Title: Recreating Meaning Through Cultural Investments – A Case Study of Volvo IT in France Swedish Title: Återskapa Mening Genom Kulturella Investeringar – En Fallstudie av Volvo IT i Frankrike Authors: Pegah Esmaeili and Filip Holmdahl Tutor: Lena Andersson Background For what reasons do organizations invest in culture? Could it be seen as an initiative from management to create some form of control and to manage the reality of employees? A company that systematically is working and investing in their organizational culture is Volvo IT by creating a cultural network consisting of a Cultural Manager, Cultural Navigators and Cultural Ambassadors. The question is if the rest of the organization share the efforts made in these investments? This thesis will investigate if the investments made by the management, to manage a wanted meaning, are shared by the lower level personnel.Purpose To create an improved understanding between managements strive, through cultural investments, to recreate and manage a wanted meaning and how the employees perceive these investments. Method The empirical data was collected through interviews and ethnographical observations at Volvo IT in Lyon. This study takes on an explorative inception by looking at if a company putting lots of effort into their organizational culture actually manages to deliver the same meanings throughout the organizational levels. Additional methods used include field notes, photography and participant observation. Results Organizational culture is both a structure and a process. It is needed to provide a structure of how to make sense of reality for every employee but is not only shaped by management. It is a process, which is always under constant change and must accept diverse meanings and hence there must be space for diverse meanings in the shared ones resulting in a recognizing instead of a blaming culture. Symbolic aspects, such as symbols, rites, slogans and stories, will increase the cultural understanding between management and employees but they should be so invisible that they become visible in daily behavior. Keywords Volvo IT, Organizational culture, meaning, symbolism, management, employees
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-70961 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Holmdahl, Filip, Esmaeili, Pegah |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Företagsekonomi, Linköpings universitet, Företagsekonomi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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