Phenomenological Study of Employee Perceptions of Managerial Behaviors as Personal Enactments of Organizational Culture

Using a phenomenological methodology, this research study examines the phenomenon of organizational culture through the perceptions of those who experience it. Rather than studying how organizational culture affects organizational behavior and success, the researchers focus on employee perceptions of culture as a consequence of experiences with managerial behaviors as personal enactments of culture. The notion of personal enactments is drawn from the work of Edgar Schein. Schein [1985] has identified three levels of organizational culture: artifacts, values and beliefs. Among artifacts, Schein identifies the personal enactments of organizational values by senior managers as one of the more important. The researchers derived the data describing these personal enactments from 20 volunteer subjects reporting in self-administered questionnaires their experiences with managerial behaviors. Respondent perceptions are described in their own words, conveying their understandings, feelings, emotions and behaviors. Responses are categorized into units of relevant meaning, organized into clusters of similar meaning and then into themes. From these themes the researchers draw some insights and understanding of how system actors both live and experience culture in an organizational setting.