Symbolic Power

Symbolic Power and Organizational Culture Author(s): Tim Hallett Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jun., 2003), pp. 128-149 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3108622 . Accessed: 06/06/2011 12:02
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Symbolic Power and Organizational Culture*
TIM HALLETT IndianaUniversity With the recent wave of corporate scandals, organizational culture has regained relevance in politics and the media. However, to acquire enduringutility, the concept needs an overhaul to overcome the weaknesses of earlier approaches. As such, this paper reconceptualizes organizational culture as a negotiated order (Strauss 1978) that emerges through interactions betweenparticipants, anorder influenced by those with the symbolic power to define the situation. I stress the complementarycontributions of theorists of practice (Bourdieu and Swidler) and theorists of interaction (Goffman and Strauss), building upwardfrom practice into interaction, symbolic power, and the negotiated order. Using data from initial reports on thefall of Arthur Andersen and Co., I compare this symbolicpower approach to other approaches (culture as subjectivebeliefs and values or as context/public meaning). The symbolic power model has five virtues. an empirically observable object of study, the capacity to explain conflict and integration; the ability to explain stability and change, causal efficacy; and links between the micro-, meso-, and macrolevels of analysis. Though this paper focuses onorganizational culture, the symbolic power model provides theoretical leverage for understandingmany situated contexts.

INTRODUCTION In the late 1970s, organizational culture became a hot topic. Fueled by management schools, the concept offered a link between workplace culture and outcomes such as worker satisfaction, commitment, and productivity (Fine 1984; Frost etal. 1991; Martin and Meyerson1988). The fire of enthusiasm was soon tempered by arguments over the "variability" and "manageability" of organizational culture (Smirchich and Morgan 1982; Nord 1985; Ouchi and Wilkins 1985), its malleability versus its stability as a "root metaphor" for the production of meaning (Smirchich 1983; Gabriel 1995). Perhaps the victim of this fray is the concept itself: as a management fad, studies oforganizational culture have gone from popular to passe in the span of 25 years (Hill and Carley 1999). Left behind are two approaches that grow from previous sociological traditions (Ouchi and Wilkins 1985:469). One envisions culture as beliefs and values held by subjects in the organization. This approach is of special interest to those who want to "manage"culture, as these beliefs are the ends...