Writing and Organizational Cultures

INQUIRY DESCRIPTION            

Writing and Organizational Cultures examines the relationships between people and institutions and explores questions like—How and why are organizational cultures formed? How do organizational cultures impact those who are members of the culture as well as those who are outside the culture? How do genres reflect and shape the cultures and work of organizations? What markers signify an organization’s culture? What is at stake when an organizational culture is formed? When it changes?  

Students study the cultures of workplaces or organizations, including the ways such cultures communicate, and research a current issue related to workplace and organizational practices, designing a variety of texts to explore and highlight the challenges for various stakeholders.

Below are two possible trajectories on which to approach this inquiry. Detailed explanations of each trajectory, readings, and assignment sheets are offered in links below.¹

Trajectory 1 

Trajectory 2

Special thanks to Molly Voorheis and Karen Oakes for providing the basis for these two trajectories.

TRAJECTORY 1

This trajectory is composed of three main units. In unit 1, students develop foundational knowledge about writing and organizational cultures by reading two full-length books on the subject (one as a full class and the other in small reading groups) and by presenting what they are learning to their classmates. By focusing on techniques of critical reading, including extensive consideration of how the authors use research, students develop their understanding of research as a situated rhetorical practice. They also learn about issues and implications of diverse organizational and workplace cultures. 

In unit 2, students build upon these foundations and develop their own research paths. Focusing on research as action, students explore scholarly and trade journals to discover issues of interest within the broad arena of organizational cultures. Considering research also as product, they begin assembling a research portfolio that includes reflections on their exploratory process, as well as source annotations that demonstrate their growing body of knowledge. They craft a tightly-focused Explainer piece that communicates some specific aspect of their research to an audience of their peers. Through this work, students begin to situate themselves within a larger conversation around the topic.

In unit 3, students take their research findings public, allowing the broader SU community to benefit from the insights they have garnered from their research. By producing research presentations (in various forms, including posters), which call for rhetorical choices in both design and writing, students participate in the larger ongoing conversations around their topic of inquiry, and they come to see that research will be a staple activity in their personal and professional lives beyond the academy.

Along with the WRT 205 foundational readings provided here, below are readings that may be useful for this trajectory: 

On Organizational Cultures
Andert, Darlene. “Alternating Leadership as a Proactive Organizational Intervention: Addressing the Needs of the Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and Millennials.” Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics 8 (2011): [PDF]

Chouinard, Yvonne and VIncent Stanley. The Responsible Company: What We Learned from Patagonia's First 40 Years. Patagonia Books, 2012. 

Cohen, Ben and Jerry Greenfield. Ben & Jerry's Double-Dip: How to Run a Values-Led Business and Make Money, Too. Fireside, 1997. 

Crutchfield, Leslie R. and Heather McLeod Grant. Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits. Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Feldman, Dick. Social Movements for Good: How Companies and Causes Create Viral Change. Wiley, 2016. 

Hirshberg, Gerry. Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the Word. Hyperion, 2008. 

Kegan, Robert and Lisa Laskow Lacey. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization. Harvard Business Review, 2016.

Little, Jack. The Winds of Change: How One Organization Turned a Hurricane Into a Better World. Advantage, 2015. 

McChrystal, Stanley. Team of Teams: New Rules for Engagement For a Complex World. Portfolio, 2015. 

Trebesch, Shelley. Made to Flourish: Beyond Quick Fixes to a Thriving Organization. InterVarsity Press, 2015. 

Watson, Robert A. and Ben Brown. Leadership Secrets of the Salvation Army. Mission Books, 2013. 

On Explainers
“Explaining what’s behind the sudden allure of explanatory journalism” at https://digiday.com/media/explainer-rise-explanatory-journalism/ 
“What is Explainer journalism?” at http://www.fipp.com/news/opinion/what-is-explainer-journalism

On Crafting Research Posters
“How to create a research poster: poster basics” at http://guides.nyu.edu/posters

“Creating effective poster presentations” at https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/posters/#Note0

Possible Variations

This area of inquiry lends itself to many variations. Below are some other options for executing the course.

A Service Learning Paradigm:
In service learning courses, students work with a local nonprofit partner. Observing its organizational culture can add an interesting dimension to this course. In such a section, students might choose to explore issues with practical implications, such as interactions between leaders and their subordinates, generational gaps, the impact of technology, gender dynamics, and much more.

Moving Beyond the Poster Session:
Finding an actual audience is one of the key challenges in any course that strives to push beyond writing for only the teacher. In the pilot course, students planned and executed poster sessions that were geared toward (and advertised to) advanced undergraduates here at Syracuse University. Alternatively, building a virtual readership for student work could be an interesting challenge for WRT 205 students, capitalizing on their social media fluency to generate readers for their work in various genres.

Select teaching materials can be found here.

TRAJECTORY 2

This trajectory examines the formation of organizational cultures by researching and examining the specific genres that shape them—codes of conduct, corporate ethics statements, annual reports, company publications, trade publications, among others. Students consider the purpose of these documents and their impact on those inside and outside the organization as well as what is at stake when an organizational culture is formed or when it changes. 

Students closely read the texts that create an organization’s culture. They also research a current issue affecting organizations and design a variety of texts to explore and highlight the challenges for various stakeholders. 

In unit 1, students review a variety of sample organizational documents, some provided by the instructor and some that they find on their own (ease of access to these documents will be important to note and discuss). Students choose one organizational genre (annual report, code of ethics, company website, company publication) to analyze, identifying key features, purposes, audiences, and stakeholders in a short descriptive text and class presentation.

In unit 2, students work in groups to investigate the culture of one particular organization (Uber, Fox News, Google, etc.). Using the organization’s materials as well as news and industry publications, students develop a sense of some of the issues/challenges that this organization faces. They then create a “culture timeline” to share with the class; each group member also writes an analysis of the key stress points/concerns for the culture. Considering research also as product, students assemble a research portfolio that includes reflections on their exploratory process, as well as source annotations that demonstrate their growing body of knowledge on the organization. 

In unit 3, students take their research findings public, allowing the broader SU community to benefit from the insights they have garnered from their research. Students create a letter to the editor, public commentary, or video about their unit 2 company, educating consumers or future employees about the company’s culture. They may highlight elements of the culture that are worth emulating or suggest that the company should make changes. This final project is accompanied by a writer’s review that showcases elements of the final project that draw from the research and also “speak” to the target population. 

Possible Readings:
This trajectory is based on two full length books: 

Ferrell, O C, and John Fraedrich. Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1997. Print.

Seglin, Jeffrey L. The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business. Rollinsford, NH: Spiro Press, 2003.

Note: This course has yet to be piloted, so no course materials are available.