Exam 6: Communication,culture and Organizing

For a researcher taking a purist approach to organizational culture,it becomes very important to maintain distance and separation from those who she researches.

Mabel teaches middle school,and tries to instill social consciousness in her students by questioning their use of common and derogatory slang such as "retarded" to describe things or people that they think are dumb or silly.After a lesson on using "the r-word" and its negative impact on people,she was pleased that students dropped it from their daily conversation in her classes.Around the same time,however,she notices that the kids are talking about Pop-tarts all of the time.The cafeteria serves Pop-tarts for breakfast a lot;she assumes that the kids just like this breakfast treat.Later in the semester,she discovers that the kids use the word "Pop-tart" to refer to things that they think are dumb or silly.This is an example of:

Which of the following phrases best summarizes the shift in organizational communication research that we see with the cultural approach?

A pragmatic view of organizational culture treats culture as a _______________________ that can be manipulated to generate particular outcomes.

Which of the following is NOT a purist critique of pragmatist approaches to organizational culture?

Robert takes a pragmatist approach to organizational culture,while Bryanne takes a purist approach to organizational culture.They might disagree about:

In order to be good anthropologists,cultural scholars of organizations must be sure to find exotic and strange cultures to study.

From a _____________________ perspective of organizational culture,organizations only exist insofar as organization members engage in communication activities.

"'This is not magic,' the artist reminds them,as she teaches students about a structural quality of the art material or art process they are learning.Sitting cross-legged on the floor of one of the light-filled classrooms in the school building listening to the artist recite a poem about the morning sun to students,I soak up the artist's lesson on the poet's use of the word 'crotchety,' a word new to third-graders.She teaches them about paste-painting and its thick,pudding-like consistency that will slide through their fingers as they make paintings of morning and light." As part of a research report,the preceding passage could be an example of:

Studying culture is an experimental science.

Luis is fascinated by the ways in which pick-up basketball games are organized in the city park that his room overlooks - soon,he starts to play pickup basketball with the guys in his neighborhood.According to cultural anthropologists,Luis could simultaneously be studying this culture even while playing basketball.

White-collar work can be just as dehumanizing as ____________________ work.

Organizational scholars studying organizational culture pay a lot of attention to cultural expressions;purists tend to see cultural expressions as the means by which culture is made,whereas pragmatists tend to see cultural expressions as outward evidence of an objective and quantifiable culture.

Professor Snow has assigned a research project that asks you to study an organizational culture (from a purist point of view).Which of these projects do you imagine would best fulfill her expectations?

When studying organizational culture,we might call the "social knowledge" held by organizational members that enable them to successfully navigate the culture:

The leadership team of a small non-profit organization has a team-building and goal-setting retreat each time a person joins or leaves the team,because the director of the non-profit believes that every time a person joins or leaves,they have an entirely new team.His approach most readily reflects which of the following ideas about organizational culture?

___________________ refers to jargon,or the special language that has particular meaning within organizations.

The management at the restaurant where Robin works has long used the phrase "team" in order to describe how everyone at the restaurant needed to pull his or her weight for a collective success.Instead of "shift managers," there were "shift coaches," and instead of "good employees," there were "team players." Recently,a new manager came in to the restaurant and is referring herself as the "director" and all of the staff as "cast members." After two weeks,tensions between staff and management reached a boiling point.How might we best describe what is going on?

Purist studies of organizational culture could be best described by which of the following research perspectives?

_____________________ metaphors provide powerful frames for organizational life.