ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF TIME AND SPACE 167larger culture and by the key leaders. Because buildings and the environmentaround them are highly visible and relatively permanent,organizations attempt to symbolize important values andassumptions through the design. The physical layout not only hasthis symbolic function but is often used to guide and channel thebehavior of members of the organization, thereby becoming a powerfulbuilder and reinforcer of norms (Berg and Kreiner, 1990;Gagliardi, 1990; Steele, 1973, 1981).For example, DEC reinforced its values of autonomy and empowermentby being highly decentralized geographically but, at thesame time, reinforced its value of communication by employing afleet of helicopters and shuttle buses to transport people around easilyamong the decentralized units. The value of frugality was reinforcedby opting for inexpensive, unobtrusive, low-rise buildings.The interior open-office layout was designed to stimulate high levelsof communication and to symbolize efficiency and cost consciousness.In contrast, Ciba-Geigy, with its greater emphasis onwork as a private activity, enclosed areas as much as possible, wascomfortable with private dining rooms for different levels of executives,and enclosed its buildings in an almost fortress-like manner.Body LanguageOne of the more subtle uses of space is our use of gestures, bodyposition, and other physical cues to communicate our sense of whatis going on in a given situation and how we relate to the other peoplein it. On the gross level, whom we sit next to, whom we physicallyavoid, whom we touch, whom we bow to, and so on conveyour perceptions of relative status and intimacy. As sociologists haveobserved, however, there are many more subtle cues that conveyour deeper sense of what is going on and our assumptions about theright and proper way to behave in any given situation (Goffman,1967; Van Maanen, 1979b).Rituals of deference and demeanor that reinforce hierarchicalrelationship are played out in the physical and temporal positioning