Truth and Corporations

In chapter 20 Stan Deetz' little story on page 229 really opened my eyes. He makes a great point about truth. He talks about the cereal boxes of his children's favorite cereals, on the box Kellog's put information and illustrations of happy children and all the health benefits of the cereals. They chose only to put the good aspects of the cereal and ignored the bad. I love that Deetz made his own labels for the cereals with the whole truth on it. It made me think about one of my guilty pleasures, taco bell. I know that fast food is horrible for me and I have heard that they use the lowest grade of meat allowable, but I still go. They leave out all of the negatives from their advertising and leave only the positive to suck people in. This chapter really opened up my eyes about corporations and teh impact they have on everyones life.

Chapter 19

In chapter 19 Michael Paconowsky also developed theories of culture in organizations. His experience was mostly corporate culture. He agreed with Geertz' metaphor of the culture as webs, but he says, "we need to concern ourselves not only with the structures of the cultural webs, but the process of of their spinning as well" (Griffin 250). I found Paconowsky very interesting. i had never considered the impact corporate culture has on peoples lives. The workplace is where a lot of time is spent with co-workers. Culture and relationships are bound to develop. I loved how Griffin used the show , The Office to illustrate the symbolic interpretation of story, and the three types.

The Cultural Approach to Organizations

Chapter 19 is all about Clifford Geertz and Michael Pacanowsky's research on culture in organizations. Geertz uses the metaphor of culture as a web. Griffin explains that, “in order to travel across the strands toward the center of the web, an outsider must discover the common interpretations that hold the web together.” ( Griffin p. 250). Culture is made up of many things, or strands. These strands can be made form the language we speak to the field we work in, all of the strands make up our web. Geertz is an anthropologist who has studied remote culures. Geertz says that culture is not defined as the arts or traditions but is much more complex and vague. All societies have subcultures within their culture. I looked at the subcultures to mean the “cliques” that make up the whole society.

Putting functional perspective into action

Chapter 17 was the perfect chapter to for me to read this week. In my Comm 140 class we had our first debate. In our groups we were to research our topics and then present them to the class. My group was given a very specific topic that made it hard to find a lot of research. In my group we went through all 4 of Hirokawa's functions. First we analyzed the problem which was how we were going to find some good research. Next we set our goals. we wanted to develop strong arguments and learn as much as we could about our topic. Since we had trouble with finding good articles and journals we had to identify alternatives. We had to ask for help from the professor who gave us some great alternatives. We finally found articles that helped back our arguments but we had a lot of different arguments. We had to evaluate what was negative and positive, what we needed and what was unnecessary. without realizing it I had used functional perspective to complete make decisions in a small group.

Small Group

Chapter 18 discusses Marshall Scott Poole's Adaptive Structuration theory. Poole studied patterns of communication in small groups. Through his research he learned that group decision making was very complex. He found that group dynamics are so are very complicated and cannot be predicted or boiled down to a small chain of events. Social structures were not what influence what the groups decision. He found that what people do and say and do make a difference not the social structures.
In the past when i have been in groups it is always a struggle to make a decision. Some of the groups I have been in have been complete nightmares. In the end I have had to do the work all by myself. Good communication can help groups complete their goals and make good decisions.

Group Decision Making

In almost every college course group work is a requirement. Group work forces you to associate people you might not otherwise talk to. All members of a group have different experiences and knowledge, putting that together can lead to good decision making. Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran are"convinced that group interaction has a positive effect on the final decision."(Griffin p. 223). Hirokawa and Gouran understand that it is not easy to come to a decision when in a group. There are four functions of effective decision making, those are (1) problem analysis (2) goal setting (3) identification of alternatives, and (4) evaluation of positive and negative consequences. This process helps a group acheive the best goal without as much headache.

Rules of the Game

Families are very complicated. Chapter 13 talks about the family as a system, "a self regulating, interdependent network of feedback loops guided by members rules."( Griffin p. 170). Whatever happens in a family, big or small has some affect on all of the others who are part of the family. No relationship is simple, like griffin said, "Relationships are complex functions in the same sense that mathematical functions link multiple variables."(Griffin p. 170). I come from a big family so I am particularly interested in Watzlawick's interactionalist view. My family has become more complicated as we have all become older and have started our own lives. My oldest sister is married and has a baby now. All of the changes and problems they go through has had an impact on all of our lives. Even though I don't live with my parents or younger sisters,yet I hear every piece of news that happens. My family is just like the mobile that griffin describes, when one string is is severed the whole thing shifts and becomes off balance.