MUTUAL CAUSALITY OF CULTURE AND POWER IN ORGANIZATIONS
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Abstract
The aim of this paper is to explore mutual causality of organizational culture and power in organizations. Based on the knowledge of the content and nature of organizational culture, as well as of the sources and forms of power in organizations, the paper hypothesizes about the nature and direction of their mutual influence. The main finding of the paper is that culture legitimizes power, while power instrumentalizes culture within organization. The analysis starts with two types of power in organizations: resource and interpretative. Resource power is based on the control over the scarce resources, while interpretive power is based on the control over the interpretative schemes, and thereby also over the organization members’ perception, interpretation, and concluding. The conclusion of the paper is that organizational culture influences the power in the organization by means of legitimising the critical resources controlled the superior individuals and groups in the organization who thereby gain resource power. On the one hand, which resource will be perceived as critical, it depends on the collective assumptions, values, norms, and attitudes (that compose the organizational culture’s content), and this also determines which individual and group will have the power based on the control over that resource. On the other hand, the power instrumentalizes the culture by having the superior individuals and groups impose certain assumptions, values, norms, and attitudes to the organization members in order to create interpretative power. Thereby, powerful individuals and groups use the culture as the means to gaining power. Through the process of perpetuation of power, the mutual causality between organizational culture and power in the organization is being even more intensified.
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