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ABSTRACT
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This ethnographic case study examined
the organizational culture of the Corda Institute,
a pseudonym for a nonprofit, nonsectarian health and human service
organization in the Midwest. Research questions included: If organizations are multi-cultural,
around what differences do subcultures form? What kind of subcultures emerge?
How do subcultures interact with the dominant culture in an organization? The
research questions were answered through a content analysis of data collected
from field notes, artifacts, archival data, and interviews. Participants
included many of Corda Institute's 449 employees in
1 of its 3 major divisions or its administrative and
support staff. The results of this study indicated that Corda
Institute is a multicultural organization, i.e., a number of different
subcultures coexisting within a single organization. Three types of
subcultures were identified around the 4 core cultural themes of
collaboration, diversity, mission, and ongoing education. These subcultures
include a functional/occupational subculture, the upper management subculture,
and 4 enhancing subcultures--1 dealing with collaboration, diversity, mission
and ongoing education. The first 2 subcultures actually form around
difference resulting from function. The enhancing subcultures took shape
around intensity or magnitude rather than an outright difference. With
respect to interaction between the dominant culture and the identified
subcultures, all 6 subcultures, as well as the dominant culture, utilize
pluralism/acculturation as their process for acculturation, i.e., 'the ways
in which two groups adapt to each other and resolve emergent conflict' (Nahavandi & Malekzadeh, 1988,
p. 82). The results of the study were explained in terms of the theory of
organizational subcultures (Trice, 1993; Trice & Morand,
1991; Louis, 1985, 1990; Gregory, 1983; Cox, 1993; Sproull,
1981; Van Maanen and Barley, 1985; Bloor and Dawson, 1994) and acculturation models (Trice, 1993;
Nahavandi & Malekzadeh,
1988; Cox, 1993; Simons, Vazquez, & Harris, 1993).
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