Upplevelser av företagskulturella artefakter - Ett medarbetarperspektiv

Abstract

Corporations today use various resources to compete and gain advantages between one another. One of the resources that have a strong effect on a corporation and its ability to be competitive is organizational culture, as it constitutes norms and organizational guidelines of how to behave, talk and work among others. One way of influencing the development and maintenance of an organizational culture is by artifacts. Earlier studies have shown that the use of artifacts is a common tool in corporations to evoke certain behavior, however the perception of artifacts and their use from an employee’s point of view remain less researched. This paper seeks to examine the usage of artifacts and analyze the employee perception of them in a corporate context. To do so, an anonymous company in the Gothenburg region agreed to participate. To further investigate the perception of artifacts from an employee’s point of view, a one-day observation was conducted at the company. In addition to this, a total of ten interviews were conducted together with employees with a nonmanagerial position in the company. The purpose of the interviews was to gain a deeper understanding of the perception and experience of artifacts and the use of them. By and large, the study showed that perceptions and experience of organizational artifacts varies among various employees. Furthermore, it showed that the artifacts may evoke varied meanings from employee to employee, but also that the meanings of the same artifact may vary for a single employee as well. Even though the artifact stays the same, the experience and perception of it can change rather fast, and is a result of the situational context for each employee when exposed to an artifact. As a result of the individual situation, the same artifacts can be perceived as both motivating and demotivating. Conclusively, the study also showed that an extensive use of artifacts seems to be a thought-out strategy from the company, as it seems to increase the chance for an employee to find positive associations with organizational artifacts. Thus, using many artifacts as opposed to less artifacts gives an employee a wider spectrum to choose from, whereas the chance of finding positive associations to any artifacts correlates with the number of artifacts used by the company.