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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
Organizational Culture Formation:
The Social Construction of Reality through

Informal Negotiations of Symbolic Systems

presented by
Stephen William Nason

has been accepted towards fulfillment
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ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE FORMATION:
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY THROUGH

INFORMAL NEGOTIATIONS OP SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS

BY

Stephen William Nason

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michican State University

in partial fullillment of the requiremants
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Anthropology

1989

3’5

LooiH

ABSTRACT
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE FORMATION:

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY THROUGH
INFORMAL NEGOTIATIONS OE SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS

BY
Stephen W. Nason

This study examines the cultural change process that
occurred within an organizational culture. The focus is on
how cultural meanings are socially created and defined and
how they come to be shared. At a broad level, organization-
al culture change occurs as collective responses to group
problems. The central problem concerns how a group, without
conscious articulation, develops a relatively uniform defi-
nition of the nature of the "problem," how a consensus forms
on the appropriate responses, and how these responses are
communicated to and accepted by the group members. The
research was conducted through participant observation and
interviews at a local restaurant that was undergoing an
organizational crisis. My research indicates that this
shared nature develops through a nonconscious, informal
negotiation process of symbols and their meanings. This
conclusion is based on an extensive analysis of the crea-
tion, development, and use of a symbol which occurred during

my research.

Copyright by
STEPHEN WILLIAM NASON
1989

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the members of
my graduate committee - Kenneth David, Melissa Barker, and
David Dwyer - for their insightful comments and willingness

to share a great deal of their valuable time with me.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables iv
INTRODUCTION 1
LITERATURE REVIEW 3
Organizational Culture 4
Culture and Symbols 5
Subculture 8
Organizational Culture Formation 8
Social Construction of Reality and Organizational 10
Symbolism
COLLECTIVE RESPONSES TO SHARED PROBLEMS 12
The Case of "Stratford's" 17
The Organizational Crisis at "Stratford's" 22
Another Restaurant's Perception of the New Manager 31
Analysis: Responses to Shared Problems 33
Another Case: A Non-Group Problem 34
Further Analysis of Responses to Shared Problems 36
NEGOTIATED SYMBOLS, RESPONSES AND MEANING 40
The Development of the Flashlight Story and Symbol 40
Analysis: The Early Stage of Negotiation 49
Analysis: The Negotiated Flashlight Story 58
The Flashlight Story as a Symbol 64
Further Development of the Flashlight Symbol 67
Analysis: The Flashlight Story as a Response 70
Barbara's Replacement 72
Negotiating Between Different, Already Formed 74
Interpretation
Negotiating through the Grapevine 78
The Rate of Acceptance 82
Connecting Elements of Reality 84
SUMMARY 86
Implications 89
BIBLIOGRAPHY 95

iii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. The Prestige System at Stratford's

Figure 2. Chronology

iv

18

94

INTRODUCTION

This Thesis examines the creation/change process of an
organizational culture with a focus on the creation of the
symbols that are used to transmit the modified meanings of
the new culture. Specifically, I focus on how (and to a
lesser degree why) symbols and their meanings are socially
created, how they come to be shared, and the informal nego-
tiation process through which this occurs.

I start by briefly introducing some relevant concepts
from the literature that pertain to my thesis. The main
body of the thesis is divided into two parts. The first
deals at a general level with a discussion of issues con-
cerning the formation of culture as collective definitions
and responses to shared group problems, setting the general
framework for the later more in depth analyses. In this
section I also introduce the research setting. The central
case involves a group's responses to an organizational
crisis in which elements of the prevailing organizational
culture were challenged.

To simply state that cultures form as responses to
shared problems does not indicate how those responses are
selected and come to be shared or how a shared definition of
the problem develops in the first place. It also glosses
over the underlying processes that are occurring. In order
to get at these underlying processes I examine a single

incident of the organizational crises, and follow the

2
over the underlying processes that are occurring. In order
to get at these underlying processes I examine a single
incident of the organizational crises, and follow the
development of a symbol and its meanings that pertain to the
incident. This analysis is supplemented by other examples
from the research setting that elaborate upon the analysis
and that present different, but related, mechanisms.

My concern is with how a group, without conscious
articulation, develops a relatively uniform definition of
the nature of the "problem," how a consensus forms on the
appropriate "responses," and how these responses are com-
municated to and accepted by the group members. This social
construction of reality occurs through the collective con-
struction of shared symbols via a negotiation process. The
negotiation process involves informal gossiping, discus-
sions, complaining, humor, etc., and through this process
different ideas and interpretations are informally presented
to, and examined by, the group until a rough meaning, and
its symbolized form, is implicitly agreed upon. A "reality"
is constructed through the negotiation and interpretation of
these symbols and their meanings.

This research is based on two years of participant
observation in a restaurant where I worked as a waiter. I
gathered additional data through in depth interviews (both
taped and written) and through numerous shorter, informal
interviews (rarely taped). The most productive data was

acquired through close participant observation of informal

3
gatherings with short, unstructured interviews afterwards to
verify my interpretations of what occurred.

This thesis is not structured along the traditional
lines of an introduction, research data, analysis, and
summary. The negotiation of shared definitions and respon-
ses to group problems did not develop in a linear fashion
that was conductive to this sort of presentation. Rather,
the negotiations occurred as an iterative process and the
structure of this paper reflects this iterative nature. I
start by presenting a broad level of data (the responses to
shared problems section) and a general analysis. I then
introduce data of a more specific nature or of another
relevant point and provide further analysis. This cycle
repeats itself several times before the summary is reached.
I feel that this structure maintains the integrity of the
phenomena studied. As the ordering of events can become
confusing with such a structure I have included a diagram of

the chronology (figure 2) on page 93.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In order to place this thesis in context within the

organizational literature and to introduce relevant con-

cepts, I briefly discuss some of the pertinent literature.

Organizational Culture

Within the past couple of decades, but especially since
1980, there has been a growing dissatisfaction in the or-
ganizational and business literature with the dominate view
of organizations as rational, goal oriented constructs (Zey
Ferrel and Aiken 1981, Fischer and Sirianni 1984, Ott 1988)
and with the over emphasis on quantitative research method-
ologies (Morgan and Smircich 1980). The concept of organi-
zational culture developed in response to such criticisms
and within this perspective organizations are seen as mini-
societies and cultures. In this view IBM has its own cul-
ture that is distinct from the culture of Texas Instruments,
General Motors, the Navaho Nation, and the United States.

While most of the literature concerned with organiza-
tional culture agrees that culture is a crucial factor, even
the determining factor, in the functioning of organizations,
there is little agreement on what exactly organizational
culture is (Schein 1985, Ott 1988). Some of the common
definitions of culture are: the espoused values of a group
(Deal and Kennedy 1982); the consciously held values and
beliefs of a group (Sathe 1983, 1985a, and 1985b): the
unconscious, internalized beliefs (assumptions) that are
held by a group (Dyer 1985, Lundberg 1985, Schein 1985): the
shared meanings of a group (Louis 1985a); systems of shared
symbols and meanings (Smircich 1983b); the organization's
philosophy towards its members and constituents (Ouchi

1980); the ways of behaving that are common to a group (Van

5
Maanen, cited in Schein 1985); the unwritten rules for
behavior (Riley 1983); tacit agreements on transaction costs
(Jones 1983, Davies and Weiner 1985).

Even with this variation, most of the definitions of
organizational culture are derived from the functionalist
paradigms and use a "systems theory" type of analysis that
views organizational cultures as one business variable among
many to be managed for success (Barley 1983, Smircich 1985).
The machine and organism are the dominant metaphors used in
such approaches, and the focus is generally on work values,
beliefs, attitudes, and behavior and how they affect the
efficiency of the organization (Morgan et a1. 1983, Smircich
1983a and 1985). Organizational culture has only rarely
been approached as a field worthy of study in and of itself.
According to Smircich (1985) one should not be limited to
merely studying organizational culture but rather should do
a cultural analysis of organizational life. That is, or-
ganizational cultures should be approached in the same way

that interpretive anthropologists approach culture.

Culture and Symbols

In my analysis I follow Geertz's (1973, 1983) defini-
tion of culture as a system or pattern of shared symbols and
their meanings. Schall (1983) and David (1988) further
elaborate by defining culture and organizational culture as
a learned, relatively enduring, interdependent symbolic

system of perspectives, values, assumptions, and meanings

6
that are imperfectly shared by the interacting group mem-
bers. It allows them to "explain, coordinate, and evaluate
behavior and to ascribe common meanings to stimuli encoun-
tered in the organizational context" (Schall 1983) by acting
to classify, code, prioritize (organize values), and
legitimize activity (Terpstra and David 1985).

Similarly, I use Geertz's (1973) definition of a symbol
as ”any object, act, event, quality, or relation which
serves as a vehicle for a conception; the conception is the
symbol's meaning." A symbol is more than just a "vehicle
for a conception" but "is a sign which denotes something
much greater than itself" (Morgan et al. 1983). "Symbols
embody and represent wider patterns of meaning and cause
people to associate conscious or unconscious ideas that in
turn endow them with their deeper, fuller, and often emotion
evoking meaning" (Ott 1988).

These cultural meanings and symbols are not individual-
ized; that is they are not just "in peoples' heads." Rather
they are (imperfectly) shared by all social actors existing
between actors, not within them. A symbol may be an in-
dividual, object, award, routine action, ritual, behavior,
word, jargon, phrase, motto, story, myth, joke, or anything
else that serves as a "vehicle for a conception." Systems
of symbols are not only models of reality but also models
for reality (Geertz 1973). Symbols function as models of
reality by expressing reality in such a way that the "true"

nature of this reality is explained, clarified, or recalled.

7
When symbols are used as a model for reality they act in
such a way as to shape people's cognition, perspectives,
values, and assumptions to themselves, that is they manipu-
late "the nonsymbolic systems in terms of the relationships
expressed in the symbolic" realm (Geertz 1973). Symbols do
this by inducing in a person a distinctive set of disposi-
tions; i.e. tendencies, propensities, skills, habits, moods
and motivations (Geertz 1973).

While I have defined "culture" I have not defined what
constitutes a culture. Within any group of people those
understandings, symbols, and meanings that are roughly
shared form their culture. This is not to say that a
researcher arbitrarily chooses a group's boundaries or
defines a group according to non-cultural criteria and then
applies the term culture to whatever meanings happen to be
shared. For example, at the restaurant where the research
for this paper was carried out it would have been a mistake
to single out the wait staff (a structural grouping) and
then to examine their shared meanings as a culture. Instead
the approach was to distinguish a set of meanings and then
see who shared them. As it turned out both the wait staff
and the management (before the organizational crisis that I
will discuss presently) shared the same set of meanings and
so comprised a culture. The point is not to delineate a
culture's boundaries according to non-cultural (such as

formal structural) criteria.

Subculture

The concept of "subculture" has been used very broadly
in both the popular and academic literature (mainly in
sociology but it is also beginning to be used in anthropol-
ogy and organizational behavior as well). Most research has
treated the concept of subculture as self evident and easily
recognized in practice. One problem with this approach is
that subculture often tends to be treated as a structural
entity rather than a cultural one. This is the case when a
youth culture is defined by age or an organizational subcul-
ture is defined by departmental or divisional units rather
than shared cultural symbols, norms, values, or assumptions.
There also seems to be the assumption that subcultures are
closed, homogeneous entities which are isolated from the
larger society (Clarke 1974, Fine and Kleinman 1979). For
the purposes of this work, "culture" is used in place of
"subculture" as the definition of culture that I have stated
above accounts for multiple, overlapping cultures and thus
accounts for the "subculture" concept. The distinction
between subculture and culture is problematic as pristine
cultures no longer exist, if they ever did, and almost any
culture can be considered a subculture of some other cul-

ture.

Organizational Culture Formation
There are two common explanations in the organizational

culture literature for the formation and development of

9
culture. Culture is often seen as a solution to group
problems. According to Schein (1985b)

The simplest way to think about the culture of any
group or social unit is to think of it as the
total of the collective or shared learning of that
unit as it develops its capacity to survive in its
external environment and to manage its own inter-
nal affairs. Culture is the solution to external
and internal problems that has worked consistently
for a group and that is therefore taught to new
members as the correct way to perceive, think
about, and feel in relation to those problems.
Such solutions eventually come to be assumptions
about the nature of reality, truth, time, space,
human nature, human activity, and human relation-
ships - then they come to be taken for granted
and, finally, drop out of awareness.

The other common explanation for the creation of or-
ganizational culture is that the organizational founder or
leader creates the culture according to his or her own
values, assumptionsfl and vision (e.g. Pettigrew 1979,
Schein 1983 and 1985). In this view the founder deliberate-
ly guides or controls the formation of the culture such that
the organizational culture is a reflection of the founder's
personal beliefs and ideology (Martin et a1. 1985). The
culture that the founder sets up is viewed as continuing of
its own accord long after the founder has left the organiza-

tion.

 

1

Assumptions are "the tacit beliefs that members hold about
themselves and others, their relationships to other persons, and
the nature of the organization in which they live" (Lundberg 1985).
Assumptions are the implicit, internalized, unconsciousness and
taken for granted beliefs of the true nature of reality. They are
rarely, if ever, questioned and only then if they are violated or
directly challenged.

10

Both of these views are heavily functionalist and fail
to deal with the importance of the symbolic aspects of
organizational life. I found the "solutions to shared
problems" approach useful in my own research, though only
after a good deal of modification and "de-functionaliza-
tion.” The "founder" explanation had no applicability to
the case that I studied, and I will discuss the implications

of this in the summary.

Social Construction of Reality and Organizational Symbolism

A conceptual basis of my research derives from Berger

and Luckman's WW (1967) .
They state that

the sociology of knowledge must concern itself
with whatever passes for "knowledge" in a society,
regardless of the ultimate validity or invalidity
(by whatever criteria) of such "knowledge." And
insofar as all human "knowledge" is developed,
transmitted and maintained in social situations,
the sociology of knowledge must seek to understand
the process by which this is done in such a way
that a taken-for-granted "reality" congeals for
the man in the street. In other words we contend
that the sogiologyo of knowledge is ggnc cerned with
a sis of t s c'
reality; [emphasis in the original]

A shortcoming of Berger and Luckman's (1967) work is
its lack of empirical validation. Most of the insights are
derived from "armchair" analysis and the interpretations of
Einsteinian thought experiments to support and illustrate
their points. Meltzer's (1961) criticism of George Herbert
Mead's "Symbolic Interactionism" (upon which much of Berger

and Luckman's work is derived) as being "a purely analytical

11
scheme, which lacks content" is true for Berger and Luckman
as well. Most of the literature that uses the social con-
struction of reality concepts relies on similar speculation
and does not deal empirically with how, in practice, a
reality is actually constructed. As Hofstede (1986) says
"there is a strong need for speculating less and measuring
more,” and this is where this thesis proposes to make a
contribution.

The organizational symbolism perspective developed as a
response to the simplistic view of organizations that
results from the use of the organism and machine metaphors
(Morgan et al. 1983). Within this perspective, symbols are
viewed in a variety of ways, ranging from seeing symbols as
powerful tools that management can use to get things done
(Peters 1978, Dandridge 1983, Wilkins 1983) to the view that
organizations are patterns of symbolic discourse.

The separation of the social construction of reality
and organizational symbolism perspectives is rather artifi-
cial and they are more persuasive when used together.
Symbols do not just communicate reality, but reality is
constructed, maintained, and modified through symbolic
processes. A reality is created through the social con-
struction of individual symbols, or rather systems of these
individual symbols, and this work examines the processes
through which symbols and their meanings get created, are
modified, and become shared.

This research finds that meanings become shared through

12
informal negotiations. This finding is the major contribu-
tion of this work as such social negotiation has rarely been
analyzed as a process and empirically validated. This
thesis was written to correct such oversight.

I use the term "negotiation" throughout this work in a
specific way. The negotiations that I discuss occur infor-
mally and the participants were not aware that they were
engaged in a negotiating process. In informal, unplanned
gatherings individuals discussed, complained, and gossiped
about their individual concerns and gradually one definition
of a situation tended to emerge out of the different in-
dividual perceptions. There was not a conscious decision
among individuals to come to an agreement on a problematic
situation, yet a collective consensus was reached. This
type of negotiation differs markedly from the more common
usage of formal negotiations where all parties concerned
specifically meet in order to explicitly negotiate a settle-
ment to their differences, such as the negotiating of a

treaty or business deal.

COLLECTIVE RESPONSES TO SHARED PROBLEMS

Many researchers (see Berger and Luckman 1967, Geertz
1973, Spector 1973, Fine 1979, Schein 1983 and 1985, Van
Maanen and Barley 1985, among others) have viewed culture,

at least in part, as social solutions or collective

13
responses’ to shared problems, though they place different
emphasis on this aspect in relation to other explanations.
These responses involve coping with external problems of
adaptation and internal problems of integration. This idea
is based on the work of Cohen (1955) who believed that
subcultures formed when a number of actors with similar
problems of adjustment to the regular culture were in effec-
tive interaction with one another. While any group has
interaction of some degree, effective interaction refers to
the opportunities and ease with which group members communi—
cate and interact in close contact with one another (Specter
1973). While Cohen's research dealt mainly with delinquent
boys, one needs only modify his definition slightly to make
it applicable to the formation of organizational culture.
Thus, cultures form when the members of a group in effective
interaction share common problems or new situations and they
turn their attention to solving or coping with these prob-

lems.’

 

’ While Schein (1985b) and most of the organizational culture
literature use the term "solutions" when referring to a group's
response to a shared problem, I prefer the term "responses." The
term "solutions" implies that the problem is solved rather than
simply recognized or coped with and suggests an underlying
presumption of a functionalist perspective. When I use "responses"
(such as a group's responses to a shared problem) I am trying to
convey a sense of the groups efforts in coping with, managing, and
dealing with the perceived problems and the anxiety involved. I
will continue to use "solutions" only when referring to the ideas
of other authors who use the term.

3 How group members come to perceive that a problem is shared
and.how they form a‘definition of the problem are just as important
as their response to the problem and I deal with these issues
presently. For the moment I will discuss primarily responses to
group problems in order to set up the general framework for the

14

A crucial aspect of these problems is the perceptign
that they are important and shared, not the objective
"reality" of the situation. Even though the culture forms
in response to the shared problems, the nature of the prob-
lems does not mechanistically determine the responses.
There is a great range of possible responses, many of which
are not functional from a purely objective point of view,
that may be internalized, and the importance of the respon-
ses lies in the fact that they are perceived as coping with
these problems.

There are a large number of potential problems of
external adaptation and internal integration that an or-
ganization may face. Some of the problems of external
adaption concern forming a consensus on the mission, the
goals and the means to accomplish them, and on group evalua-
tion of the organization (Schein 1983, 1985a, and 1985b).
Common problems of internal integration include the forma-
tion of criteria for inclusion into the group, for the
allocation of status, for rewards and punishments, and for
handling interpersonal relations (Schein 1983, 1985a, and
1985b). Concerns between the worker's humanistic and the
management's profit orientations also seem to be a fertile
area of problems that often require cultural solutions
(Walter 1985). Examples of these types of problems would be

job security versus flexibility, privacy versus scrutiny,

 

later discussion and because most of the organizational literature
deals only with such responses.

l5
self determination versus organizational direction, and
comparable competence versus superior performance (Walter
1985). Most organizations have a variety of stories and
myths which are focused on these themes (Martin et a1. 1983)
which suggests that these are common cultural responses to
the individual problems of internal integration.

Schein (1985a and 1985b) suggests two ways through
which new cultural solutions are learned. The first mechan-
ism involves the positive reward and reinforcement of suc-
cess. In this case if a solution solves the problem or, in
a less functionalist interpretation, if a response adequate-
1y copes with a problem, it is rewarding and is adopted. As
long as the solution (or response) continues to work it
used, but once it fails it is quickly discarded. If the
solution works often enough it becomes shared between all
group members.

The second mechanism involves "avoidance learning" and
here culture is learned as a way of dealing with social
trauma, i.e. collective anxiety and pain. According to
Schein (1985b) a "universal" psychological characteristic of
humans is that they find it difficult to deal with signifi-
cant degrees of uncertainty or stimulus overload, both of

which cause anxietyu‘ .According to this trauma model a new

 

‘ While this statement reflects something of an ethnocentric
bias by assuming that American psychological theories are univer-
sally valid when applied to the other countries of the world, it
does have some support from the anthropological literature. Many
anthropologists (e.gu Turner 1968, Geertz 1973, Leach 1976, Rosaldo
1980, and Sahlins 1985, to name just a few of the most prominent)
have viewed culture, at least in part, as a coping mechanism for

16
group faces anxiety from uncertainty as to whether the group
will be able to work together, survive, and be productive.
This uncertainty is traumatic and group members seek ways to
make organizational life more predictable. Catagories of
meaning that reduce uncertainty and "organize perceptions
and thought, thereby filtering out what is unimportant while
focusing on what is important" reduce anxiety, become ac-
cepted, and thus solve this group problem (Schein 1985).
Nicholas (1973) views social movements, which are defined as
"a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a
society to construct a more satisfying culture" (Wallace,
cited in Nicholas 1973), as resulting from anxiety that is
caused by one type of group problem, relative deprivation.
Schein (1985b) even suggests that the basic function of
culture is to reduce anxiety. While this may be an over-
statement it does appear that most group problems result
from situations of involving ambiguity and anxiety.

Avoidance learning, as the name implies, involves

 

dealing with ambiguity and anxiety.

Other interesting questions are raised by Geert Hofstede's
(1980) analysis of over 116,000 questionnaires from 40 countries.
One aspect of his work involved measuring the acceptance of "the
uncertainty inherent in life." He found that Americans were more
tolerant of uncertainty and felt less anxiety and stress in the
presence of ambiguities than people from 80% of the other countries
studied. If culture is formed primarily as a response to the
anxiety caused by ambiguity do the people of other cultures that
are less tolerant to ambiguity form "deeper," stronger
organizational cultures? Do areas with a higher tolerance for
uncertainty develop less cohesive organizational cultures? These
questions are based on the problematic assumption that the
"objective" amount of uncertainty inherent in the situations of
different people is roughly equivalent and that only people's
tolerances towards the uncertainty vary.

17

learning to avoid negative stimulus, such as anxiety.
Avoidance learning only has to work in the initial instance
as once the source of the anxiety, the problem, is gone its
continued absence will be attributed to the response that
was initiated to cope with anxiety (Schein 1985b, Tossi et
al. 1986). This occurs even if the original source of the
problem that caused the anxiety is no longer present, in
which case the response that was instigated to cope with the
problem persists even though the problem no longer exists
(Schein 1985b). It is difficult to ascertain the merit of
continuing to employ the solution without risking the return
of the anxiety. For this reason avoidance learning is much
more persistent then positive reinforcement learning.

Both of these mechanisms reflect Schein's individual
and psychological perspective, and neither mechanism ade-
quately deals with the shared nature of culture. I will

return to this problem in the next section.

The Case of Stratford's Restaurant

Examples of cultural formation as ways of dealing with
shared problems were illustrated by events that occurred
during my research at a restaurant (I will call it Strat-
ford's”) in the summer of 1988. Stratford's is part of a
nationwide chain and is widely considered one of the finest

restaurants, in terms of the service and the quality of the

 

’ The name of the restaurant and all personal names have been
changed to protect the identities of the individuals.

18
food, in the local area, though it certainly does not com-
pare to the finer restaurants of larger cities. The res-
taurant serves traditional American food with an emphasis on
beef but some seafood as well.

In order to provide background and context I briefly
discuss elements of the social structure at Stratford's
before analyzing the cultural change process. The number of
waitrons (a common term in the restaurant industry denoting
both waiters and waitresses) at Stratford's varies from
approximately 25 to 30 individuals. There are three manag-
ers within the organization, the head manager, the assistant
manager, and the head chef (although the chef is never
involved in issues that are not directly related to food
purchasing and preparation). The managers are at the top of
the formal authority structure and the level of authority of
everyone else is the same. There is an informal prestige
system in effect for the rest of the employees which, very

roughly, occurs along two lines (see figure 1).

 

managers > wait staff/bartenders > hostesses > busboys

managers > wait staff > cooks > dishwashers

 

Figure 1. The Prestige System at Stratford's

I have differentiated these two sequences because the cooks
and dishwashers have almost no interaction with the hostes-
ses and busboys and since power and prestige presuppose

interaction it is difficult (as well as meaningless) to

19
determine who would have more if they ever did interact.

The waiters' prestige is based on several sources.
First, along with the bartenders they have the highest
paying jobs, with the possible exception of management. For
this reason their positions are highly coveted and most
busboys and hostesses want to "move up" to waiting. Since
less than one applicant in a hundred is accepted into a wait
staff position and there is little competition for the other
jobs, there is a sense that the waitrons are the elite of
their field. Other factors include differences in skill
levels required to do the respective jobs and the degree of
contact with the customers.

The waitrons also have a slight edge in power relations
which follow the same general sequence mentioned for pres-
tige above (see figure 1)J’ Waitrons at times request that
a hostess, busboy, or dishwasher do a task for them, but
never vice versa. This can be explained by many of the same
factors associated with prestige. Also, according to Tosi,
et al. (1986) an organizational group's power is determined
by the degree to which they cope with the more volatile
elements of the organization, the group's centrality with
respect to other units, and the substitutability of activi-

ties. The wait staff deals with the most volatile elements

 

‘ The exception to this statement occurs between the waitrons
and the cooks. Waitrons have more prestige and respect but in just
the waitron/cook interactions the cooks have more power. This
corresponds to Pfeffer's (1981) resource dependency perspective in
that the cooks control a valuable resource, the food, that the
waitrons need to carry out their job.

20

(the customers), they are the only group which has frequent
interactions with all the other groups, and no other group
can perform the activities of the wait staff.7

Before the organizational crisis that I discuss below
occurred, the management and the waitrons at this branch
formed the dominant organizational culture. This culture
contained a fairly uniform set of assumptions, understand-
ings, and symbols. Everyone knew pretty much what to expect
from fellow employees and management in any given situation.
Agreements concerning the desired course of action to take
in response to the various problems that arose from time to
time were quickly arrived at without much, if any conflict.
The Waitrons had a good deal of autonomy and prestige, and
the management was easy going and emphasized working with
waitrons to mutually solve problems. Waitrons were almost
never criticized by managers and both the wait staff and
management considered the waitrons more competent than
management in dealing with most customer problems. If a
customer problem occurred that required a manager's assis-
tance, either the manager and waitron would come to a con-
sensus on the proper course of action or the waitron would

tell the manager what to do, rarely the other way around.

 

7 While no other group within the restaurant can substitute
for the activities of the waitrons, it is very easy to hire
replacements for any individual waitron. One would expect that
this would give the managers a great deal more power over the wait
staff than is the case. That the power discrepancy is not greater
is probably due to the relaxed, laissgz faigg management style of
the head manager and due to collective actions from the waitrons
as a group (which I discuss below).

21

In one instance a waitress knocked over a drink which
resulted in the customers at that table having to stand up
for a few seconds while the drink was cleaned up. Back in
the kitchen the waitress and the head manager had a dis-
agreement over what to do to make up for the customers'
inconvenience. The waitress wanted the restaurant to buy
the customers' dinners while the manager thought that this
was excessive and that a couple of free desserts would be
sufficient. The manager conveyed his view through a logical
argument using past cases for support. The waitress replied
that she "just felt" that it would be better to buy the
customers dinners. The disagreement remained pleasant and
the manager bought the dinners.

This interaction, and other similar instances, became
symbols by conveying certain meanings and values to the
group, i.e., the incident acted as a vehicle for a concep-
tion. It clearly indicated that concerning specific cus-
tomer problems, waitrons had more power than managers, at
least informally, and that a waitron's ”feelings” or intui-
tion could take precedence over past practices. This event
also conveyed information about the management style at
Stratford's, i.e., on the accepted ways for handling con-
flicts that emphasized consensus decision making. The
incident acted as a symbol that both embodied certain ele-
ments of the culture and reinforced them and in this way
acted as both a "model of" the culture and a "model for" the

culture.

22

The Cultural Crisis at Stratford's

In July, 1988 the assistant manager was moved to
another restaurant and was replaced by a manager from the
corporate headquarters. The new manager, Barbara, had a
very different view of what the desired organizational
culture at this branch should be and set out to bring the
restaurant "into line.” I believe that she had a different
cultural ideal in mind, even though she was not aware of the
academic organizational culture concept, as she did more
than simply implement vast changes in work procedures and
attempt to restructure relationships. By themselves these
changes do not necessarily indicate cultural change, rather
their importance lies with the fact that these changes were
based on a different set of underlying assumptions. The new
manager experienced a classic case of ”culture shock,” but
instead of adapting to the existing culture she tried to
force the organization to adapt to her concept of approp-
riate values and practices. According to Barbara "nothing
is done properly here," and when referring to waitron's
protests that she "keeps meddling in my section'" she
replied that "you people need to stop behaving like child-
ren." She did not view her procedures and management style
as simply a more effective way to achieve certain goals but

saw her way as the intrinsically "correct way." The

 

' A section is a group of three to five tables that the waitron
is responsible for serving.

23
previous practices and waitron/management relationship were
not just less effective but were intrinsically wrong, "u-
nnatural," and "not proper" [her words].

The new manager immediately articulated, through verbal
communications, meetings, and management practices a new set
of perspectives and values that the waitrons were now ex-
pected to share. She set about eradicating the previously
recognized symbols replacing them with her own.’ The new
order was based on a different set of assumptions concerning
the internal integration of the wait staff, and this dif-
ference was blatantly apparent to the waitrons. For ex-
ample, the new manager insisted on handling all customer
problems, even small ones, herself. The wait staff inter-
preted this practice as an indication that management‘0
thought the waitrons were not competent to do their jobs and

that management believed that they were better qualified in

 

’ I do not mean to imply that she consciously decided that
"here's a bad symbol which I will replace with a symbol that I've
created." Peters (1978) and Weick (1979) state that the practice
of management is really the management of symbols and that most
managers implicitly understand this. Humans react to and use
symbols without rationally analyzing the process and the new
manager was no exception. She would respond to something that
"sent the wrong message" and attempt to change it. As she was in
a position with a high degree of formal power she could force a
degree of overt compliance and so had to be taken seriously by the
rest of the staff.

” Even though nearly all the changes were instituted by the
new manager, who was not even the head manager, the wait staff
viewed the other two managers as almost equally to blame. ‘The head
manager did not take an active part in the changes and even viewed
them secretly as excessive, but in public he supported the new
manager completely, probably because he was told to do so by the
district.manageru Because of this support the wait staff perceived
a united management front against them.

24
this area. The waitrons had considered themselves to be the
skilled core of the restaurant, but the manager's actions,
according to the waitron's interpretation, indicated that
they were just low level employees like everyone else.
Every time Barbara took charge of a minor customer problem
it symbolized the new lower competency and lower prestige
status of the waitrons.

The decreased status of the wait staff and altered
relationship with management was further emphasized by the
seemingly "hundreds” of commands each night to do what were
considered petty tasks that the waitrons felt were beneath
them. This "grunt work" involved such activities as carry-
ing dishes from the dishwasher at the rear of the kitchen to
the storage area in the front of the kitchen. These tasks
were perceived as "bad enough," but it soon became clear
that when business was slow, the manager would assign other
tasks that were seen as unnecessary, such as scrubbing the
ceiling, apparently for the sole purpose of keeping the
waitrons occupied. This clearly symbolized the decreased
status of the waitrons and the manager's assumptions con-
cerning their worth as important employees, friends, and as
human beings. At this point, the general feeling of the
wait staff was aptly summed up by a waiter when he said "I
don't treat the sewer rats in my house the way she treats
us."

One final example of a work procedure change that had a

great deal of symbolic significance was the new managers "no

25

excuses" policy. There has always been a standard ”service
progression" at Stratford's which is a detailed, step by
step list of the proper procedure for a waitron serving a
table. For example a waitron must greet the customers
within two minutes of their being seated, greet them by
their name, take their drink and appetizer order, return
with their drinks within one minute, and so on. While every
waitron knew this progression by heart, before the new
manager came they were free to modify it to suit the unique
needs of each customer or situation and were often praised
by the management for doing so. The new manager changed
this policy by insisting on every waitron exactly following
the service progression every time. No matter what the
reason she would accept "no excuses" for deviance and would
refuse to listen to explanations. This new policy had a
greater significance to the wait staff than just another
decrease in prestige, autonomy, and perceived competence.
By refusing to even listen to the waitrons and by denying
them any input the radical cultural shift was blatantly
highlighted. From being the absolute monarch of his or her
section before the new manager's arrival, the waitron now
found him/herself to be only an incompetent civil servant of
an unimportant provence, answerable to others.

As even these few examples show, the new management
challenged some of the wait staff's taken for granted as-
sumptions and conceptions of reality. Some of the assump-

tions that were challenged concerned the waitrons beliefs

26
about their status and "worth," the ”nature of human na-
ture," the "nature of human relationships," and the proper
way to behave and resolve conflicts.

The waitrons attempted to cope with the new order while
retaining their own core assumptions but morale and
performance plummeted. Within the first three weeks ap-
proximately one quarter of the staff had been fired for what
were considered trivial reasons. The perceived purpose of
the firings, from the waitron's point of view, was to set an
example to the rest of the staff, and they symbolized the
dictatorial nature of management control. As the new
manager said, "either you do things my way or you leave,
[leaving] on your own or with help [being fired)" and ”if
you don't do things the right way I'll help you, help you
leave." Several sets of perceived shared "problems" became
widely held throughout the waitron group at this time, the
major ones being uncertain job security and an unpleasant
working environment. While nearly all the waitrons were
unhappy, no one seemed to want to do anything about the
situation, possibly because of the strong conflict avoidance
character of the original organizational culture. A general
"let's wait and see" and "things have to get better" at-
titude was widely shared.

A key incident occurred about a month after the new
manager had started work when she severely criticized and
placed on probation a waiter due to the complaints of a

customer. The other waitrons considered the customer's

27

complaints unreasonable. This conflict had great symbolic
significance as the waiter in question was widely considered
to epitomize the old values and assumptions of the restau-
rant and it served to highlight the perceived arbitrary and
unreasonable nature of the management. A large part of the
conflict was due to the fact that the waiter had dealt with
the customer problem according to some of the "old" cultural
values and assumptions by bypassing formal procedures in an
attempt to quickly and efficiently rectify the situation on
his own, instead of finding the manager and letting her deal
with it.

The original problem involved a family of eight that
consisted of grandparents, parents, an uncle and aunt, and
two small children. The family was in an unpleasant mood
from the start as the children were extremely noisy and
constantly demanding attention from the adults. The group
was unusual in that they could not seem to agree on any
decision. For example, when the waiter first met them the
grandparents told him to take their order immediately, while
the parents told the waiter to get their drinks first. Both
groups expected the waiter to obey only themselves, and when
the waiter was forced to choose which to obey, the other
couple became irritated. Several such conflicts occurred
throughout the course of the dinner and the waiter attempted
to cope by taking turns between which customer he obeyed
first, but this only succeeded in alienating everyone.

Other problems occurred with these customers throughout the

28
meal, such as the children knocking over drinks, screaming,
and throwing food at other customers. Due to the highly
visible and auditory nature of the conflicts the rest of the
wait staff was well aware of these customers' progress
during the meal. It was also obvious to the wait staff that
the waiter was making nearly "superhuman" efforts to appease
the table, but to no avail.

The manager, who had been in her office the whole time
and was oblivious to the events out in the restaurant,
happened to walk out onto the foyer as the family was leav-
ing, and in reply to her question concerning their meal was
told in no uncertain terms, but briefly, that they had had a
terrible dining experience. She was furious and placed the
exhausted waiter on probation on the spot, and she let him
know that his job was in serious jeopardy. He opened his
mouth to explain three times but each instance was told "no
excuses" before he could utter a sound. This occurred in
front of several employees.

The waitrons viewed the waiter's actions as unquestion-
ingly proper and viewed the manager's position as completely
irrational. Everyone's precarious job security was high-
lighted by this incident as the waiter was seen as having
done an excellent job under extremely difficult circumstan-
ces and being put on probation for his troubles. The in-
stance also highlighted the different assumptions concerning
autonomy, prestige, and human relationships that I discussed

previously in this paper. The problem was not just that the

29
new manager was implementing procedures and rules that the
wait staff did not like, although this was certainly an
important aspect, but that the manager's actions challenged
the waitrons' version of reality. According to Berger and
Luckman (1967) society as objective reality is based on the
institutionalization of members actions and this "institu-
tionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typifi—
cation of habitualized actions by types of actors” (54). In
other words a society (really a culture) exists when its
members share the same interpretation of common actions
which frequently occur. Furthermore this

institutional order is real only insofar as it is

realized in performed roles and that ... roles are

representative of an institutional order that

defines their character and from which they derive

their objective sense. [Roles mediate]... between

the macroscopic universes of meaning objectivated

in a society and the ways by which these universes

are subjectively real to individuals" [emphasis in

the original] (Berger and Luckman 1967: 78-79).

The new manager by imposing a different interpretation upon
both the "habitualized actions" and the various roles was
challenging the waitrons' construction of reality.

A great deal of informal discussion among the wait
staff took place during the next few days resulting in
vilifying the manager (who was now referred to as ”the Nazi"
or "Hitler"), ridiculing the "new" cultural values, and
reaffirming the old values and assumptions with the addition
of some new ones. I will discuss an example of how these

new meanings were formed later on in the paper, but for now

the point I wish to make is that the waitrons formed a

30
collective response to a group problem. The group rallied
around the cause of the beleaguered waiter producing a solid
front against the management with several of the ”top"
waitrons threatening to quit if he was fired. The old
dominant culture had split into two distinct, conflicting
subcultures. As the waiter in question was neither strongly
liked nor disliked on a personal level and did not associate
with the other staff outside the restaurant, it is unlikely
that the support he received was due to overt feelings of
friendship. Rather, he served as a symbol representing
everyone's concerns and conceptualizations of the problems
that they all faced vis a gig the new manager.

In dealing with his specific situation, the group was
really dealing with their common problems and a new culture
was formed. The new culture was not simply a reaffirmation
of the original (before the "Nazi") culture. The new cul-
ture and original culture had many of the same characteris-
tics, but the new culture involved a much more vigorous
adherence to many of these aspects. For example, viewing
the waitron's section as his or her exclusive responsibility
had been taken for granted in the ”old" culture, while with
the new culture it was forcefully asserted. There were
many counter cultural elements as well. While the previous
culture had been characterized by a high degree of trust and
mutual respect, the new culture had an "us against them"
attitude. Management was not to be trusted, and a sense of

trustworthiness towards other employees and new waitrons was

31
perceived as having to be earned, not automatically assumed.
The wait staff became a much more cohesive group and the
management, unwilling to combat a unified wait staff, gave
in on this issue, and removed the waiter from probation. An
"armed truce" ensued with neither side willing to compromise
their values. The manager would tell a waitron to do some-
thing and the waitron would either ignore her, say s/he
would do the task shortly and then "conveniently" forget
about it, or do the task improperly. A few weeks later the

new manager resigned.

Another Restaurant's Perceptions of the Manager

It is interesting to note that while their was a great
deal of antipathy towards the new manager at Stratford's, at
the nearby branch of this restaurant that the new manager
came from she was well liked, respected, and there was even
a good deal of personal loyalty expressed towards her.
Although I only interviewed three waitrons and a cook from
this other Stratford's, they all agreed that "we love her
there." The qualities that these three waitrons praised in
Barbara were her overall efficiency, hard work, ability to
find and deal with problems when they first developed, her
accessibleness as she was always where she was needed, clear
rules and procedures, motivational skills, and ability to
keep employees from taking advantage of others or the res-
taurant. For example if a waitress called in sick she had

to provide proof that she was unable to work, unlike

32
Stratford's where waitrons often called in sick just to get
the night off for some other reason.

If this is representative of the rest of the wait staff
at that other restaurant, which I think it must be (at least
partially) it adds further support to the proposition that
the conflict was culturally based and not due to other
possible explanations, such as the manager having an
abrasive personality, lacking managerial skills, or a lazy
wait staff. Many of the aspects that Barbara was praised
for at one restaurant she was criticized for at the other.
For example, her ability to find and deal with problems when
they first developed and ability to always be where she was
needed, while praised at the nearby restaurant, were per-
ceived at Stratford's as her meddling with the waitrons
section. These actions symbolized the manager's lack of
trust towards the wait staff and their decreased prestige,
autonomy, competence level, and power. Her rules and proce-
dures were praised at one restaurant and perceived at the
other to be stifling and unapplicable to ”real life" situa-
tions.

The same manager, Barbara, with the same rules, mana-
gerial skills, and personality was a hero at one restaurant
and a villain at the other. Discounting the unlikely pos-
sibility that all the individual personalities at one res-
taurant were more compatible with Barbara's personality than
at the other restaurant, the most likely explanation for

these different perceptions lies in the different

33
organizational cultures. The new manager attempted to force
the other restaurant's culture on to Stratford's, and the
changes she implemented challenged the wait staff's basic
assumptions about their reality. Analogisticly, while the
Ayatollah Khomeini may have been popular as a leader in
Iran, had he been instantly transported as the leader of the
United States one would expect a good deal of resistance to

his programs.

Analysis: Responses to Shared Problems

Schein's social trauma model of organizational culture
formation is applicable to this case as one of the major
motivating forces for the cultural formation was group
anxiety over job security, though this was by no means the
only group problem. The actions of the group were largely
taken to remove the anxiety involved with job insecurity and
the ambiguity and anxiety that resulted by the wait staff
being told that their assumptions were no longer functional.

Cultures start as shared definitions and responses to
perceived group problems. At the very early stage of cul-
tural formation there is a period of assessment as to
whether the proposed response is useful in coping with the
problem. If the response is not seen as helping to cope
with the problem then it is unlikely to be incorporated into
the culture. In the case of Stratford's, the initial
response to the autocratic new manager was an attempt to

accommodate her on a superficial level and hope that she

34
would eventually "fit in." After a few weeks this clearly
did not occur and the problems were perceived to have even
worsened. The response of partial accommodation was dis-
carded and a new response was tried.

If, on the other hand, a group perceives that a
solution is working it is incorporated into the culture, and
if the solution continues to work it comes to be taken for
granted (Smircich 1983b: Schein 1983, 1985a and 1985b).

Once these solutions (or responses) are taken for granted
they become assumptions and are taught to new members as the
"correct" point of view. The assumptions generally become
symbolized, and these symbols can exert a reinforcing in-
fluence back on the assumptions. At Stratford's the crisis
incident involving the waiter who was placed on probation,
was not only a main topic of conversation during the im-
mediate aftermath, but it has since then become a sort of
war story and a source of much humor, both of which have
been communicated to at least three new workers and probably
to the other new members as well. As both the story and
humor convey certain meanings and is still being told six
months later, this event would seem to have become symbol-

ized as an organizational story or myth.

Another Case: A Non-Group Problem
Additional support for the theory of cultural formation
as responses to shared problems is provided by another

incident that occurred more recently (March 1989) at

35

Stratford's. An off-duty waitress, Jane, came in to eat
with a friend and ordered a bottle of wine from her
waitress, Lisa, who served it. There is a strict rule at
Stratford's prohibiting serving drinks to anyone who is
under 21 years of age, and the waitrons are supposed to
"card" (check the driver's license) of anyone who looks
under 30. Two days earlier a manager had told Lisa that no
one on the wait staff was under 21. Unfortunately he had
forgotten about Jane, but on the night in question he saw
Jane drinking and remembered. The manager suspended Jane
for two weeks and suspended Lisa for three days and demoted
her to the hostess position, a decline in prestige and large
pay reduction.

The wait staff was shocked at this treatment of Lisa.
The fault was considered to lie with Jane and the manager.
Lisa was seen as completely innocent, yet her punishment was
far more severe than Jane's. In this case the rest of the
wait staff agreed on the definition of the problem and
believed that the management had acted in a completely
inappropriate fashion. Lisa was well liked and there was a
great deal of sympathy towards her and a comparable level of
disgust towards management. Yet no group action or cultural
process was invoked as was the case with the previous ex-
ample: no other members became involved.

One reason for this seeming anomaly lies in the fact
that the problem was not perceived as representing any

present or future concern for the other members of the

36
group. Since it was very rare for anyone to be hired as a
waitron who was under age 21 and since all the other wait-
rons were over 21, the chances of this problem ever occurr-
ing again seemed slim. It was defined as an individual and
not a shared group problem, and caused no anxiety in any one
else. This suggests that a cultural response occurs only

with shared problems, not isolated, individual ones.

Further Analysis of Responses to Shared Problems

The shared problems/responses level of analysis that I
have limited the discussion to (for the present) fits nicely
into the simple ambiguity-conflict-resolution theory of
cultural change
that is used in one form or another by Turner (1974) in
discussing social dramas: by Schein (1985b) in his discus-
sion of planned organizational change: and by Nicholas
(1973) in his analysis of social movements." The first
stage of this cultural change theory involves the advent of
a crises which challenges member's cultural assumptions by
creating ambiguity and anxiety. This first stage involves
the first two phases in the progression of Turner's social
drama, the breach of regular, norm-governed social relations

and the mounting crises. I have discussed this stage as the

 

For example, Turner's (1974) definition of social dramas as
"units of aharmonic or disharmonic processes arising in conflict
situations" is compatible with both Schein's view that
organizational culture changes in response to crises and with
Nicholas' view of movements as a deliberate collective effort to
promote cultural change.

37
advent of shared group problems. In the crises case at
Stratford's this stage would involve the advent and con-
tinual addition of each of the new manager's violations of
the cultural norms which culminated in the placement of the
waiter on probation.

The second stage involves the formation and testing of
responses to cope with the problem(s) presented in the first
stage. The waitron's original "she'll eventually fit in”
collective response and later solidarity would apply to this
stage. In the last stage there is a successful implementa-
tion of responses resulting in the elimination of, or ways
of coping with, ambiguity and a corresponding decrease in
anxiety. At Stratford's the waitron's agreement on the
final response and their legitimization of an irreparable
schism fit in this stage. Most researchers tend to focus on
grand events and crises in their analysis of cultural forma-
tion and change. Schein (1985a and 1985b) views the crises
that an organization must overcome early in its history as
the crucial determinants of culture. According to Schein,
if the solutions to these early crises work well they will
be applied to later crises, as this lessens personal anxi-
ety, and thus the organizational culture is maintained.

Once the group has learned a way to avoid traumatic situa-
tions, it will continue to function according to the same
solutions without examining them to see if they are still
functional. While this is sometimes true it perhaps places

too much emphasis on crises and not enough on everyday

38
events. For example, Smircich (1983b) points out that the
solutions to the little, common day to day problems are far
more numerous, and they soon become routinized and taken for
granted and so facilitate coordinated action. Both Rosaldo
(1980) and Scott (1985) argue convincingly that culture is
better understood through a symbolic analysis of everyday
events than an examination of grand rituals. Both views
have merit and a relatively complete understanding of grand
events must be based on a thorough understanding of the
everyday ones. A consideration of such everyday symbols is
presented in the next section.

Once these responses become taken for granted - or in
Berger and Luckman's (1967) terminology, once these actions
are repeated often enough to become habitualized - they
become assumptions which are manifested through symbols and
are in turn influenced by these same symbols. As long as
the responses, both the grand and every day ones, are per-
ceived as effective the culture is unlikely to change, yet
organizations, like societies, are almost constantly being
presented with both major and minor problems and so must
continually renegotiate new responses. Even if for a time
no new problems arise, a renegotiation of the old problems
may lead to what is perceived as "better" responses, or the
fact that the culture is perceived as static (i.e. the
organization is seen as unadaptive) may in itself be seen as
a problem that results in a new response. As the responses

are renegotiated the culture is thus changing as well. This

39
means that organizational cultures and subcultures are
dynamic entities, constantly in flux, and connected, to a
degree, with their perceived environment.

An organizational culture is not, however, a completely
plastic entity changing to meet every new problem no matter
how small. There is a certain degree of anxiety associated
with the uncertainty of change and anxiety is itself a
problem that needs to be resolved. Often it is coped with
by denying the need for change and thus avoiding the uncer-
tainty involved. This is why culture generally changes very
slowly, with small modifications, after it is clear that the
change is beneficial - as each of these lessen anxiety. The
culture undergoes moderate to major changes generally when
the anxiety caused by the problem is greater than the anxi-
ety resulting from change. This was the case at Stratford's
as when the new manager originally caused problems, the wait
staff reacted as little as possible, hoping things would
clear up on their own. It was only when the problems took
on what was judged to be intolerable proportions that force-
ful responses were adopted.

According to Schein (1985b) the norms that provide the
greatest success are the ones that are adopted by the group
and that survive. It may seem tempting to apply an evolu-
tionary or cultural materialist framework to the cultural
formation process by theorizing that the optimum response

will be selected to each problem, a form of infrastructural

40

determinism”, but this effort would be misplaced for several
reasons. The problems that stimulate the cultural formation
often lie outside the infrastructure and as the problems and
responses are based on intra-member negotiation and people's
perceptions, which may differ from ”objective reality,"
there is little chance that the responses will be
functionally optimal. As Berger and Luckman (1967: 119-120)
state, cultural theories (cultural responses) work when they

are taken for granted, not the other way around.

NEGOTILTED SYMBOLS, RESPONSES, AND NEANINGS

The Development of the Flashlight Story and Symbol

To simply state that subcultures form as responses to
shared problems does not indicate how those responses are
selected and glosses over the underlying processes that are
occurring. For the remainder of this paper I analyze how a
group, without conscious articulation, develops a relatively

uniform definition of the nature of the "problem": how a

 

”.According to Marvin Harris (1979) and Harris and Ross (1987)

the infrastructure is made up of the "mode of production" (the
technology and practices employed for expanding or limiting basic
subsistence production) and the "mode of reproduction" (the
technology and practices employed for expanding, limiting, and
maintaining population size). The infrastructure is the interface
between nature and culture. Infrastructural determinism is Harris'
theory that the modes of production and reproduction
probabilisticly determine the structure and content of nearly all
aspects of the culture and social structure.
Cultural materialism is the general theory of infrastructural
determinism that takes a "macro-historical-evolutionary perspective
of cultural anthropology and anthropological archaeology" (Harris
and Ross 1987).

41
consensus forms on the appropriate "responses": and how
these responses are communicated to and accepted by the
group members. The social ”construction of reality" occurs
through the social construction of shared symbols via an
informal negotiation process. The negotiation process
involves gossiping, informal discussions, complaining,
joking, etc., and through this process different ideas and
interpretations, encoded in symbols, are informally
presented to and examined by the group until a rough mean-
ing, and its symbolized form, is implicitly agreed upon. In
order to illustrate these ideas I will present an event from
Stratford's in which the creation, negotiation, and develop-
ment of a closely related set of symbols emerged.

Two days after the crises when Barbara had put the
waiter on probation a group of ten waitrons, including
myself, was drinking after work trying to make sense of the
problem. Soon the discussion digressed into a general
"bitch session" during which a competition seemed to develop
to see who could portray the new manager in the most derog-
atory light. These negative characterizations tended to be
of a nonspecific nature, such as calling her a "Nazi",
"Hitler", and "bitch." Gradually the derogatory comments
began to refer to more specific characteristics of the
"Nazi" and to specific examples of her behavior.

One waitress broke this trend and remarked favorably on
the improved cleanliness of the kitchen, attributing it to

the new manager. Even before she finished the sentence it

n tratnrr

42

was evident that her view was not supported or shared by the
rest of the group and her voice drifted off without finish-
ing her statement. The audience's disapproval was communi-
cated both nonverbally, through disapproving facial gestures
such as frowning and grimacing, and verbally, through triv-
ializing grunts, derogatory scoffing, and articulated dis-
agreements. While these acts of disapproval were directed
at the content of the waitress's statement they also caused
her to experience visible discomfort. The rest of the group
remained silent and sullen for a few seconds afterwards.

Soon a waitron asked if anyone had "closed"” with the
new manager recently. Two waitrons started to reply and,
Susan, the one that won out continued on with her story.
She mentioned having had to wait for some guests who lin-
gered after their meal for an excessive length of time so
that she was at the restaurant very late and in a hurry to
leave. The group made some mildly sympathetic noises.
Moving on with her story, Susan said that since it was
really late she had only done a quick job of straightening
out the dining room but the manager caught her and made her
do it properly. The group was again sympathetic and another

waiter agreed that the manager could have been nicer, but at

 

'3 Every night there are two waitrons who are assigned to
"close" the kitchen and dining room. These two waitrons must stay
until all the customers and other wait staff have left for the
night and then neaten up the dining room, clean up the waitron's
area of the kitchen, put the food away, and mop the floors. After
they are through cleaning, it usually takes about an hour, a
manager must "check them out" by making sure the work was done
properly.

43
this point the audience was not giving the Susan its un-
divided attention. Eyes had begun to wander and a side
conversion between two people had developed.

Susan went on to tell of the manager looking over her
shoulder while she cleaned, making her redo many areas, and
telling her to do other areas that were not considered a
normal part of the job. This received more of a response
from the audience. She was interrupted several times to
give examples and after each example various members of the
group offered comments like "that bitch" or "if she had told
me to do that I would have told her to fuck off." The group
was paying more attention to her now, encouraging her by
offering frequent comments, and responding more enthusiasti-
cally to the more derogatory parts of her comments. The
side conversation had ceased.

By this time the story had become a string of examples
of the new manager's "unreasonable" and "excessively perfec-
tionist" behavior. Susan told of the manager being so
concerned with cleanliness that she carried a flashlight
with her, even though the kitchen is brightly lit, to check
every nook and cranny. This example received the most
enthusiastic response yet, in the form of laughter and
feigned disbelief. Susan immediately retold this example
with a good deal of elaboration. Apparently the manager did
not just shine the light into cracks but actually crawled
part of the way into one of the deep cupboards to examine

the interior. This resulted in a great deal more laughter.

Crl
is
if]

44

The other waitron, Zack, who had started to speak at
the beginning of the story said that when he closed the
other night the manager had crawled all the way into the
cupboard. The laughter was continuous now and one of the
members of the group asked how she could possibly fit into
the cupboard as her "posterior" seemed to large. Zack
replied that the manager could not fit all the way in and
her large rear stuck out. Amidst more laughter he related
in a very comical manner about how all he could see were the
managers two feet and "fat ass jiggling up and down” (this
part of the story was accompanied by Zack physically thrust-
ing his hips to illustrate and emphasize the sexual appear-
ance of the manager's movements) as she moved to examine
every inside corner.“ The group was laughing so vigorously
that several members had difficulty speaking. A third
waitress said something to the effect of "I've heard of
extreme anal compulsive behavior before but...."(drowned out
by laughter), and this double entendre seemed to capture the
essence of the story perfectly.

Within the next several days I observed six of the
original nine members of the drinking group who had been

present the night the story was first told telling the final

 

“ I find it difficult to believe that the manager actually
crawled all the way into the cupboard and this aspect of the story
is in all likelihood exaggerated, but the validity of the story is
irrelevant when considering its symbolic aspects.

45
version‘5 to other waitrons. Later, the other three waitrons
told me that they had discussed the incident with waitrons
who were not present that night as well. While everyone
discussed the story, Zack told the story the most often. If
a group of waitrons was talking together he was often
requested by one of the original nine group members to tell
the story (with the appropriate gestures) to the group. It
was clear that he was the preferred storyteller.

There was a good deal of speculation as to whether the
practice of "checking out" waitrons with a flashlight would
be continued. A couple of waitrons even went to the trouble
of checking the manager's work schedule to find out when she
would "close" next. The two waitrons who were to ”close"
with her were instructed to observe the "check out" process
carefully and give their findings back to the group. The
manager made it a habit of using the flashlight for most
future "check outs" and the next several instances each
resulted in a fresh round of retelling the "flashlight"
story. A further relevant note is that the original story
session did not occur immediately after the first time that
the manager used the flashlight. She had used it at least
several times in the preceding two weeks without eliciting

comment.

 

” While no retelling of the story was ever exactly the same
the various retellings were similar in content and all had the same
message that for all intents and.purposes they were the same story.

46

At one point, about a week later, a group of five
waitrons gathered together for the specific purpose of
telling the story to the head manager, with Zack as the
storyteller. They wanted to see what the head manager's
reaction would be. I was not present that evening and was
told about the incident the next night along with several
other waitrons who were again socializing after work.
Apparently the head manager's reaction was less than what
the group had hoped for: while he seemed to implicitly
acknowledge that using the flashlight was excessive (accor-
ding to the storytelling group's interpretation of the head
manager's response), he defended the Barbara's compulsive
neatness. The group had hoped that the head manager would
agree that the "Nazi" had finally gone too far with her
crackdown.

About a week and a half after the flashlight story was
first told and well after everyone had heard of it, another
relevant incident took place. It was a Thursday night
around 8:30 and business had started to slow down for the
evening so most of the waitrons were in the kitchen cleaning
up in preparation for going home. The "Nazi" walked in and
began telling certain waitrons how to do the cleaning more
thoroughly.

After her second order, a waitron at the other end of
the kitchen mentioned the word "flashlight” loudly. The
kitchen erupted into laughter, except for the Barbara who

looked confused. The laughter seemed to go on for a long

47

time but probably lasted about 30 seconds before died down.
The manager asked what joke was, but the waiter avoided the
question by claiming that he was just talking privately to
the waiter next to him. Without provocation a waitress
started laughing again (she said later that she just remem-
bered Zack's description of the manager crawling into the
cupboard) and this set everyone off once more. The manager
once again attempted to find out what the joke was, but the
second waitron she asked claimed ignorance. The manager was
obviously uncertain about what to do, and she started to say
something but then stopped herself and left the kitchen. It
seemed that she suspected that she was being made fun of but
could not directly single out any offending act. The wait-
ron's spirits seemed to have risen after the incident, which
one waitress characterized as a ”nice victory for a change."
Another waitress commented that "that [the joke] was mean,
but she deserved it."

There is one final incident concerning the flashlight
story that is relevant. The following Saturday (two days

later) had been a very busy and very stressful night“, and

 

“ Waiting tables is often cited as one of the most stressful
American jobs (Tosi et. al. 1986), and a recent issue of Newsweek
even rated it as one of the ten most stressful jobs in America.
Once or twice a month at Stratford's, on average, a waitron or
manager will "fall to pieces" due to a particularly stressful
situation and, leaving his or her customers in mid meal, run out
of the restaurant in tears or lock oneself in a restroom until s/he
has regained composure. To my knowledge no one has ever been
reprimanded for such a break down.

My own view as to why waiting can be so stressful concerns
the fact that waitrons generally try very hard to win the guests
approval. What distinguishes an excellent from poor waitron is
not mainly their serving skills but their personality, so when a

48
once things started to slow down five waitrons sat down for
a break at a table in the back of the kitchen. There hap-
pened to be a flashlight at the table, though not the one
that Barbara used for "check outs." An exhausted waiter sat
down, glanced up and seemed to see the flashlight for the
first time, and without warning violently struck out with
his fist knocking the flashlight across the room with a
crash. This action surprised me and I asked him why he had
done it. His response was "I can't deal with her shit right
now." No one needed to ask who "her" was or what "her shit"
referred to. The waiter who struck the flashlight was
neither present at the session where the flashlight story
was told for the first time nor was he a part of the group
that told the story to the head manager, though he was in
the kitchen when the word "flashlight" was spoken to make
fun of the "Nazi."

After this incident there were several jokes created
that extended the flashlight story, and these jokes tended
to be repeated over and over. One involved asking a waitron
who was cleaning where his flashlight was, and another
involved handing a cleaning waitron a flashlight and saying

something to the effect of "here, you'll need this." While

 

customer expresses disapproval, either through a low "tip" or
verbally, the waitron often views it as a failure of his or her
personality. Waitrons are also often blamed for factors that are
outside their control. (M1 a busy night when things are going
poorly a waitron is often running around desperately trying to
please everyone and being continually rejected at a personal level.
This continual rejection produces stress.

49
the "Nazi" was still working at the restaurant such jokes as
these seemed to be occurring several times a night. After
she resigned they gradually decreased in frequency until
now, nine months later, they are only mentioned occasionally

(although still in the same sorts of situations).

Analysis: The Early Stage of Negotiations

The question that I now turn to concerns how is it that
separate individuals each with their own perceptions,
biases, and unique information come to share a relatively
uniform conception of a problem? If there are ten or a
hundred reasonable interpretations of a situation, how is a
single one generally agreed upon? Not only does a shared
understanding of the problem occur, but a shared response to
it develops as well. I argue below that this process occurs
through a negotiation of symbols and their meanings until a
relatively shared definition of the problem is accepted by
the group members. The definition of the problem limits the
appropriate responses and usually implies a preferred
response. The negotiation process is not a linear, two
stage process whereby the problem is defined first and the
response is determined after the problem is defined, but the
two are negotiated together. Just as defining the problem
indicates certain responses, the defining of a response
affects the way in which the problem is perceived.

I mentioned earlier that the waitrons' original

response to the new manager's changes was to do as little as

50
possible. Barbara's changes caused anxiety and uncertainty
among the wait staff as the changes conflicted with the
waitron's deeply held and unquestioned assumptions, but the
process of cultural change itself (even change to cope with
a problem) also causes a degree of uncertainty and anxiety.
The wait staff initially coped with the anxiety by denying
the fact that the new manager's actions represented a dif-
ferent set of assumptions, thus denying both sources of
anxiety. The "Nazi's" actions were perceived as compatible
(or at least as eventually becoming compatible) with the
current culture.

The "do nothing" response concurs with the (widely
held) theory that people attempt to incorporate problems
into the existing culture (Berger and Luckman 1967, Geertz
1973, Rosaldo 1980, and Sahalins 1985). Berger and Luckman
(1967: 24) claim that the incorporation is done through
invoking common sense rules and this is what seemed to occur
at Stratford's. Common interpretations of the "Nazi's"
behavior included such sayings as "because she's new she's
gung ho" and "she's just trying to impress (the district
manager)" and thus indicate her worth to the restaurant.
Both of these statements imply that eventually she would, by
loosing her initial enthusiasm and becoming more secure,
"fit in."

When the "Nazi" put the waiter on probation it became
obvious to the wait staff that the "do nothing and she'll

eventually fit in" response to the new manager's changes was

51
not coping adequately with the problem. It was now clear
that the problems would not disappear and that it was impos-
sible to avoid these problems any longer. There was a great
deal of confusion, anger, and anxiety among the wait staff,
and while everyone seemed to agree that they were in the
midst of a crisis, opinions differed as to its nature. This
lack of consensus was apparent at the onset of the discus-
sion among the members of the drinking group who created the
flashlight story." A wide range of opinions was presented
to the group, most of them concerning various negative
characteristics of the new manager but a positive comment
was offered as well.

I view this initial group interaction as the first
phase of an informal, nonconscious negotiation process
whereby the group“ was trying to make sense of a complex
crisis. By complex I mean a crisis that was difficult to
cope with and to define. Group members were each presenting
their individual views and a wide range of views was of-
fered, but the negotiation towards a shared definition had

already begun. The views offered tended to be presented

 

” It is important to remember that the group met just two days
after the probation incident took place.

“ I often come close to personifying the group and treating
it as a single entity with such statements as "the group felt this
..." or "the group was trying to make sense of ...," but this is
not my intent. What I mean by such statements is that most of the
members of the group in one way or another indicated that they felt
in such and such a way so that it would appear from an individuals
point of view that this was a group response. I refer to "the
group" as an "actor" only for convenience sake.

52
with qualifications and to be only moderately derogatory,
such as "It may be just me, but Barbara sure seems to act
kinda' weird sometimes." A statement like this is explora-
tory in that it is offered to test others views without
putting the speaker "out on a limb" from which s/he can not
retreat if the other members do not agree. By qualifying
the beginning of the statement the speaker is acknowledging
that it is his or her own tentative perception which may be
wrong, and by using the loosely defined "weird" the inter-
pretation of the statement is left ambiguous and can fit
several meanings. I will discuss what I mean by "out on a
limb" presently , but first I will consider the relevance of
the individual's psychological need for acceptance and
affirmation by other group members.

Group members made an effort to offer statements that
would be accepted by the group. According to Weick (1979),
Schien (1985b), and Tosi et al. (1986) humans have a psycho-
logical need to be accepted by the group towards which they
feel membership. This need for acceptance is so strong
that individuals will often advocate ideas that they think
correspond to those accepted by the group even when the
individual believes that these ideas‘are not in their own,
or the group's, best interest (Janis 1971, Harvey 1981).
This helps explain why the waitrons seemed to be making an
attempt to offer statements that represented the collective
opinion. The difficulty with this, from the waitron's point

of view, was that in the early stages of the group's

53
interaction with the "new" problem there was not an easily
apparent collective opinion, and any individual waitron had
only his or her own perceptions with relatively little
information on what would be acceptable to the group. Since
the speaker was uncertain as to the group's conception, or
future conception, the initial statements were general
enough to encompass a variety of broad meanings and thus
more likely be accepted.

The first statement was followed with the slightly
harsher, but still nonspecific "I think she's a bitch" from
another waitron. The first statement "broke the ground" in
that the second speaker could offer a similar opinion with-
out going as far "out on a limb," and the second statement
also acted to reinforce the validity of the first and to
further refine the concept. The second statement also
provided a degree of group acceptance for the first as at
least one other group member agreed with the negative por-
trayal. Several other group members offered similar state-
ments, which were both general and negative, upon seeing
that there was some agreement for their views. It was now
clear to the waitrons that the group had accepted the nega-
tive perspective and this set the direction that the rest of
the negotiation would take. The group had now already begun
to define the nature of the problem by limiting the possible
definitions to negative ones.

Even at this early stage, the negotiation process has

begun. The tentatively offered individual statements formed

54
a base for the ongoing negotiation of the collective
opinion. The original, hesitant, and mildly derogatory
"she's kinda weird sometimes" had been modified by the
second speaker to the definitely derogatory "she's a bitch,"
implying that her "bitchiness" is not just an occasional
characteristic but an ever present one. Other group members
now had two slightly different statements to chose from in
forming their own response. That they chose the second,
along with the first speaker who became more derogatory in
his succeeding statements, indicates the direction in which
the negotiation was heading.

There were nonverbal methods of communicating accep-
tance as well. As an individual spoke s/he tended to ob-
serve the person or persons that the statement was directed
to and note their reactions. Such reactions usually are not
consciously directed and are made up of nodding agreement,
facial expressions, vocal grunts and exclamations, subtle
gestures, body language, and so on. These signs communicate
degrees of acceptance back to the speaker as s/he speaks,
thus a dialogue of sorts is occurring even as a single
individual speaks. The speaker in this way can get a rough
idea of how the statement is being received in progress and
adjust it accordingly. This is one way a meaning is nego-
tiated. I will offer some examples to support this state-
ment later in my analysis.

The negotiation process is further exemplified by the

group's response to the waitress who remarked favorably on

55
the new cleanliness of the kitchen. Even before she had
finished her statement she had observed and was responding
to the nonverbal signs from various group members. The same
types of signs that acted as indicators of acceptance above
now acted as sanctions. I observed seven of the eight other
group members frowning or scowling in response the
waitress's limited praise of the manager, and three of the
waitrons openly scoffed when the waitress first mentioned
the cleanliness of the kitchen. After the waitress was
finished another waitress claimed that the kitchen was not
really cleaner but just seemed cleaner because the wait
staff had to do more work cleaning things which were not
dirty in the first place. A Waiter added that the time he
spent unnecessarily cleaning kept him from spending more
time with the customers. These statements seemed to better
represent the feeling of the group and the group members
turned to the first waitress, apparently to give her a
chance to reply. The ensuing silence was interpreted by the
other group members as the first waitress conceding the
point and later, she was the waitress that made the "anal
compulsive" joke.

Such subtle group sanctions of disapproval are an
important aspect of the negotiating. The waitrons attempted
to avoid causing even minor disapproval from the group and
when it occurred, attempts were made on both sides to
resolve it. According to Harvey (1981) separation and

alienation are universal human fears and "both research and

56
experience indicate that ostracism is one of the most
powerful punishments that can be devised."" The group's
minor sanctions or negative responses to a statement are
subtle forms of social exclusion or implicit threats of such
exclusion. Even though these more subtle forms of exclusion
do not carry the same force as complete ostracism, a tem-
porary or incomplete ostracism still produces a degree of
anxiety that individuals attempt to avoid.

While the desire for acceptance and fear of alienation
are often seen as different sides of the same coin, that is
the lack of one often implies the other, they are really
different processes and modify behavior and meanings through
different means. The desire for acceptance and the reaffir-
mation of acceptance act as a positive reinforcement
mechanism while the various degrees of exclusion act as
punishment20 if applied by the group or avoidance learning if
actions are taken to avoid future social exclusion.

The fear of even minor alienation helps explain the

 

19

The reason that Barbara resigned was probably due to the
fact that, for all practical purposes, the group had ostracized
her from all but impersonal and necessary job interactions. The
threat of social isolation may also be an explanation for the
higher than one would expect degree of power possessed by the wait
staff relative to the head manager.

2° According to social learning theory and reinforcement theory
perceived consequences of past behavior determine future behavior
and cognition (Tosi et al. 1986). There are four basic types of
consequences of behavior. ( 1) Positive reinforcement and (2)
avoidance learning have already been discussed earlier in this
paper (albeit within a different context). (3) Punishment is the
application of negative consequences to a response, and (4)
extinction is the cessation of a previously established reinforcer
(Tosi et al. 1986).

57
tentativeness and generality of the group members' first
statements. Any statement can, in varying degrees, be
either accepted or rejected by the group members. In the
very early stages of the negotiation process there is less
information concerning other members' views (since they have
not expressed them yet) so the possibility of proposing a
view that is at significant odds with the others is much
higher and thus the possibility of rejection is higher." By
qualifying the statement with something like an "it may be
just me" the speaker is in effect saying that "this really
is not my steadfast or deeply held view so you can reject my
view without rejecting me." By making the view subject to
alternative interpretations the rejection rate is much lower
and it is a way of testing the waters, so to speak, and of
making sure that speaker is on the "right track." Once the
broad definition is agreed upon, members can observe other
members' responses and gradually refine and specify the
definition through negotiation.

In this early stage of negotiation, the group was not
only moving towards a very general shared perspective but
they were negotiating what was relevant and what was il-
lusory. Most negative characteristics of the assistant
manager were seen as relevant and were accepted by the

group. The statement concerning the new cleanliness of the

 

“ It seems significant that the only serious conflict among
the waitrons occurred early on in the negotiation process before
the group had articulated a coherent view.

58
kitchen was perceived as not only irrelevant, but
misleading. The presence of a moderately clean kitchen
before the new manager arrived was not perceived by the wait
staff as a problem so the "improvement" to an exceptionally
clean kitchen was perceived of as unimportant. Furthermore,
it was pointed out the kitchen "wasn't really cleaner but
just seemed cleaner," so any apparent cleanliness was really
an illusion. By defining the new cleanliness as illusory
what could have been considered the new manager's most
obvious positive contribution to Stratford's was nullified.
The waitrons were constructing a reality in which they were
the "good guys" and the "Nazi" was the "bad guy." In order
to fit this "reality" the "bad guy" could not be seen as
doing a good job, thus her seemingly good job was challenged
as illusory and further reinterpreted as actually "bad"
since it kept waitrons tied up with unimportant work instead
of taking care of the customers which was considered to be

their first priority.

Analysis: The Negotiated Flashlight Story

When Susan began to tell of her "closing" experience
two nights earlier the group's interest quickly waned. The
experiences she related were everyday stuff that had little
significance to the rest of the group. Even when Susan
mentioned the manager making her restraighten the dining
room, she admitted that she had not done it properly the

first time. In this case, the manager had acted according

59
to the group's idea of expected managerial behavior. Susan
was not addressing a concern of the other waitrons and their
attention was wandering, which she must have realized.

In response to the group's tepid reaction, Susan pre-
sented an example of the manager acting inappropriately by
making her do work which was not considered part of the
normal job. This sparked the group's interest as it was
relevant to the crisis they all faced. The group's approval
of the new direction that this story was taking was indi-
cated through verbal agreement, members intensely focusing
on the speaker, nods of agreement, and asking for more
details. The group approval resulted in Susan emphasizing
and reiterating this subject, presumably to receive more
approval. While the examples that she used all portrayed
the manager in a negative light, they referred to a wide
range of negative characteristics, ranging from the noises
the manager made while eating, to her "superficial" attempts
at friendliness towards Susan.

When the flashlight example was first mentioned, orig-
inally as a single sentence, the group's response was even
more enthusiastic than before. Susan responded by elaborat-
ing the sentence into a brief story. The emphasis in the
first story concerned the manager's compulsive irrationality
in wanting to examine the cracks, but the flashlight was not
mentioned this time. A waitress asked if Barbara really
carried a flashlight with her and to this Susan gave the

example of the manager getting on her knees to peer into the

60
cupboard.

The informal, nonconscious negotiation of a common
interpretation of at least one aspect of the problem was now
becoming apparent. The informal group discussion and com-
plaining developed the general direction for the later
discussion. As Susan related specific incidences the group
let her know through various informal forms of feedback the
ones in which they were most interested. When she mentioned
a problem that the other group members found relevant to
themselves, they responded in a positive manner, and when
she mentioned incidents that were irreverent to the rest of
the group they reacted negatively (either by withholding
approval or through indications of disinterest). In this
way Susan was nonconsciously encouraged to pursue topics of
interest and relevance to the group. A dialogue occurred
with Susan communicating to the group and the group com-
municating back to her. The dialogue had begun with par-
ticipants mentioning any negative characteristic of Bar-
bara's and developed gradually into a discussion concerning
a single, specific negative aspect of the manager: the
ridiculous, compulsive, irrational nature of her excessive
focus on petty procedures.

This case illustrates the basic mechanism of the nego-
tiation process. A positive response by several members of
the surrounding group to a statement generally resulted in
the further elaboration, by the speaker or others, of the

statement or its underlying concept. A negative response by

61
several group members tended to result in an the cessation
or curtailment of the statement and its underlying concept.
This process seemed to hold true even for groups of only two
people, but it was more prevalent in larger groups. Through
this process, a group of individuals engaged in informal
discussions generally develops a shared understanding and
definition of the problem.

An important aspect of the negotiating process is its
face-to-face nature. Berger and Luckman (1967) view the
face-to-face interaction as the most important form of
social interaction and as the basis of all other forms.
While they are referring only to interactions between two
people, it is true with groups as well. In the face-to-face
interaction one individual's subjectivity is more apparent
to the other than through any other means (Berger and Luck-
man 1967), and the negotiation of shared meanings is really
the negotiation of an intersubjectivity, thus the importance
of this type of interaction.

According to Berger and Luckman (1967) there is an
inherent sense of reciprocity in the face-to-face interac-
tion, especially through the use of language. They state
that

Both of us hear what each says at virtually the

same instant, which makes possible a continuous,

synchronized, reciprocal access to our two subjec-

tivities, an intersubjective closeness in the
face-to-face situation that no other sign system

can duplicate. ... Now, however, as I objectivate

my own being by means of language, my own being

becomes massively and continuously available to

myself at the same time that it is so available to
him. (:37-38)

62

While this may be true, it is difficult to empirically
demonstrate. A type of reciprocity that can be demonstrated
though, is through the use of verbal and nonverbal responses
from the other interacting individuals (as I have previously
discussed). In this way the speaker is aware of the lis-
teners' subjectivity, to some degree, and vice versa, so an
intersubjectivity can develop. Shared meanings and symbols
are negotiated through such a process.

It is not coincidental that the specific focus on the
manager's compulsive, irrational rule adherence helped
clarify the nature of the current organizational crises to
the waitrons present. Before the discussion had started the
waiter on probation had taken all the correct steps to solve
the customers' problems, yet for some "inexplicable" reason,
he had been placed on probation. The reason could now be
understood. The "Nazi" wanted everyone to function accord-
ing to her narrowly defined rules and tolerated no deviance.
The problem was that her rules, according to the waitrons,
were so specific and often irrational that they were not
functional; they could not be applied to real life situa-
tions. The waiter was faced with a situation that the
manager's rules did not adequately cover: even though he did
the "right thing" the manager placed him on probation for
not following her rules. I will offer further support for

this interpretation as the analysis progresses.

63

Zack retold Susan's story but further embellished the
ridiculousness and irrationality of the manager. The same
sort of negotiation process was occurring with his retelling
as well, and the story was modified further until its final
form was established. By relating the great lengths that
the manager would go to in accomplishing her objectives Zack
further highlighted their irrationality, and by portraying
the "Nazi's" actions that resulted from her compulsive
procedures in a very derogatory and ridiculous manner, the
telling of the story also attached these meanings to her
actions. The message of the story was that not only were
the managers procedures irrational, compulsive, and dysfunc-
tional, but they are also ridiculous, ludicrous, humorous,
and worthy of scorn. The double entendre remark "anal
compulsive behavior" that a waitress used to characterize
the manager's behavior in the story captures these two
meanings succinctly. "Anal compulsive" referred to the
manager's compulsive neatness carried to dysfunctional
extremes and also to the ludicrous scene in the story of her
posterior being too large to fit in the cupboard and moving
in a fashion that had sexual connotations.

The negotiating that took place during this phase of
the storytelling had more to do with the affective aspects
of the story than its content. When Susan had told the
story the managers actions were portrayed as moderately
irrational and ludicrous. Zack took the same basic story

and by portraying, with help and direction from the group

64
members, the manager's actions in an exceedingly graphic and
comical manner imbued not only those actions but the
underlying procedures and values upon which they were based
with an excessive degree of absurdity. The central meaning
and "function" of the story was to ridicule the "Nazi's"

perfectionist values.

The Flashlight Story as a Symbol

I have followed Geertz (1973) in defining a symbol as
anything which acts as a "vehicle for conception," and by
this definition the final version of the story was a symbol.
It acted as a "vehicle for conception" by representing the
previously discussed meanings to the group. The story
clarified aspects of the crises situation to the waitrons
who were present at its formation. In the process of nego-
tiating a shared understanding of the problematic crisis
situation, the group had negotiated a symbol which conveyed
the shared understanding. In this case at least, the nego-
tiation of shared meanings, definitions, and symbols oc-
curred in the simultaneously.

The story was not only a symbol for the nine waitrons
who were present during its development, but became a symbol
for the whole wait staff. Within the next three days the
story had been told to every other waitron at Stratford's
and in this way, the understandings that the group had
formed were communicated to the rest of the wait staff. I

did not observe any renegotiation of the meaning of the

65
story and it seemed to be accepted completely by the wait-
rons who were not present at the group. The rapid
acceptance and vigorous adherence by the other waitrons
indicates the story's effectiveness in offering a definition
of the problem that was more than satisfactory to the wait
staff.

The social construction of the story just two days
after the waiter had been put on probation was not a
coincidence. I have argued that the group constructed a set
of meanings and a definition of their shared problem through
the negotiation of the flashlight story. These meanings
were not intrinsically inherent in the manager's use of the
flashlight and a similar story would not have developed
whenever this example was "brought up" in a group. That the
context was important was indicated by the fact that other
waitrons had observed the manager using the flashlight to
"close" at least for two weeks before the probation inci-
dent.

The new manager "closes" three or four times a week and
each night of the week two different waitrons "close" as
well, so in the previous two weeks a minimum of four wait-
rons, and probably six to eight, must have seen her use the
flashlight. At this time using the flashlight did not merit
mention. According to the group's definition of the situa-
tion, it would have been just another example of the new
manager's peculiar behavior that would eventually disappear

as she gradually "fit in." The group's response made sense

66
of such managerial actions as checking deep cracks for
cleanliness. After the waiter had been put on probation,
the original group response was rescinded as it no longer
seemed to help the waitrons make sense of the changes that
were occurring. In this new uncertain situation, the pre-
vious explanation that could account for the use of the
flashlight was shown to be false. The flashlight's use now
lacked a "valid" or shared interpretation and was free to be
reinterpreted.

As the Barbara continued to use the flashlight in her
"check outs" it reinforced the meanings conveyed in the
story. The effort that some of the waitrons went to in
order to find out if the manager would continue using the
flashlight indicated a desire to further reaffirm the ver-
sion of reality that had been constructed. For example, I
was present when a waitress who had closed the previous
evening reported to a group of three waitrons and later a
group of two waitrons that the Barbara had in fact used the
flashlight to "close" that previous evening. Objectively
one might expect a response of displeasure to this news as
it meant a greater amount of work would be required from the
waitrons when it came to be their turn to close. In both
cases though the waitrons were exceedingly pleased with the
news, reacting with good natured laughter. I believe this
was because the news corroborated the meanings of the story
and thus reaffirmed the social definition of the problem.

The social definition of the problem is what had made sense

67
of the situation and removed some of the anxiety resulting
from the uncertainty of the crisis.

That the story conveyed a specific set of meanings to
the wait staff was further exemplified by the situation when
several waitrons got together for the specific purpose of
telling the story to the head manager and gauging his reac-
tions. The waitron's intent was to observe the manager's
reactions indicating that an implicit understanding that the
story was more than just a funny joke, but communicated
specific meanings. By telling the story to the manager they
were asking him to affirm their definition of the problem
and rejoin the waitron social group. The head manager's
defence of Barbara's excessive cleanliness immediately after
hearing the story indicates two things. First, it suggests
that the meaning of the story was clear and unambiguous
since he responded to central message and did not treat the
story as just a funny incident. Second, it indicates that
for whatever reason, he was rejecting the waitron's inter-
pretation of the problem and their offer to rejoin the
group. According to a waitress present at the exchange, "we

gave him a chance but he took Barbara's side."

Further Development of the Flashlight Symbol

The set of meanings that were associated with the
flashlight story soon became associated with the single word
"flashlight." This was apparent during the incident when

the waiter in the crowded kitchen with the manager present

68
simply spoke the word "flashlight" and sent everyone, except
the manager, into almost uncontrollable laughter. There
seems little question that the laughter was due to individ-
uals remembering the meanings of the story, and the
waitress's specific mention of the incidents in the story as
causing her laughter support this claim.

The context in which the word "flashlight" was men-
tioned is also relevant. It was not mentioned haphazardly
at a time when Barbara happened to be present, but it was
mentioned in the same sort of situation that the waitrons
had perceived as part of the original problem. The story
was used not only as a way of coping with the original
problem, but it served as a way of coping with similar
future problems as well. I have already discussed the
waitron's objections to being ordered around and especially
to being ordered to do "grunt" work and the effects that
this had on their self perceived prestige. Since the flash-
light story had originally formed in response to such situa-
tions, when the waitrons were presented at a later time with
the same threat to their culture, the same set of meanings
and symbol was evoked to cope with the problem.

Whether it was the speaker's intent or not, the spoken
word "flashlight" and the resulting laughter also acted to
publicly ostracize, to a degree, the manager from the group.
It was obvious to all present, including Barbara, that the
manager was being deliberately excluded from the group,

especially when the waitrons avoided telling her what the

69
joke was about. There was a clear social distribution of
knowledge and as Barbara was not a member of the social
group she was not privy to such knowledge. This social
knowledge, and Barbara's ignorance of it, was used by the
waitrons as a weapon. In this instance the word "flash-
light" acted to reaffirm the group's solidarity in acting
against the shared problem, as was clearly demonstrated by a
waitress's remark that "that was a nice victory for a
change."

The phrases "where's the flashlight" or "take the
flashlight" became commonly used symbols for representing
the set of meanings of the flashlight story. Whenever a
waitron felt compelled to break a management rule in order
to perform more effectively (according to the waitrons
definition of effectively of course) or even to break a
"useless" management rule someone was likely to say "where's
the flashlight." For example, Barbara decided to allow the
waitrons to carry no more than four plates on a tray, even
though five can easily fit and with some balancing six can
fit as well. According to the manager more than four plates
on a tray does not look "appropriate for a fine dining
restaurant." This rule was inconvenient for the waitrons as
if they had a table with five or six customers they would
then have to make two trips from the kitchen to carry out
the meals. During one such instance a waiter had five meals
ready to be taken from the kitchen to the table. A second

waiter who was helping him arrange the plates on a tray

7O
asked "take the flashlight?" The first waiter replied "of
course" and took all five plates to the table.

I have never heard of any waitron refusing to "take the
flashlight" as it is really asking if one wants to do the
job right, according to the meanings in the flashlight
story. This statement as it is commonly used applies the
ludicrous and irrational meanings of the flashlight story to
a single case and thus reaffirms these meanings for the
participants. It also reaffirms the wait staff's values of
autonomy as it is a deliberate breaking of the manager's
rules when the waitron, on his or her own authority, does
not judge the rules to be applicable to the situation. The
use of this phrase also implies that the group sanctions
such rule breaking.

The pervasiveness of the set of meanings originally
symbolized in the flashlight story is further indicated by
the use of a physical flashlight as a symbol that repre-
sented the same meanings. That the tense waiter instantly
and unthinkingly struck a physical flashlight and that the
other waitrons who observed this act found it understan-
dable, both indicate the depth to which these meanings were
internalized in such a relatively short time and the adap-
tability in finding various symbolic forms to represent the

meanings.

Analysis: The Flashlight Story as a Response

The negotiation of a group's responses to a problem

71
cannot be separated from the negotiation of the definition
of the problem as the two usually occur together and an
agreement on a response sometimes precedes the agreement on
the nature of the problem. The original "do nothing" re-
sponse was agreed upon before the nature of the problem was
defined. No one wanted to do anything about the unsettling
conflicts that began to arise soon after Barbara started
work, seeming to believe that if the situation was ignored
it would go away. As the problems got gradually worse,
waitrons began justifying their response with the "she's
just gung ho" type statements.

A situation where the problems and responses were
negotiated together occurred more often. Often the defini-
tion of the problem implies or determines the responses.
After the probation crisis the new manager's procedures,
behavior, and values were shown through the flashlight story
to be irrational, dysfunctional, and ludicrous. By defini-
tion normal, intelligent people do not behave or hold values
that are irrational, dysfunctional, or ludicrous and since
the waitrons viewed themselves as normal, intelligent
people, according to their definition of the problem they
could not participate in such activities, at least not if
they could help it. The response of struggling to the
utmost against those aspects of the problem which the group
had defined as ludicrous, such as the managers compulsive

cleanliness, were inherent in the definition of the problem.

72

Barbara's Replacement

In much of the remainder of this thesis I discuss
events that occurred after Barbara had resigned. To "set
the stage" I briefly discuss her replacement, Joe, who was
also from the corporate headquarters. Before he started
work at Stratford's he had been told in detail about the
conflicts that Barbara and the wait staff experienced.
Within his first several days at work he repeatedly told
each waitron that he considered the level of service at
Stratford's exceptional and that he was a "laid back, easy
going type of guy." For several weeks he did not impose any
new rules or enforce existing ones, and he had the waitrons
teach him the "proper" procedures rather than telling them
what to do. He also made an effort to socialize with the
waitrons.

Joe's purpose with these approaches was to avoid the
conflicts that Barbara had experienced and in the process he
adapted to the waitron's culture. While the waitron's did
not trust him at first, within a couple of weeks they ac-
cepted him. Both the wait staff's distrust of management in
general and their almost reluctant acceptance of Joe were
illustrated by a dialogue that took place two weeks after he
started work. One night while several of the wait staff
were present in the kitchen a waiter asked Joe why he was a

restaurant manager as he "actually seemed like a normal

73
guy." Before Joe could answer a waitress said "give him
time, they [managers] all become assholes eventually." Even
though these statements were mentioned in a joking manner
they indicate the waitron's distrust of management as well
as an implied threat to Joe.

Joe's arrival did not significantly affect the cultural
or structural relationships at the restaurant. Unlike the
situation when Barbara was present, the Head manager was
perceived as the major decision maker and Joe rarely seemed
to be an active participant in any of the minor crises that
occurred. In fact, Joe was perceived of occupying an almost
mediatory role in that he was not considered a real manager
(a compliment from the waitrons' point of view), but he was
not considered a full member of the waitron social group
either. After Barbara left the management as a group was
not perceived of as the "enemy" any more, yet they were
considered unpredictable and not to be trusted. Joe's
mediatory position meant that in some situations he could be

trusted and in others he could not.22

 

” For example, if a waitron had a dissatisfied customer it
was still the common practice to keep this fact from.Joe. In other
instances, such as when a waitress and waiter were playfully
wrestling and she broke her hand (costing the restaurant several
hundred dollars in medical bills and costing each manager to loose
a couple of thousand dollars from their end of the year bonis) the
waitress felt safe in confidentially telling Joe the real reason
for the accident, even though had the head manager had found out
about the real cause he would have almost certainly fired both of
the waitrons involved. The cultural rule applicable to such
situations seemed to be that if Joe found out about a problem on
his own he was not to be trusted, but if a waitron brought a non-
customer related problem to him then he was trustworthy.

74

Negotiating Between Different, Completely Formed

Interpretations

The negotiation process that resulted with the flash-
light symbols occurred in an almost linear fashion from a
loosely defined problem that was gradually refined by the
group to a more specific definition. This is not the only
pathway through which social definitions are negotiated. I
observed two other pathways, the first of which was a group
being presented by several definitions and choosing one. In
the other pathway the negotiation process did not take place
within a localized group whose members were all present at
the some time, but occurred within an informal communication
network as information was passed on from one individual to
the next.

There were several instances where the group was pre-
sented with several definitions of a situation and the task
was to decide which one was the more appropriate. One such
case occurred in the spring of 1989 long after Barbara had
resigned and concerned the wait staff's internal social
relations. Restaurants always seem to have an abundance of
intragroup romantic affairs and minor scandals, but a month
previously a particularly unfortunate incident had occurred.
Zack was perceived to have, in a very deceitful "smooth
talking" manner, convinced a naive waitress to have an

affair with him, and then without warning he "dumped" her.

75
This incident ended with an abundance of bad feelings and
caused a good deal of friction within the wait staff as it
pitted the supporters of Zack against the supporters of the
waitress, all of whom had to work in close proximity with
each other. This conflict was resolved through a group
negotiation process similar to the flashlight case, and it
resulted in the development of certain norms of behavior
that waitrons were now "expected" to pursue in regard to any
future romantic liaisons within the wait staff.” All
intrawait staff relationships were mildly disapproved of but
if one occurred, both parties were expected to behave in a
totally open and truthful manner.

A month later in a group of eight waitrons, Stan was
accused of Zack like behavior (e.g. taking advantage of a
waitress) by a second waiter, Tony. According to Tony's
version a new waitress's car battery had run down while she
was at work leaving her with no way of getting to a party
that a waitron was throwing after work. Even though Stan
had jumper cables with him, he convinced the waitress to let
him drive her to the party, got the new waitress drunk, and
then took her back to jump start her car, which took over an
hour. The implication was that Stan took advantage of the

waitress's lack of mechanical knowledge by saying that the

 

23

It is interesting to note that these norms of proper
behavior applied only to fellow employees, not to relationships
with non-employees. Candor was valued as correct behavior within
the group but there was no moral sanction from the group to apply
it to outside relationships.

76
battery would take an hour to charge so that he could be
alone with the waitress inside the car while the battery was
charging. Tony knew all this because he had followed the
couple back from the party and observed their behavior
clandestinely. He claimed that "that's slime, to treat
someone you work with that way."

Stan claimed that he was "just being nice" (which
caused some scoffing laughter among the group) and that his
jumper cables were of a small diameter so that it really
took that long to recharge the battery (resulting in more
laughter). Furthermore, according to Stan, it was obvious
that Tony was the one who was behaving like Zack as Tony was
trying to manipulate Stan out of the picture so that Tony
could have the new waitress all to himself. Stan claimed
that if they wanted to talk about deceitful behavior then
they should refer to Tony's clandestine spying on his fellow
workers. A member of the group remarked that both waiters
were acting like Zack.

Three possible interpretations had been presented to
the group: Stan's version, Tony's version, and the possibil-
ity that they were both "acting like Zack." The negotiation
process that occurred in this case was different from the
"flashlight" example in that here the group was presented
with three interpretations and the negotiating was over
which one to accept. In the "flashlight" case the group did
not start with a choice of interpretations but began "from

scratch."

77

The "correct" interpretation was not immediately ob-
vious and the group proceeded to informally negotiate their
definition. Tony responded that the jumper cables must have
been the size of hair in order to take a full hour to
charge, and this resulted in a good deal of laughter. Stan
replied by making the comment that certain people (referring
to Tony) need to make up for their own inadequate social
life by voyeuristically observing others. This comment
received a few chuckles but not to the same degree as Tony's
hair quip, and a waitress defended Tony by saying that
"someone needs to keep you [Stan] honest."

As even these few comments suggest, the group member's
views were slowly shifting in favor of Tony's interpretation
both in terms of the number of supporting comments offered
and in the degree of approval accorded to each statement.
This trend continued for fifteen more minutes until all the
remarks favored Tony and Stan became silent. The group's
joking at Stan's expense was another example of the group
applying a minor sanction against behavior that did not
correspond with their definition of proper behavior. In
future interactions with the waitress in question, Stan went
to exaggerated lengths to ensure that everything was done
"above board" and even went to the trouble of arranging for
three of the waitrons from the group to be present the next

time he asked the waitress out for a date.

78

Negotiating through the Grapevine

The third type of negotiating process does not occur
within a group meeting like the others but results from many
one on one interactions, such as gossiping and discussion.
In this case the topic in question is discussed through the
informal communication network or "grapevine." As a problem
is discussed between two individuals a small scale negotia-
tion process similar to that which occurs in groups takes
place. Although the desire for acceptance and the
discomfort from sanctions may not be as strong with only two
individuals as it is in a larger group, these concerns are
still present. The two individuals often form an agreement
on the nature of the problem and they convey this agreement
to the next person each encounters. Once again the agree-
ment can be renegotiated, the result of which is passed on
and renegotiated again and so on. Often the problem is
"tossed around" for several days to a week with various
individuals contributing several times until a general
consensus is reached. This may seem like a slow and labor-
ious process but several researchers (Rasberry and Lemoine
1986, Tosi et al. 1986) have discussed the "uncanny speed"
of transition of such informal communication, which general-
ly occurs at a faster rate than through the formal communi-
cation network even within organizations that are widely
dispersed geographically. It is clear that this type of
negotiation can occur only if there is effective interaction

between participants.

79

An example illustrating this proposition occurred at
Stratford's in October, 1988 (after Barbara had resigned)
when the wait staff was presented with a new problem. The
problem concerned extremely high bar costs (bar costs are
the amount of money that the restaurant spends for bar
supplies over the amount of money that it makes from selling
these bar products). The management blamed this on the
waitrons for receiving free and extra strong drinks from the
bartenders after work, and the waiters were prohibited from
the common practice of patronizing the bar after their shift
ended. This was viewed as a serious problem and great
insult by the waitrons as it challenged some of their as-
sumptions, such as their "right" to privileged treatment,
prestige, and the recently reaffirmed manager/waitron com-
radely. This case provides a good example of the effect of
negotiating through the "grapevine" since the only setting
that could accommodate groups of more than four individuals
at Stratford's was in the bar, so the prohibition against
patronizing the bar removed the possibility of large group
gatherings.

At the onset there was a great deal of disagreement
over the "real" cause of the problem and of what to do about
it. During the first two days I heard hundreds of instances
of "bitching" and gossiping about the problem and almost 90%
of these discussions proposed responses. Some common inter-
pretations of the problem were: the bartenders drink the

profits and give free drink to their personal (non-employee)

80
friends: management some how made errors with the inventory
and "they need a scapegoat so they're blaming us;" "sure we
get extra good drinks but we deserve them for all the crap
we have to put up with:" "management doesn't think it looks
good for waiters to be in the bar with customers:" "the
restaurant makes such a profit on alcohol [about 300%] that
they can afford our occasional free drink:" "the head
manager just wants to assert his power:" and others. The
possible responses that were mentioned included: giving
deliberately poor service to the customers; deliberately
breaking enough plates and glasses that the cost of replac-
ing them would be higher than the bar losses: making the
head manager's life "hell" by ostracizing him: having every
waiter try to convince the head manager individually to
change his mind: and doing nothing, as soon management would
realize how much money they were loosing by not selling the
wait staff drinks.

I heard many individual instances of waitrons debating
various responses, which supports the hypothesis that gossip
acts to communicate responses. I gave up trying to record
all the different interpretations of the problems and types
of responses, but there were at least several dozen during
the first two days. After a week the wait staff had decided
on one interpretation of the problem“ and one general

response with two minor varieties. The final interpretation

 

24

Out of 18 waitrons questioned 14 agreed, 3 did not have an
opinion, and 1 had a radically different interpretation.

81
was that the head manager was using the wait staff as "scape
goats" in order to deflect blame by the corporate headquar-
ters away from himself. The response was to apply social
pressure towards the manager along with thinly veiled
threats of petty sabotage and poor performance.” From this
information, it seems clear that in the space of a week the
gossiping and bitching acted not only to communicate the
problem quickly, but to negotiate a reasonably united re-
sponse.

The head manager admitted (though not publicly) that
there was a far greater degree of opposition to the removal
of bar privileges than he had anticipated and that he was
concerned about the "morale" of the wait staff. I inter-
preted this to mean that he was concerned about the wait-
rons' enthusiasm in dealing with the customers, thus it
seemed as if the waitrons' threats worked. It is interest-
ing to note that once again the management gave in to the
waitrons' demands and within three weeks had reinstated bar

"privileges."

 

” Each one of the two minor varieties of responses was held

by a single individual. One waitress agreed with using threats of
petty sabotage but did not think the social pressure would work as,

the manager was an "ass hole." Another waitress thought that the
group should actually carry out some sabotage, not just make
threats. ‘While neither ‘waitress completely agreed. with the

response that was implemented neither was willing to act on her
own to implement her version.

82

The Rate Acceptance

Most of the potentially problematic situations that
occurred at Stratford's were explainable within the context
of the existing culture and required little or no negotia-
tion. For example, Zack and a bartender caught a waiter
stealing a bottle of wine from the restaurant. They
reported it to the head manager, and the waiter was fired.
There was a fairly long story about how Zack discovered the
theft and it was rapidly communicated through the grapevine
so that within two days everyone knew the details of the
incident. There was no real negotiation over the inter-
pretation of this situation as the interpretation was ob-
vious. Part of the cultural definition concerning the
waitron's autonomy is that they are capable of dealing with
situations in the "correct" way, that is, they are worthy of
a high degree of trust. The waiter violated this trust not
only from the management's point of view but also from the
perspective of the rest of the wait staff. This was not an
ambiguous situation. Even though the waiter was well liked,
he violated rules that the group perceived as legitimate and
was dealt with accordingly. It is only when a problem
arises that does not have an obvious interpretation or that
presents ambiguity that the negotiation occurs to establish
the meaning and make sense of things.

When the negotiation occurs in groups, a consensus on
the definition of the problem occurs quickly. In all the

groups that I observed a collective definition was formed

83
within two hours. It seems obvious that nine individuals at
one point in space and time who are in close interaction
would form a consensus quicker than a widely scattered group
of individuals in only loose interaction, as was the case
with the bar costs problem. What needs explaining is why
the rest of the wait staff should accept the definition of a
group that, after all, was made up of only about one third
of the total number of waitrons. One might expect the
group's definition to be renegotiated once it is presented
to each other waitron, in a fashion similar to the "grape-
vine" type of negotiation.

An explanation lies in the fact that a group of nine
waitrons is large enough to be fairly representative of the
wait staff as a whole. Negotiation results from shared
problems, that is, a situation that causes a degree of
shared anxiety. If nine members perceive a problem to
threaten their social construction of reality it is likely
that, since this social construction is shared, other mem-
bers feel the same sense of anxiety. By negotiating a
definition of, and response to, the problem the group mem-
bers come to understand it (according to their definition)
and the ambiguity and anxiety associated with the problem
are reduced. Any social definition that is powerful enough
to clarify things for nine individuals will likely clarify
the same problem to other members of the same culture. This
was what occurred with the flashlight story. The story made

such sense of the problems that everyone was experiencing,

84
that it was adopted by other waitrons who were not present
during its creation.

There are two other factors that may promote the accep-
tance of a group's definition to the other cultural members.
Any definition of a problem that is already held by a group
of individuals is more likely to be accepted by an
individual than the same definition that is only advocated
by one individual. With the definition that is advocated by
a group the aspects of group acceptance and alienation are
brought into greater play than with the individually advo-
cated definition. The second factor concerns the notion
that since reality is socially constructed, there is no
intrinsically right or wrong definition. THerefore, the
advocated definition does not need to meet objective
criteria. It "copes with" the problem, at least initially,
if the group members believe that it "copes with" the prob-

lem.

Connecting Elements of Reality

Throughout this paper I have argued that culture forms
in response to perceived group problems whose definitions
and responses and their resulting symbols and meanings are
all negotiated. This negotiation is really a process of
socially creating reality. By saying that groups create
their own reality through cultural creation and modification
I do not mean to imply that they create something out of

nothing. Physical and behavioral phenomena, like the new

85
manager putting the waiter on suspension, are real and have
an independent existence, but these individual elements are
without meaning until they are arranged together in a sig-
nificant way and thus given meaning. This is a creation
process, as any individual element can be used in a variety
of ways. Smircich and Stubbart (1985) use an analogy with
the stars to describe how upper management enact the or-
ganization's environment, but the analogy holds true to a
social creation of reality as well. In their analogy, they
state that there are really no constellations or groups of
stars just individual stars randomly distributed throughout
the universe. People have arbitrarily clustered the stars
and formed imaginary lines between them to form constella-
tions, such as Orion and the Big Dipper, thus creating their
own reality. In fact, the same stars that are clustered to
form the Big Dipper to some people are clustered in a
slightly different way to form Ursa Major (the bear) to
others. The environment is not some objective reality that
presents problems that the organizational culture responds
to, but the environment, like culture and reality, is so-
cially created. By the environment I mean context within
which the culture develops, so in the case of my research
the environment was the environment within Stratford's--
including the previous whole organizational culture, the
management and their policies and actions, and the custo-
mers. It is how the single phenomena of the environment are

connected that is subject to negotiation and forms the

86
creation process.

This social creation of reality is illustrated by the
probation case at Stratford's. While some might claim that
the waitrons' problems were real and that the creation of
the new culture was a functional response, this is not
really true. The group connected certain actions of the
manager in such a way as to create a "reality" where she was
perceived as "out to get us." From another point of view,
that of the manager and unknown to the rest of the staff,
she had a passionate personal dislike for the waiter that
she put on probation and that was a major factor. From this
perspective her actions were no threat to the rest of the
group and she was mystified over the whole backlash. Ac-
cording to her by getting rid of the "bad personalities" and
"shaping up" the restaurant everyone would be happier and
earn more money. Both the group and the new manager defined

reality differently and thus the clash.

SUMMARY

My research from Stratford's supports the theory that
organizational cultures arise as shared responses to group
problems, but also indicates that the formation of a shared
definition of the problem is of equal or greater importance.
Group members construct shared definitions of the problems,
responses, and meanings through a social negotiation process

that occurs through everyday gossiping, discussion, and

87
casual gatherings. The shared meanings and understandings
often become symbolized as stories, rituals, behaviors,
vocabulary, jokes, objects, etc., and these symbols and
their meanings, in turn, act to maintain and shape the
shared aspects of the culture. The negotiation process is,
in effect, a process whereby a group socially creates
"reality" and the symbols through which it is transmitted
and maintained.

I began the thesis (after a brief review of the rele-
vant literature) with a description of the organizational
crisis that occurred at Stratford's when Barbara started
work and attempted to change the organizational culture to
what she saw as a more effective system. The wait staff's
original response of attempting to incorporate the new
manager into the existing organizational culture was not
perceived to have coped adequately with the situation. When
Barbara placed a waiter on probation for behaving in a
manner that the wait staff perceived as correct, the crisis
became critical. The waitrons were presented with a group
problem and the culture changed to cope with it. In order
to further support this explanation I presented another
incident where there was a crisis which was not perceived as
a group problem and which did not result in a cultural
mechanism for coping with the situation. The fact that
Barbara was well liked at another restaurant was discussed
in order to highlight the cultural nature of the conflict

and eliminate explanations having to do primarily with her

88

individual personality or managerial skills.

While culture may form as responses to shared problems
I was interested in how these problems were defined as
shared and on how a response was agreed upon. In order to
examine this question in depth I focused on the creation and
development of a single set of symbols. The case occurred
at a gathering of waitrons shortly after the probation
"incident." As there was no shared definition of the crises
before the group met the first comments offered by individ-
ual members were tentative and general. A dialogue of sorts
took place whereby the speaker modified his or her state-
ments according to the group's various degrees of reinforce-
ment. The process developed from a general "airing" of
negative interpretations to a specific definition of the
problem through collective negotiations. This process
resulted in the creation of the flashlight story that was a
group effort and represented the group's definition of the
problem that they all faced. The flashlight story was
communicated to the rest of the wait staff and the symbol
was elaborated in other mediums as well. This symbol helped
create the wait staff's perception of reality by defining
the nature of the problem and by defining the illusory
aspects of it. I also discussed two other pathways that the
negotiation may follow and discussed the various rates of
acceptance associated with each.

This work has not really dealt with the creation of a

culture but rather with the creation of a few elements of a

89
culture. A culture is made up of a complex interaction of
systems of symbols and their meanings, thus an attempt to
comprehensively describe the culture and its change is far
beyond the scope of this work. By following the development
of a few of the prominent problems, responses, symbols, and
meanings, I have attempted to illustrate how this process

progresses.

Implications for Future Research

While the concept of the social construction of reality
is often used in the works of various disciplines there have
been few empirical studies that really examine how this
process occurs. There has been a great deal of "armchair"
speculation and not enough observation. By suggesting that
social reality is constructed through a process of negotia-
tion and analyzing real examples of this process, this work
provides a tentative step towards a better understanding of
how individuals actually come to share a set of meanings and
understandings without conscious articulation.

Most of the studies on the creation of organizational
culture share three assumptions; that the culture is mono-
lithic and shared throughout the organization, that the
founders/leaders deliberately guide the cultural creation,
and that the resulting culture reflects the founder's per-
sonal ideology (Martin et al. 1985). At Stratford's, a
culture formed without any of these assumptions occurring.

It is a mistake to assume that the boundaries of a culture

90
will overlap perfectly with the organizational boundaries
and this certainly did not occur at Stratford's. The orig-
inal culture at the restaurant was shared only between the
wait staff and management and even this group split into two
cultures after the arrival of a new manager. While it is
too early to say with any certainty, it seems as if the
waitrons and management are now (after the resignation of
Barbara) moving towards a single shared culture as more
meanings and symbols are coming to be shared between the two
groups. This suggests that organizational cultures are not
the monolithic, stable entities that they are often por-
trayed as, but are more fluid than is commonly realized.
Further research would help clarify this issue, which has
managerial as well as theoretical implications.

Importantly, not a single leader among the waitrons at
Stratford's had a major role in shaping the culture that
developed. The new meanings that became shared were the
result of a collective group negotiation process. This
calls into question the theory that cultures are created and
guided by charismatic leaders, and since there was not a
single leader the culture was certainly not a reflection of
any charismatic founder's personality. Furthermore, Bar-
bara, who was described as charismatic in another restaur-
ant, had almost no success in shaping the culture according
to her ideas at Stratford's. These findings suggest that
the occurrence of a leader is not necessary for cultural

change.

91

A related point concerns what Smircich (1983a) refers
to as a the managerial bias in organizational literature.
Smircich states that researchers tend to approach research
from the management's, not the worker's, point of view and
assume that managers have the capacity to change the
organizational culture along desired lines if they proceed
properly. At Stratford's the management had little control
over the cultural change, despite their formal authority and
power. The cultural change that occurred was an employee
generated and controlled process. These findings suggest
that organizational researchers would profit by spending
less time studying managers and formal structures and more
time studying workers and informal processes.

Within the new Organizational Symbolism perspective
many authors (cf. Peters 1978, Dandridge 1983, Wilkins 1983)
are vigorously promoting the use of symbolic management.
The claim is made that symbols are powerful new tools that
managers can create and then use for shaping employee be-
havior. According to Peters (1978)

An effective set of change tools is actually

embedded in senior management's daily message

sending and receiving activities and that these

tools can be managed in such a way as to energize

and redirect massive, lumbering business and

government institutions. The tools [are] charac-

terized as symbols.
Such statements assume that the management created symbols

and meanings are accepted according to management's defini-

tions. The findings from my research indicate that symbols

92
and meanings, from whatever source, are negotiated and
renegotiated by the group to suit their own needs, thus
managers cannot simply create a meaning and expect workers
to accept it. Some of the symbolic management research
would benefit by taking notice of this.

A further implication of this research is that in order
to even begin to acquire an understanding of an organiza-
tional culture and the cultural change process the resear-
cher must devote a significant amount of time undertaking
participant observation. This fact, though vigorously
advocated by anthropologists in their cultural studies, has
not yet made much inroad into the organizational culture
field (Gregory 1983, Beck and Moore 1985, Berg 1985, and
Smircich 1985 are notable exceptions). Most of the data
used in this work would have remained unknown had I used
Schein's (1985a) clinical approach (a psychologically in-
fluenced method of interviewing), structured or unstructured
interviews, questionnaires, formal organizational documents
and histories, some sort of quantitative logical-positivist
quasi-experimental approach, or any combination of these
methods. I do not deny that some of these methods can be of
great use, but only in conjunction with a form of partici-
pant observation. Culture is a complex and still imperfect-
ly understood phenomena and so a significant investment of
time by the researcher is required to develop an understand-
ing of a particular case. The studies that quickly describe

the culture of an organization based on days or weeks of

93
research miss out on the complexity and underlying processes

that are occurring.

ise

hur X "probation" crisis
I

 

 

 

><- *-

 

Ma Incidents r ba
7/88 X Barbara starts work
Fri
Waitrons fired
Sat
8/88 X "probation" crisis
I
I
X "flashlight meeting Tues
I
l
l
X Barbara resigns Thur
l
I
9/88 *
Sat
I
10 X bar costs crisis Tues
I
|
l
: Thur
I
X bar privledges
: restored
11 * Sat
I
/
/
I
3/89 X Lisa served drink Tues
i to Jane
hur
4/89 *
I
I
X Stan & Tony

Figure 2. CHRONOLOGY

"Flashlight" meeting

Story told to head
manager

word "flash-
light" used to
exclude Barbara

"where's the flash-
light" humor

waiter hits the
flashlight

"take the
flashlight?"

Barbara resigns

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