Symbolic Frame Fundamentals
This organizational frame focuses on meaning, beliefs, culture, and symbols.
What is the Symbolic Frame?
These shared beliefs communicate what an organization considers important.
What are organizational values?
Individuals celebrated for representing an organization's most important values.
Who are organizational heroes and heroines?
Repeated organizational activities that reinforce shared beliefs and identity.
What are rituals?
Describing an organization as a family, machine, or battlefield is an example of this symbolic device.
What is a metaphor?
The shared beliefs, values, traditions, and practices that help members understand organizational life.
What is organizational culture?
According to the Symbolic Frame, what matters most is not necessarily what happens, but this.
What it means to people.
This provides an inspiring picture of an organization's desired future.
What is a vision?
These narratives communicate lessons about organizational history, values, and expected behavior.
What are organizational stories?
Formal occasions that celebrate achievements, milestones, or important organizational transitions.
What are ceremonies?
This symbolic activity can relieve tension, strengthen relationships, and allow employees to challenge authority indirectly.
What is humor?
Chapter 12 uses this luxury automobile manufacturer to illustrate organizational culture in a manufacturing environment.
What is BMW?
When employees interpret the same organizational event differently, it demonstrates that organizational meaning depends on this.
What is interpretation?
These organizational narratives explain origins, identity, and purpose, even when their details may be exaggerated.
What are myths?
A story about an employee who went beyond expectations to help a customer reinforces this organizational priority.
What is customer service?
A weekly meeting where employees share accomplishments and recognize coworkers is an example of this.
What is a ritual?
This organizational activity encourages imagination, experimentation, and creativity rather than focusing only on immediate productivity.
What is play?
This retailer is discussed in Chapter 12 for its strong customer-service culture, reinforced through stories and traditions.
What is Nordstrom?
During uncertainty, organizations use these to help employees find direction, hope, and meaning.
What are symbols?
A company claims teamwork is a core value but rewards only individual performance. This demonstrates a disconnect between these two things.
What are stated values and actual organizational practices?
A company repeatedly celebrates employees who report quality problems, even when doing so delays production. This communicates that the organization values this over speed.
What is quality or integrity?
An annual employee awards banquet reinforces organizational culture by publicly communicating this.
What behaviors and achievements the organization values?
Employees describe their organization as a battlefield where every department must fight for resources. This metaphor suggests a culture characterized by these conditions.
What are competition and conflict?
Nordstrom's stories of exceptional customer service help employees understand expectations even without detailed instructions. This demonstrates the power of this symbolic mechanism.
What is organizational storytelling?
A CEO announces layoffs as a necessary restructuring, but employees interpret the announcement as a betrayal of organizational loyalty. This illustrates this Symbolic Frame assumption.
What is that the same event can have different meanings for different people?
A founder repeatedly tells employees how the company survived its earliest financial crisis through perseverance and teamwork. This story serves this symbolic function.
What is reinforcing the organization's identity and shared values?
An organization publicly praises its highest-performing salesperson despite repeated mistreatment of coworkers. This illustrates how organizational heroes can unintentionally reinforce this.
What are undesirable behaviors or conflicting values?
A company holds an elaborate employee appreciation ceremony but routinely ignores employee concerns. This illustrates the danger of these becoming disconnected from actual organizational practices.
What are empty or meaningless ceremonies?
A CEO repeatedly describes employees as replaceable parts in a machine. From the Symbolic Frame, this language may communicate this message about employees.
What is that employees are interchangeable or valued primarily for their functional contribution?
Two companies have similar organizational structures, policies, and compensation systems, yet employees behave very differently. The Symbolic Frame would direct attention to differences in this.
What is organizational culture or shared meaning?