The organizational melting-pot: an arena for different cultures

Organizational culture has become misleading as a concept, because it equates organization and culture while neglecting societal dimensions, and because it tends to reify the two concepts which it incorporates. We suggest instead the idea of esprit de corps to denote the local cultural phenomena in a particular corporation or institution, or vague organizational features such as style, habits and mentality. A corporation could be regarded instead as a melting-pot of several work cultures in a society. It then becomes possible to identify a number of work cultures in society which transcend particular organization. An example could be the ideas and meanings and habits shared by the staff of almost all firms. Attention is given to the way in which the cultural structuring of society transforms ideology into organizational realities and produces cultural phenomena in organizations. We argue against the misuse of the culture metaphor. Instead of organizational culture we suggest the concepts arenas for societal cultures and esprit de corps.