StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
In the paper “Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations,” the author focuses on the domain of narrative systems, which work to provide meaning and harmony to group experiences in a way akin to the manner they work in the lives of individuals.  …
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER91.5% of users find it useful
Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations"

Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations Introduction Greater attention has currently been given by organisational experts to the domain of meaning and in the symbolical features of organisations. Narrative systems work to provide meaning and harmony to group experiences in a way akin to the manner they work in the lives of individuals. A pioneer of the concept of organisations as a cultural entity, Linda Smircich, defined culture as a system of meanings. Basically, she claims that (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 122): The emergence of social organisation depends on the emergence of shared interpretive schemes, expressed in language and other symbolic constructions that develop through social interaction. Such schemes provide the basis for shared systems of meaning that allow day-to-day activities to become routinized or taken for granted. The concept of organisational change is associated with the notion of change in an organisation’s domain of meaning, specifically, its cultural aspect, which is articulated through the specific narratives that hold and construct the meaning the guides the group. The narratives, which is also referred to as organisational stories, sagas, and myths, work to guide members in understanding and representing the organisation’s objective and the function of its members. The organisational narrative gives information about ideologies and standards, and it plays several roles in an organisation—resolving gaps between the past and the present, moderating power relations, prevention of conflict, and reconciliation of tensions between individual and organisational interests (Gabriel, 2000, p.10). This essay discusses the relationship between narrative and heritage. Narrative in Organisations There are seven types of narrative that have been observed to occur in various organisations. First are narratives about how the organisation solves problems; second are narratives about how the person in charge or the manager responds to mistakes; third are stories addressing the issue of how much assistance or support an organisation will give to its people when they have to transfer regularly; fourth are narratives about how an organisation acts when confronted with the likelihood of laying off or discharging employees (Czarniawska, 1998, pp. 2-3); fifth is a narrative about the likelihood of a praiseworthy employee being recognised or rewarded by the organisation; sixth is a narrative about the level of respect and compassion the manager shows in relation to his/her subordinates; and seventh is a narrative about breaking the rules wherein a senior manager violates a rule which his/her subordinate should then implement (Czarniawska, 1998, p. 3). Every narrative has good and bad versions, which always reveal the conflicts that develop from a tension between individual values and organisational interests. These conflicts relate to the problems of control vs. chaos, stability vs. instability, and equality vs. hierarchy within the organisation (Lipman, 1999, p. 22). When these narratives or events come together to form a broader or more complete narrative, the central identity or purpose is formed. This central narrative consolidates events and experiences into a main interpretative system for the organisation. In an article of the Administrative Quarterly Review, dedicated to the discussion of organisational culture, several organisational experts talked about techniques they have created for explaining the interpretative structures that work at more profound aspects of an organisation (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 122). For instance, as a support for planning and dealing with problems, Mitroff and Killman encouraged bosses to relate stories about an organisation; afterwards, they grouped them in accordance to the Jungian personality styles. Bosses with the same personality rank were informed and requested to interpret the ‘issue’ from their own point of view. Then the different groups faced one another, explained their perspectives, and co-operated towards a unified solution. The procedure guided the bosses towards greater responsiveness to and respect for “other ways of perceiving and analysing organisational disturbances and problems” (Czarniawska, 1998, p. 14). In essence, narratives can strengthen the task and goal of an organisation by creating a shared understanding of its objectives and ideologies. Due to its temporality, the narrative protects and sustains the stability, strength, and resilience of an organisation in moments of change and uncertainty; however, it can also be dysfunctional or unstable over time. Narratives suitable for newly formed and stressed organisations are not as useful in providing stability during advanced developmental phases. Due to the stability they create, organisational narratives are not easy to modify or change. An organisational expert would not be able to generate change in a narrative merely by emphasising how it cannot match the actual task of the organisation anymore (Boje, 2008, 38). Nevertheless, the organisational expert can help in the creation of another narrative that is more comprehensive and that deals with the conflicts of the organisation more effectively than the previous one. Moreover, narratives have been an integral component in the process of sense-making in organisations. For example, Boje (2008) argues that narrating stories is the favoured sense-making method and organisational memory maintenance in organisations. Concepts like organisational culture, sense-making, narrative-based organisation, etc. have become widespread concerns in the study of contemporary organisations. Consequently, organisations have become more and more recognised as mainly social systems wherein components like central ideas, stories, and informal standards serve a vital function. Moreover, other contemporary models, particularly emotional principle, literary theory, aesthetics, etc. also contribute to this expanded understanding of organisations, and somehow these all concern the organisations’ narrative aspect as they seek out expression and representation in this sort of organisational communication (Gabriel, 2000, p. 42). Each of these models views organisations as intricate networks of narratives symbolising simultaneously the essence of organisational knowledge and culture. As one of the outcomes of this idea, knowledge management is more and more regarded a form of context management that must help an organisation foster an environment favourable to storytelling (Smith, 2012, p. 85). In relation to their function in organisations, narratives appear as an inherent component of organisations and its ordinary communication; they are narrated and re-narrated over and over again. Normally they are not interpreted wilfully but instead develop from episodes, unusual circumstances, failures, accomplishments, and so on. Organisations are viewed as being filled constantly by diverse sets of stories narrated by the members of the organisation. Nevertheless, some narrators are expected to narrate more importantly and extraordinarily than others. Narratives embody go beyond absolute facts, or more accurately, thoughts about facts because the definition of facts, as widely recognised today, is constantly tied to thoughts or observations. Narratives recreate particular experiences and episodes into a structure of continuous episodes with underlying connections so that they give meaning and facilitate understanding of a complex scenario for narrators and listeners. Hence, narratives bring together experiences, facts, observations, and episodes within the perspective of a particular situation. The narrative describes the situation wherein it is believed to be true or applicable. The narratives talk about fairness, beauty, strong or weak responses to obstacles, success or failure, and so on. By listening to the story, the listener, besides being entertained, should be able to identify the sign, the arguments, and connections at hand. In contrast to discursive thinking, which demands logical precision, the narrative approach is diverse and vague. Hence, narratives communicate at least two distinct aspects at the same time: on the one hand, the explanation of the indirectly communicated claims, and on the other hand usual reactions, expertise, experiences, and so on (Lipman, 1999, p. 64). Basically, narratives convey a certain theme and its assessment at the same time. These processes of gaining ideas, principles, expertise, and so on, and at the same time validating them as factual, are also widely recognised from cultural studies. In essence, culture is constantly expressive and confirmatory at the same time. In a nutshell, it is without a doubt that taking into consideration the narrative aspect of organisations creates a pattern for acquiring new and valuable ideas into the processes of gaining knowledge and organisational culture. Taking into consideration the function of the narrative and its connections to knowledge, people should not overlook the fact that stories arise and are narrated in organisations and that these organisations operate in an administrative or economic domain with its own reasoning. Heritage and Heritage Industry Heritage is briefly defined as something “which is inherited from the past” (Misiura, 2012, p. 22). Ashworth and Howard (1999) further define heritage (Misiura, 2012, p. 22): Heritage is a process by which things (and indeed non-material things) come into the self-conscious arena when someone wants to conserve/collect them. So anything (or even nothing) can become heritage, but not every thing is. Heritage is built by creating several ideologies, traditions, and processes; different scholars and professionals in hugely opposing disciplines will create ideologies that grow around the notion of heritage (Ashworth & Howard, 1999, p. 29). Heritage is regarded by most nations and citizens to be a vital part of their existence. It is hence important to understand in the beginning that what groups/organisations and individuals imply by heritage and what they aim to protect and preserve with regard to global, national, or personal heritage is not automatically directly apparent. It can demand much knowledge to determine the facts, and employ ingenious methods that may not be utilised completely at the moment, like ethnographic methodologies as component of a research design; this is somewhat because heritage as a broad concept is under investigation (Samuel, 2012, p. 158). As argued by Hobsbawm (1983), “The past in question—the “heritage” which conservationists fight to preserve and retrieval projects to unearth, and which the holiday public or museum visitors are invited to ‘experience’—is in many ways a novel one” (Samuel, 2012, p. 158). The concept of heritage is quite debatable and the debate in the continuously growing literature continues, specifically among some historians who have extreme aversion for the concept of heritage, even though this attitude has been questioned (Lowenthal, 1998, p. 127): “If historians despise heritage fakery, heritage disdains historians’ truth fetishes”. David Lowenthal is one of the earliest scholars to introduce the concept of heritage as a ‘celebration of the past’, whilst most historians and other scholars have heavily criticised this concept, for various reasons (Evans & Boswell, 1999, p. 15). The primary reason appears to be that citizens are deceiving themselves about the past and that, instead of clinging on to an invented model, they should be addressing the facts of their current circumstances and their future conditions. Hence the past is phenomenon that people are trying to bury because they cannot cope with their present lives. Robins (2004) says, “Protective illusion… has been central to the obsessive construction of both enterprise and heritage cultures in these post-imperial days [in Britain]” (as cited in Evans & Boswell, 1999, p. 16). In contrast, Roy Strong (1978) claims that “the heritage represents some form of security, a point of reference, a refuge perhaps, something visible and tangible which, within a topsy-turvy world, seems stable and unchanged” (as cited in Misiura, 2012, p. 12). Other scholars argue that the charm of tradition is a core aspect of modern nations; however, there is an excessive willingness or approval by most citizens of those which are supported by influential leaders on behalf of heritage. They take advantage of this to validate current social structures or the status quo through a mention of the past of which is quite distant that it obviously require no validation (Samuel, 2012, p. 160). Nevertheless, not the entire literature is sceptical and there is certainly a rising field that is focused on the advantages or favourable features of heritage (Evans & Boswell, 1999, p. 26): “Tradition and heritage are factors that enhance the ‘quality’ of life of particular places and make them attractive locations for investment. An emphasis on tradition is important in the development of tourism as a major industry.” Heritage can express itself in countless ways. For instance, the number of visitors to heritage sites is continuously increasing; fascination in other cultural features of a nation will rouse demand for tourism. For instance, a study in 2003 has projected that 20 per cent of the British population will reside in different foreign countries on retirement. In the UK the argument raised in the 1980s that the commercialisation of heritage was going towards the possibility of Britain turning out to be a ‘one big open air museum’, in numerous ways has actually taken place a decade after (Evans & Boswell, 1999, pp. 26-28). Heritage is now available at an ever greater variety—museums, gallery, exhibitions, heritage theme parks, archaeological sites, nature reserves, and so on. The increasing diversity of meanings enclosed in the concept of ‘heritage’ and similar appreciation of the economic value of the service industry generally keep on bringing heritage at the fore. Regardless if real or invented, heritage meanings indicate an impression of assurance, security, and excellence. Romanticised heritage sites are the highly demanded treasured landscapes. But Hewison warns that “the landscape that we see is not out there: it is in our heads, filtered by our cultural perceptions, structured by our psychological needs” (Leask & Yeoman, 1999, p. 2). Heritage is part of the foundation of the existence of nations and peoples, knowingly or unknowingly embracing hopes and ambitions and providing signs of stability, images of places and identity, delight and awareness in the rapidly evolving domain of global infrastructures, especially communications. Basically, heritage has been used “to describe virtually anything by which some link, however tenuous, can be made with the past” (Leask & Yeoman, 1999, p. 2) over the years. It is self-evident that exact meanings are not easy. Five generally recognised definitions were introduced by Ashworth and Tunbridge (1996) (as cited in Leask & Yeoman, 1999, pp. 2-3): (1) Heritage places—objects, buildings, sites, towns, districts, regions. (2) Memories—collective and individual. (3) Cultural and artistic production. (4) Heritage landscapes and heritage flora and fauna. (5) The heritage industry—selling goods and services with a heritage component. The accuracy is longed-for but a description of the heritage industry detaching the service interaction from the resources on which it relies is wrong. The heritage industry is intertwined with, and in fact a component of, the cultural sector as a whole and the growing industries particularly. The heritage industry, generally described, makes use of the past on behalf of the present and future, usually in the form of sceneries, artefacts, buildings, stories, and ideas. In its native form heritage is essentially the natural, constructed and cultural landscape of a region. Theoretically, the present-oriented character of heritage implies that a sequence of restoration and change is innate in the heritage idea for consumers, commercial workers, and conservation agencies (Ashworth & Graham, 2005, p. 94). Heritage is an ever-changing idea—a foundation for future accomplishment—as a facilitator for nostalgia. Permanence, stability, or continuity can be sustained simply by means of positioning and repositioning, construction and reconstruction, discovery and rediscovery. Heritage is culturally formed and established and hence creates the adaptability and prospects for development called for by heritage organisations. Flexible enough to be utilised by major agencies at national and international levels in the voluntary, private, and public sectors to strengthen the version and exhibition of a specific perspective, heritage is still a mystery. The heritage experience is unique and special to the person. This is incredibly proven by the Holocaust Memorial, where only one candle is lighted with millions of images encouraging personal contemplation (Graham & Howard, 2008, p. 331). On the other hand, heritage has become entertainment and recreation for many. Themed participatory activities offer the chance to experience an illusion of unbroken uniqueness (Graham & Howard, 2008, p. 331). Museums, galleries, and exhibitions have long been viewed as a site for conserving and displaying physical items. For history, as well as art, museums have constantly paid much attention to physical items. Cultural museums, like art museums, usually view heritage as regards what they believe are general standards. Thereby, they take for granted the cultural perspective wherein every heritage is rooted (Bennett, 2004, p. 88). Numerous forms of cultural heritage are basically intangible, such as religion, music, oral traditions, and language. Museums could have documented, preserved, and exhibited some of this, but generally they have not helped significantly to the conservation and diffusion of intangible heritage (Smith, Waterton, & Watson, 2012, p. 62). History is not the domain of museums anymore. The desire for nostalgia has been intensified by the growth of the heritage industry. In his seminal work The Heritage Industry: Britain in a climate of decline, Hewison associates the flourishing of the heritage industry with a desire to sustain a reassuring feeling of connection with the past in an age of economic failure (Mclean, 2012, p. 14). Just like in many European countries and the United States, in the 1960s and 1970s outmoded manufacturing businesses were shutting down all over Britain, bringing about disruption in the communities that relied on them for jobs. The plain idea that by reconstructing the past, people were more equipped to deal with their present and future circumstances, seemingly resulted in this boom of what has been named in the 1980s ‘the heritage industry’. A great part of the nostalgia has focused on the industrial past. However, as argued by Urry (1990), “The protection of the past conceals the destruction of the present. There is an absolute distinction between authentic history (continuing and therefore dangerous) and heritage (past, dead and safe)… Heritage is bogus history” (as cited in Mclean, 2012, pp. 14-15). Museums, galleries, and exhibitions belong to this heritage industry; they provide meaning or significant to people’s present existence by recreating the past. Hence, according to Hewison (1987), “in the twentieth century museums have taken over the function once exercised by church and ruler, they provide the symbols through which the nation and a culture understand itself” (as cited in Mclean, 2012, p. 15). It is questionable whether museums indeed contribute to the practically religious role proposed by Hewison. The human experience of the museum is essentially influenced by its themes and the range of its collections. A visitor to a national art gallery or local museum may relate to and ponder about the collection, whilst to another it could be like a heap of worthless items. In his work The Representation of the Past, Kevin Walsh supports the claim of Hewison that heritage is an outcome of an environment of economic failure in Britain. As industry deteriorates, heritage supplants it by progressing in its relics and ruins, like on Rhondda Valley in Wales (Mclean, 2012, p. 15). However, Walsh argues that heritage must be viewed as a component of the service industry which grew all over Western countries. It is unavoidably connected not just with the economic environment, but also the political environment, where Reagan’s and Thatcher’s New Right stressed the liberal person, functioning without restrictions in the marketplace (Mclean, 2012, p. 15). Heritage belongs to this situation, where as a recreation- and tourism-based service it has been “concerned to market ephemeral images of the past” (Mclean, 2012, p. 15). Walsh also criticises heritage for ‘distorting’ the past, through endorsing a past that is whole and completely detached from the present. In contrast however, as argued by Lowenthal, the past is permanently marked with the current patterns and tendencies. Through interaction with heritage, the perspective and nature of the past are continuously being changed, whether willingly, by means of conservation, or simply by luck. It was even argued that “Aesthetically, as well as historically heritage is a hybrid, reflecting, or taking part in, style wars, and registering changes in public taste” (Mclean, 2012, pp. 15-16). Narrative and Heritage The value of narrative in forming the quality and essence of heritage interaction has been shown by a voluminous and mixed body of research. Narrative has also been recognised as an important component of the historical and archaeological domain on which almost all the narratives of heritage tourism are founded. To narrate a story, instead of simply recounting a pool of figures or facts, is to foster a strong personal emotional involvement, while at the same time providing an indirect meta-narrative about the certainty of particular types of cause and effect (Smith, 2006, p. 78). Current studies have shown that narratives of the heritage industry are not merely an important component in the creation of place, collective, and personal identities; they are also vital in the practise of envisioning, experiencing, reminiscing, and distributing heritage experiences, both real and imagined. Even though oral or written narratives are more likely to be the primary emphasis in many current studies, it was fascinating that some scholars or researchers also talked about the value, while ‘out of town’, both of image creation (e.g. photography, painting) and collecting souvenirs in the preservation, remembering, narrating and/or propagating of narratives about heritage experiences (Smith, 2009, p. 85). Schouten (1995) is optimistic about the artistic capability of heritage narrative to invigorate history, arguing (as cited in Smith, 2009, p. 85): “History and historical reality are black boxes: we do not know what they contain, but with an input of imagination and good research, the output can be marvellous. Interpretation is the art that makes history ‘real’”. History is ever-changing, and will differ based on individual narratives. It is believed that heritage narrative should incite a response in its audience. As argued by Kavanagh “museums are places where memories and histories meet, even collide, and that… can be an emotional experience” (Smith, 2009, p. 86). Determining what drives the heritage industry could also be attained by observing responses to the heritage sites themselves. Visitors at heritage sites showed perceptiveness about the past; furthermore, these tourists were discovered to experience a strengthening of their own specific identity, as well as an enriching of their understanding of their distinctive contribution as regards space and time. McIntosh and Prentice (1999) also claim that heritage tourism could mostly be distinguished by individual perceptions and role that work to build a person’s meaningful existence; hence, meanings, especially those related to the understanding of the life narrative of individual tourist, are viewed as being enhanced by heritage experiences (as cited in Smith, 2006, p. 123). Obviously, on the other hand, popular narratives do not have to be written all the time, but they will be narrative all the time—in film, plays, ballad, and epic; and today in the form of exhibitions or display. The role of a popular narrative is to build, evaluate, express, or protect collective memory (Hooper-Greenhill, 1992, p.28). The idea of narrative is, when associated with historical facts, questionable. The fundamental issue is whether the narrative is an aspect of the observed reality, or whether the narrative is a mental tool which brings together and organises heap of information whose interrelatedness is quite difficult to understand. Associated with this is the essentially narrative aspect of language and the narrative role attached to recounting events. The dilemma has been creatively summed up by Hayden White (Brett, 1996, p. 5): Our discourse always tends to slip away from our data towards the structures of consciousness with which we are trying to grasp them: or, what amounts the same thing, the data always resist the coherency of the image which we are trying to fashion of them. Several scholars have tried to examine what is meant in the concept of ‘historical narrative’ and have attempted to explain the coherent principles by which information can be transformed into a narrative (Brett, 1996, pp. 5-6). In these claims, the role of storytelling is to give meaning to disorganised information. Others have tried to categorise and place emphasis on various forms of narrative and have claimed that truth can be established not just on plain facts, but on the narrative regarded as an entirety and also a component of the entirety. Narratives are vital for finally establishing the new place identity of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in the people’s consciousness, as pointed out by Halbwachs (Di Giovine, 2009, p, 120): The memory of groups contains many truths, notions, ideas and general propositions… but if a truth is to be settled in the memory of a group it needs to be presented in the concrete form of an event, of a personality or of a locality… [In order for] these recollections to prosper and in time to be combined, they had to become saddled with images of persons and places, and to take on those traits that characterise a recollection and that are allowed to last. As to the facts, they become more prominent, and some of them gained salience in comparison to others. Narratives, when they are reminisced or recalled transform intangible ideas, facts, realities, and perspectives into meaning. This is also true for heritage. The decisive observation of Pearson and Richard is notable here (Di Giovine, 2009, pp. 120-121): “Through the cultural artefact of a name, undifferentiated space is transformed into marked and delimited place. Stories and tales may be attached to such places, making them resonate with history and experience”. A phrase, statement, or name engraved into a monument, an inscription saying a prominent personality ‘ate here’, or the label saying to which saint is commemorated by the building of a basilica, all instantly instil an unfamiliar space with a horde of narrative statements and invented images in a remarkably concise way. However, even though narratives are widely known to benefit organisations, especially heritage organisations, there are those that do not have appropriate or good narratives. Recently, leaders of the cultural sector have been thinking of a framework of ‘cultural citizenship’ based on the idea that heritage organisations are profoundly entrenched in community life and integral to the building of national identity (Di Giovine, 2009, p. 121). The main and unique objective of heritage organisations is to unite communities by preserving and promoting their narratives, beliefs, and traditions. In numerous ways, the community emphasis that pushes heritage organisations to operate in quite varied ways is their biggest advantage. Yet, this emphasis also is a point of disadvantage or weakness because charity usually is largely controlled, separating culture and arts projects from social service, education, community development, and other projects (Stipe, 2003, p. 394). This fact affects the ability of heritage organisations to develop a good narrative. In general, heritage organisations should vie for resources or funding with arts organisations; specifically, they should strive in an arena where major devotions are to visual culture rather than community development. Although these dedications to visual culture or arts may reflect clearly in heritage organisations, especially European and American heritage organisations, they are conflicting for others. European and American heritage organisations have good narratives because they are adequately resourced and supported, and so they have the capability to adopt narratives and use them in their activities (Stipe, 2003, p. 394). These narratives strengthen these heritage organisations and make them more attuned to their objectives, which is primarily to help communities have their own sense of identity. Unfortunately, many heritage organisations are insufficiently resourced and small, but Hispanic and African-American heritage organisations are more susceptible monetarily than are heritage organisations connected to other race (Stipe, 2003, pp. 394-395). More thorough and analytic investigation of how heritage organisations build, enhance, and maintain the types of narratives arising in homes, parks, and communities would be valuable. A thorough evaluation of what may be referred to as civil society of heritage organisations, understanding the relationships and functions among heritage organisations is not yet carried out. Not much is recognised about the reason communities and groups exert efforts to integrate narratives to heritage organisations (Brett, 1996, p. 75). Heritage organisations are created and established by communities to help communities, but to evaluate or determine whether their nonexistence or their absence of narratives is harmful to communities, it will be vital to more accurately identify how these heritage organisations affect cultural life. Without a doubt, however, the reality that heritage organisations are insufficiently resourced has an impact on the cultural domain. Heritage organisations help communities and groups that have constantly been poorly supported by dominant agencies in humanities, culture, and the arts. Insufficiently resourced or funded heritage organisations are not simply less capable of providing cultural services to these communities, and less capable of disseminating these traditional practices with the larger society, but they also are less capable of developing a good narrative to work as successful leaders and members and engage the wider community in the process of creating a sense of identity (Fairlough et al., 2008, p. 105). Conclusions Narrative is clearly integral to a well-functioning organisation; it does not only expand organisational knowledge, it also brings together disparate individual stories to form a whole narrative that would work on behalf of the organisation. Heritage organisations are one of the types of organisations that will benefit from a good narrative. These heritage organisations provide real and imagined narratives to engage their audiences in the process of building a sense of place, individual, and collective identity. But without a good narrative, a heritage organisation will undoubtedly fail to deliver or realise its main goals. References Ashworth, G. & Graham, B. (2005) Senses of Place: Sense of Time. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Ashworth, G. & Howard, P. (1999) European Heritage Planning and Management. Bristol: Intellect. Bennett, T. (2004) Pasts Beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums, Colonialism. London: Routledge. Boje, D. (2008) Storytelling Organisations. London: SAGE. Brett, D. (1996) The Construction of Heritage. Ireland: Cork University Press. Czarniawska, B. (1998). A Narrative Approach to Organisation Studies. London: SAGE. Di Giovine, M. (2009) The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Evans, J. & Boswell, D. (1999) Representing the Nation: A Reader: Histories, Heritage and Museums. London: Routledge. Fairlough, G. et al. (2008) The Heritage Reader. London: Routledge. Gabriel, Y. (2000) Storytelling in Organisations: Facts, Fictions, and Fantasies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graham, B. & Howard, P. (2008) The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Hobsbawm, E. (1983) “Introduction: Inventing Traditions.” In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hooper-Greenhill, E. (1992) Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge. London: Routledge. Leask, A. & Yeoman, I. (1999) Heritage Visitor Attractions: An Operation Management Perspective. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Lipman, D. (1999) Improving your Storytelling: Beyond the Basics for All Who Tell Stories in Work or Play. London: August House Publishers. Lowenthal, D. (1998) The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mclean, F. (2012) Marketing the Museum. London: Routledge. Misiura, S. (2012) Heritage Marketing. London: Routledge. Polkinghorne, D. (1988) Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. New York: SUNY Press. Samuel, R. (2012) Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture. London: Verso Books. Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Smith, L., Waterton, E., & Watson, S. (2012) The Cultural Moment in Tourism. London: Routledge. Smith, M. (2009) Issues in Cultural Tourism Studies. London: Routledge. Smith, P. (2012) Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire. New York: AMACOM. Stipe, R. (2003) A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations Essay”, n.d.)
Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations Essay. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/business/1490019-narrative-and-heritage
(Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations Essay)
Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations Essay. https://studentshare.org/business/1490019-narrative-and-heritage.
“Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/business/1490019-narrative-and-heritage.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Meaning and the Symbolical Features of Organisations

Subject: Organizational Dynamics Topic: Situation I faced in my Organization

Organizational Dynamics Topic: Situation I faced in my Organization Name: Institution: Organizational Dynamics: Situation I faced in my Organization In the current business environment, change is both a necessity and an opportunity to ensure organizational sustainability and profitability.... hellip; Globalization has resulted in increased markets, as well as opportunities for greater revenue margins and growth....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Organizational culture is fundamentally about symbolic meaning and as such cannot be managed. Discuss

Organisational culture is fundamentally about symbolic meaning NAME: AFFILIATION: UNIVERSITY: Introduction to organisational culture In the last few years, the researchers have realised that organisations have distinctive cultures that are shaped by various aspects that work together to help their members towards behaving in an appropriate manner.... It is important for the organisations to adapt to the organisational culture as required because diversions may lead to conflict of opinion and interest in the organisation....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Organizational culture is fundamentally about symbolic meaning and as such cannot be managed. Discuss

Organizational culture- a symbolic meaning Name Tutor Institution Date Organizational culture- a symbolic meaning Introduction The conception of organizational culture is gradually being embraced since many organizations visualize organizational culture as way of improving the organization's performance....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Organizational culture is fundamentally about symbolic meaning and as such cannot be managed. Discuss

Organisational Culture Is Fundamentally About Symbolic meaning and As Such Cannot Be Managed Introduction Organisations are not institutions that are formed unintentionally.... These kinds of cultures usually flourish in military as well as religious organisations.... The Significance of Organisational Culture Organisational culture is the bond that structures the different organisational settings and makes it possible for personnel to be able to draw meaning from their duties, and also work easily alongside people who have different values from them (Drummond 2000)....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Environments and Organizations

It becomes the job of the strategist to find meaning and interpretations of these activities or enactments to determine strategies.... In current thinking, organisations are socially constructed systems that share values and meanings, and the mission of the management is to promote and develop these shared meanings in order to achieve their objectives of fitting the organization in its environment....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Consumption Meaning

This knowledge gives them meaning and value.... This document analyzes the meaning that consumers give to consumption by examining various academic literatures.... meaning can be defined as the extent to which a consumer holds something highly regarded and places a high value on it (Hirschman 1991).... To have a better understanding of the term consumption meaning let us turn to semiotics, a branch of cultural anthropology focused on study of signs....
14 Pages (3500 words) Essay

Reason and Meaning in Organisational Culture

The paper "Reason and meaning in Organisational Culture" presents detailed information, that Morgan describes the culture concept as a metaphor—it's self-representation of organizational “facts,” the truth and utility of which lies in its representational character....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Social Interaction in the Light of Symbolic Interactionism

In the paper “Social Interaction in the Light of Symbolic Interactionism” the author tries to discover the patterns of interaction between two or more individuals, which certainly are meaningful for the group members involved into interaction.... hellip; The author states that structural functionalism declares society as an organic whole, where a strong and integrated structure is dependent on the adequate functioning of all the social institutions and organizations....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us