged to

develop their own companies to a very large extent there is a very free man-
agement style in the group (managing director).

Communication and Information at Candy Inc.

Management information ystemr. The company’s MIS had only been in its current
form for two years prior to the conduct of this research, and was widely recog-
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 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION 8 19

nized to be under-developed. The formally defined information channels were

constituted by holdings board meetings held monthly, and subsidiary board
meetings and managing directors’ meetings which both had a periodicity of two
months. Three major items of information were passed from the subsidiaries to
the holdings board during the course of a financial year: an annually agreed
budget, a four-weekly management account and a four-weekly managing direc-
tor’s report which provided a detailed breakdown of a subsidiary’s operation.
Subsidiary 1 was the only company in Candy Inc.’s portfolio to make extensive
use of computing facilities in the compilation of its reports and accounts. Within
the subsidiaries the same picture of under-development was evident, with only
the most basic information, concerning, for example, production schedules and
sales forecasts, being compiled and circulated. There was no controlling logic to
the development of MIS which, according to a senior member of the holdings
board, had ‘grown like Topsy’.
There were three major problems with the MIS linking the holdings board
and the subsidiaries. First, the holdings board suspected that the information
supplied to it by the subsidiaries was often severely biased and further, that infor-
mation which should have been incorporated into the managing directors’
reports was occasionally withheld. A second problem involved the untimeliness of
information from the subsidiaries, which was partly a result of their often primi-
tive information systems. This was particularly true of subsidiaries 2 and 4. In
contrast, in subsidiary 1 the size of the business rather than a lack of sophistica-
tion was a major difficulty responsible for the untimeliness of its information. A
third problem was that the written communications from the subsidiaries often
lacked standardization. While some attempts had been made to standardize the
major items of communication between thc subsidiaries and the holdings board
the detailed fashion in which the information was presented varied from sub-
sidiary to subsidiary.

Ad hoc communications. Intra-organizational communications at all levels from the

interpersonal to the holdings board-subsidiary were largely unscheduled and ad
h5c. The extent to which communication was unplanned and concerned specific
opportunities and problems was closely associated with the under-developed
nature of the MIS. This often caused difficulties for members of the holdings
board and the subsidiaries alike:

A lot of my work is investigating new areas of opportunity. . . . Basically what

I do is to phone the subsidiary and ask them for the information I want and
they groan and say ‘Oh my God, I don’t think we can get that out, we will
have to work on it, it will take two or three days’ - that is a typical response
(development director).

Infoonation medium. There was a strong company preference for oral information
exchange and employees expressed a strong preference for face-to-face meeting:

My word is my bond - there’s no doubt about it (non-executive director).

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820 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

I prefer information to come to me direct by word of mouth (general manager,

trade and development).
. . . a memo is in a way a non-productive thing (marketing manager).
The overwhelming majority of communication took place by word of mouth and
very frequently face-to-face. While finance departments were far less reliant on
oral communication than marketing, sales and production departments these
latter functions dominated the company (in terms of number of people employed)
and set the tone for communication within it. The company’s reliance on oral
communication was justified by respondents in terms of the ease and speed with
which it could be accomplished. The associated problems of distortion (deliberate
and accidental) on the part of the sender and misunderstanding on the part of
the receiver, were not considered to be significant.

Infomal grapevine communications dominant. The organization possessed an extensive

grapevine system. Within the company grapevines could be identified at all
levels - departmental, subsidiary, between subsidiaries and between the sub-
sidiaries and the holdings board. The prominence of informal communication
within the organization is largely explicable in terms of other aspects of the
information/communication profile of the company. Thus the lack of a well
developed MIS, the preference for oral information exchange, and the attach-
ment of employees to face-to-face meetings all seem to have had an influence
here. In addition, the extensive nature of informal communication was almost
certainly bolstered by the poor downward vertical communications evident
within the company. The holdings board communicated little information to
its subsidiaries which in turn tended to disclose little information down the
management hierarchy, while communication from senior executives to the
shopfloor was practically non-existent. Under conditions such as these where
the majority of employees were kept in relative ignorance, it is unsurprising
that informal networks and internal gatekeepers should develop. The informal
communication network may be best interpreted as an extension of the infor-
mation adhocracy which characterized information exchange within the
company.

Infomation consciousness. The company was not an ‘information conscious’ organi-

zation. Most employees, including senior executives, lacked a sophisticated
understanding of the concepts of ‘information as a resource’ and ‘information
management’. The organization employed no qualified information professionals
(other than a few computer specialists in company 1) and had no library facilities
other than what individuals chose to keep on their shelves and in their files.
Indeed, no employees were employed solely for their information handling com-
petence or specifically to seek out and/or analyse information. These functions
were instead conducted by almost all managers on all grades. The circulation of
documents such as newspapers, journals, trade and promotional literature was
extremely poor, with little evidence of any formal procedures either within the
holdings board or the subsidiaries. Thus whether an individual saw an article or
advertisement relevant to hidher interests seemed to be largely a matter of luck.
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 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION 82 1

The operational difficulties these caused were felt most acutely by the non-execu-
tive directors:

I would like to see much more up-to-date information about what is happening
in the marketplace for the industry in general and our products in particular
(non-executive director).

Where these failings were recognized they were attributed to a certain coterie of
managers, i.e. those who were older, less professional and especially dominant in
subsidiary 1. The idea that the organization as a whole faced an endemic lack of
information and information-seeking skills was alien to most respondents. Again,
given the culture of the company these findings are hardly surprising. The orga-
nization had been production-led and was still constrained by the beliefs, values
and experiences of those working in the production function. It therefore
required little external information or expertise in seeking it out. At the same
time much internally-generated information was stored in the minds of key
employees and a few rudimentary information systems. In short, the company
was not ‘information-intensive’, and could afford to allow its narrow and intro-
spective attitudes and lack of professionalism to permeate the information dimen-
sion of its design and behaviour. This said, the recent attempts by the holdings
board to engineer a change in orientation and to cultivate a more marketing-led
ethos had had some impact. Moreover, there was evidence of increased invest-
ment in new computer facilities and a greater interest in market and industry
data. But the cultural inertia that had built up over generations and which had
served to isolate the organization from its market, and devalue information, was
proving difficult to overcome.

The Efects of Culture upon Communication and Infonation

The communication and information profile of Candy Inc. has its roots very
clearly in the company culture. The skeletal nature of the MIS had a cultural
basis. The company’s belief in the advantages of an informal approach to orga-
nizational life and antipathy towards rationalization, systematization and proce-
duralization, had resulted in negative attitudes towards the idea of a highly
evolved MIS. The development of a more sophisticated set of information
systems would probably also have meant more information being transmitted in
written form via memos and brief internal reports, something the employees’
belief in the value of face-to-face communication would not sanction. The low
levels of professionalism within the company and the narrow and introspective
nature of many subsidiary departments also played a role, ensuring that even if
such systems were introduced they would probably not have been used; the skills,
experience and mutual communicative expectations an MIS requires were not
woven into the cultural fabric of the company.
The deliberate construction of reports by subsidiaries so as to fail deliberately
to reveal a clear picture of their activities had a detectable cultural basis. Such
actions reflected a lack of confidence on the part of subsidiaries (especially sub-
sidiary 1) in the holdings board’s intentions. This low level of confidence had its
0 Basil Blackwell Ltd 1994
822 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

origins in the restructuring of the company which had effectively disempowered

subsidiary 1. It was also symptomatic of subsidiary 1’s frustration, in that while it
had day-to-day control of its operation it was, nevertheless, dependent on the
holdings board for approval of expenditure in excess of &50,000, and ultimately
accountable to the holdings board for its economic performance. In other words
the political and conflictual nature of the organization was manifested in the
company-wide communicative activity.
Cultural factors must also be taken into account here. The generally low levels
of professional competence which characterized the subsidiaries made report gen-
eration a difficult and time-consuming task for the subsidiaries. The casualness of
subsidiary 1’s approach to commercial life and subsidiary 2’s obsession with pro-
ducing and selling rather than reflection and planning were also contributory
factors to communications problems. Most important of all, however, was the
fact that many employees within the four UK subsidiaries were just not fired
with the overriding desire to respond to the holdings board on a timely basis,
and the existing control mechanisms were not sufficiently effective to combat the
subsidiaries’ culturally based inefficiencies.
The fact that the detailed fashion in which the information was presented
varied from subsidiary to subsidiary reflected a company cultural emphasis on
subsidiary autonomy and an understanding on the part of the holdings board
that each subsidiary was seeking to devise those information systems best suited
to its own style and business conduct. It was also closely linked to beliefs and
values which favoured ad hoc solutions as opposed to general rules, and which
were not strongly supportive of highly routinized systems and procedures. It was
thus unsurprising that there was an acceptance by the holdings board that com-
munications from the subsidiaries would always exemplifjr a fair degree of het-
erogeneity of form. This strongly suggests that reports and other written
documents are cultural artefacts, and as such embody and reflect the dominant
beliefs of an organization’s culture (Bantz, 1983).
The cultural basis for the organization’s preference for oral communication
was extremely strong. The beliefs and values which supported the personnel
orientation were also conducive to oral communication, oral communication
being a more personal means of conveying information and a facilitator of inter-
personal relations. The democratic and participative belief/value set which
encouraged the co-option of individuals into the planning and decision-making
procedures of the organization necessitated that information was conveyed
quickly, thus precluding written contributions to debates. That so much informa-
tion was communicated orally was indicative of the reasonably high levels of trust
and confidence which individuals had, in employees within their own subsidiary,
not to distort their information, use it tactically or act on it inappropriately. The
company’s oral communication tendencies were also symptomatic of the inform-
ality, casualness and lack of professionalism which were integral features of the
organization’s cultural profile.
The organization’s reliance on ad hoc communication had its origin in the
cultural belief/value sets which favoured flexibility, informality and inter-
personal contact. The company’s cultural antipathy towards the systematization
of communication channels and proceduralization of information exchange was
closely interwoven with the prevailing belief that the advantages to be gained
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 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION 82 3

from a decentralized and latrsez faire mode of operation should be maximally

exploited.
The cultural consensus was that while information gained via the grapevine
was often of dubious quality and reliability it should not be ignored and could
occasionally be useful. Indeed, some respondents suggested that it was a poten-
tial tool of management that could be manipulated to achieve desired results.
The degree to which information was transmitted on an inter-personal word-
of-mouth basis was a reflection of the company’s strong cultural preference for
face-to-face contact and oral communication. The luxurious growth of the
grapevine was also linked to the informal character of the business which
naturally tended to create opportunities for casual social communication. In
fact, so prevalent were gossip, speculation and hearsay that many individuals
expressed difficulty in distinguishing between ad hoc operational information and
grapevine information.
A lack of professionalism resulting from a lack of trained managers, a high
degree of introspection and a general casualness of approach had also played
their part in shaping and conditioning beliefs, values and attitudes towards
information and communication issues. Moreover, a rigid hierarchy had created
a comparatively information-rich managerial elite which communicated down-
wards only the most essential operational information necessary for employees
to perform their duties. The result was that the vast majority of shopfloor
operatives and junior managers were not only information-poor, but placed
little value on information and were not proactive information seekers. A
noticeable lack of stafF development and training programmes did nothing to
obviate these problems or ensure that junior employees had the skills to write
intelligible memos or conduct worthwhile formal meetings. Superimposed on
the management hierarchy was a framework of personal and political antagon-
isms which provided the motivations for individuals to deliberately withhold
and distort information or use it for personal or departmental advantage. In
effect, such activities represented a further devaluation of official information as
a useable organizational resource.

CONCLUSION

An approach which interprets organizations as meaning systems and attempts to

explain organizational structures and processes in terms of beliefs, values and
assumptions has problems adequately accounting for the impact of financial con-
straints, spatial distance, the nature of the work performed, and the availability
(or otherwise) of external information resources. These factors, and others like
them, appear to be extrinsic to an organization’s culture, and exercise their influ-
ence independently of employee beliefs and values.
However, it may be argued that it is not limited internal resources or actual
distance that are significant, but cultural perceptions of these. Thus while the
financial resources of the case study organization were undoubtedly small,
cultural orientations determined how they were distributed, i.e. into new capital
plant and machinery rather than information technology systems. Similarly, it is
not actual distance but perceived distance which influences the decision to com-
0 Basil Blackwell Ltd 1994
824 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

municate or to communicate in a particular way. The nature of the work per-

formed is a slightly different case, for this is one of the determinants of culture. It
may, as in this organization, have a profound influence over the beliefs and
values which predominate among employees. So factors that appear to be
external to the organizational meaning system shared by employees may in fact
be interpreted within (or contributing to) it.
While there are good reasons for concluding that organizational culture is
not a paradigm capable of integrating all information and communication
research (Pacanowsky and O’Donnell-Trujillo, 1982; Smircich, 1983)) its value
should be equally clear. T o specialists in User Studies and Information
Systems Design it provides a further means of gaining insight into the working
of organizational information systems, both formal and informal. T o practising
managers seeking to implement and maintain information systems it offers
explanations for their ineffective use, misuse and non-use. Yet although the
case study presented here has illustrated the sort of understanding of informa-
tion and communication phenomena that a cultural approach can provide, far
more work focused on specific problems at the individual and group levels
needs to be undertaken, before an adequate appreciation of the culture
metaphor can be claimed.
A summary overview of the argument presented is provided by figure 1.
The diagram illustrates the fundamental point that an organization’s culture
may be one of the factors which determine the nature, extent and form of its
information/communication dimension, and its associated problems. The
cultural traits are all inter-related in a seamless web of cognitive affect, which
influences and shapes the information and communication structures and pro-
cesses evident in the organization. The elements of the information and com-
munication profile are themselves intimately linked and mutually reinforcing, as
set out in figure 1.
Organizations differ greatly in respect of their relative homogeneity, or lack of
it. Candy Inc. was dominated by one particular culture. Dissonant views were
shaped in reaction to this culture but did not, in the end, influence or change
dominant perspectives. From a political perspective dissonant groups were not
able to marshal the resources or amass the power to change Candy’s strategic
direction so that, finally, the company was acquired by a friendly competitor
after a lengthy battle with a hostile holdings company. In Douglas’s terms
(Douglas, 1982; Starkey, 1992), the dissenting factions were not able to make
their views acceptable to or to replace the central community.
If one had to single out one particular aspect of Candy culture as particu-
larly powerful, one might concentrate upon its tendency to introspection, indi-
cated, for example, by the company’s concern with its own internally
produced detailed reports on its own plans and performance rather than data
concerning the industry and the market. Products therefore tended to be man-
ufactured without regard for the existing and likely future state of the market.
The company had very little sense of, or concern for, as a cultural trait,
sources of information outside the organization. This exacerbated its resistance
to change. It precluded learning or the development of a relevant knowledge
base that would have helped it to survive (Argyris and Schon, 1974; Weick,
1979).
0 Basil Blackwell Ltd 1994
 .........''......
' inbrmality and ......'... /'.. ..
anti-systrmizatio~l
. . \ * . . . - . .. personnel..
democracy and '..
: orientation drcrntrelization '..
826 ANDREW D. BROWN AND KEN STARKEY

NOTE

T h e helpful advice and guidance of David Ellis during the conduct of this research is
here gratefully acknowledged, as are the helpful suggestions of the four anonymous
reviewers.

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