Culture at B&O

Ethnography of 'lay ethnographers' (high reflexivity): the challenge is to "maintain a constant awareness of the differences that underlie the surface similarity in the often-identical 'experience-far' concepts used by the ethnographer and the informants" (p. 20)

Participant observation: "one of the central disciplinary 'myths' of anthropology" (p. 36)

Logical opposites: phenomenological participant vs objectivist observer

Hermeneutical circle (Geertz): oscillation between part (experience-near) and whole (experience-distant)

Dialectical move (Bourdieu): "acknowledge the difference between the two, and the inherent distortion of lived reality that comes with distant observation"

Native reflexivity: social, technical, symbolic

Problem: "the experience and organizational life of the employees are radically reflexive and theorized" (p. 39)

Difficult distinction between ethnographer and employees: the researcher is also a positioned actor

Culture concept as used at B&O

Something we are a part of: non-hierarchical, a 'way of life'

Something we can have: an interest, a distinction, a taste, close to the classical, elite notion of 'culture'

National culture ('consciousness of kind'): B&O as icon of Danish design and manufacturing industry - PH: 'democratise beauty' (p. 93)

Other = Japan ('consciousness of difference') - former war enemy, ruthless competitor, object of admiration and emulation

Comparison between notions of investigating culture: author's ("a process of mapping a multi-layered and sometimes contested terrain" - p. 67) vs Schein's ("a matter of disclosing a non-verbal consensus of basic assumptions" - p. 67)

Transformation of the role of 'culture projects' in B&O history

Culture project for internal integration: work better together

Value/vision projects for external communication (esp. customers): fundamental values + religious metaphors replace notion of culture

Transmitting corporate culture

Operationalizing corporate culture into policies

Playing an active role in the transformation of a 'product-focused' company into a 'value-based', 'vision-driven' one (p. 190) - close link to CEO

Centralized communication: speaking with one voice - (from Latin, religare): "to bind something together in a common expression"

Institutionalized, involves a hierarchy of priests

Made explicit in scripture: values, visions, mission statements

Importance of belief: requires no socialization, only conversion

"Easily communicated and transmitted by the gifted preacher"

Dogma cannot be openly challenged without compromising membership and position as 'believer'

Out of step with plain, unaffected culture of West Jutland

'Priest' and 'scripture' not well known in company

Abstract principles, impractical

Created by outsiders

Break with prior elements of B&O culture, e.g. 7 CIC, importance of product and design

Active player

Symbol meant to project and EMBODY corporate success

Root metaphor of the BODY: "mens sana in corpore sano", Olympic sports, 'slimming', 'fitness instructor', 'breakpoint'... LOVE/SEDUCTION

Ideal of the 'self-managing employee'

Replace the product: what is actually being sold - "a manufacturer of meaning, a merchant of messages rather than a producer of products" (p. 163)

Manager as spiritual shepherd

Individually embraced, not socially imposed

Ennoble the material + make the moral strategically significant

Non-member

Personifies corporate values and cultural stability