Verbal Practice and Processes of Topics in Organizational Behavior and Theory: The Case of a Restaurant’s Staff Meeting

Hamid Akbari, Northeastern Illinois University, H-Akbari@neiu.edu

Abstract

An exploratory interpretative study was conducted to identify the actual verbal processes associated with topics in organizational behavior and theory. A tape of an actual staff meeting of a restaurant was transcribed. The transcription was discourse analyzed by two researchers. The results indicated that the meeting’s talk included the topics and processes of structuring, culture creating, leading, exerting power, and controlling. These topics and processes are described, and the implications of this study for management practice and education are discussed.

The exploratory study reported in this article was conducted in order to identify the verbal practices and processes associated with topics in organizational behavior (OB) and Organization Theory (OT).  This study interpreted and analyzed talk at a staff meeting of a small restaurant. There were two primary reasons for undertaking this study. First, there is a dearth of process description of various OB/OT topics in the field (Sullivan, 1988; Weick, 1979, 1990, 2001). Second, there is a significant and persistent concern and belief expressed in the field that the findings and theories of OB/OT are not relevant enough to what practitioners do, or are confronted with in organizations (Bennis, 1987; Mintzberg, 2004; Peters, 2002; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Thomas & Tymon, 1982; Weick, 1990). 

The lack of emphasis on processes of topics in OB/OT has been originally noted by Weick (1979). Weick’s essential observation is that the majority of the dominant theories and models in OB view organizations as static and passive entities, while organizations are dynamic and interactive and construct their own social reality. As it can be seen in any standard OB/OT textbook (e.g., Luthans, 2002), his observation still holds. 

In a later study, Weick (1990) once again echoes his concern: “You consultants do know things that the rest of us do not, but should.  Consider process, for example. Sandelands and Drazin (1989) have made the important argument that the key problem in organizational theory today is that it is a victim of ‘achievement verbs,’ such as ‘select’ (which dominates pop ecology) and ‘choice’ (which dominates almost everything else).  These verbs provide the illusion of process sensitivity, whereas in fact they describe outcomes. The statement ‘the organization chose its niche’ says nothing about what the organization actually did on a “moment by moment” basis yet may sound as if it does. Because you consultants live in a world of process, you are in the best possible position to spot achievement verbs and replace them with ‘task verbs’.”   

Thus, in order to gain insight into the working of organizations, researchers should engage in learning about and showing the actual processes involved with the “verb” form of these topics (e.g., motivating vs. motivation; leading vs. leadership; exerting power vs. power; structuring vs. structure, etc.), and not just define the properties of OB and OT topics. For example, it is more important to know about motivating than about motivation, as the knowledge of motivation tells us about its components and outcomes; whereas the knowledge of motivating tells us about how does one engage in an actual “moment by moment” motivating of organizational members. Evidence from OB textbooks illuminates the point further. 

While most OB textbooks define and describe central topics sufficiently (e.g., motivation, structure), they generally fail to show the process of using these topics in practice.  For example, based on a textbook’s presentation of House’s (1971) path-goal theory of leadership, a reader learns that one is supposed to diagnose the situation and then choose an appropriate style accordingly.  Yet one would not know how to practically carry out the task of leading itself after choosing a style. In general, as a reflection of the underlying knowledge generated and promoted by the scholarly field of OB, the textbooks present the properties of OB topics in detail, but are short on presenting the processes of these topics in practice. 

Meanwhile, one may argue that some textbooks are more practice-oriented in the sense of presenting a large number of real life examples (e.g., close-ups from periodicals such as Business Week). In fact, in a textbook profuse with examples, a student can see an OB/OT topic practiced by real managers in real situations. However, those do not show how the topics unfold in practice and what their processes are. For example, let’s consider the presentation of Lou Gerstner’s (2002) method of De-Codification at IBM as an example of Restructuring and Culture Change in practice. Such presentation does not demonstrate how the actual actions for this restructuring and cultural change took place at IBM. As a result, the student gathers that Gerstner engaged in restructuring or culture change, but does not learn or will not know how one should go about practicing it in live action. Thus, it is argued and shown here that emphasis given to processes vs. static states of the topics should make them more relevant to managerial practice. 

Process emphasis should increase the relevancy of organizational knowledge to the practice of management. Indeed, an increasing number of scholars have been calling on researchers to make their theories more relevant to the real world practices of organizational members (Bennis, 1987; Cummings, 1978). Cummings (1978) warns researchers that unless they make their theories able to affect performance, they jeopardize the survival of the field. Bennis (1987) notes that the field has been unable to generate applied knowledge because of its lack of understanding of the actual and relevant practices of the practitioners in organizations due to its preference for detached study of organizations (e.g., laboratory studies), which results in low interaction between the researchers and the practitioners.  More recently, Peters (2002) notes: “If there’s one thing that’s damn sure, it’s that the real world of business, particularly in today’s environment, isn’t about theory.”  Furthermore, in a widely cited article, Pfeffer and Fong (2002) write: “… a large body of evidence suggests that the curriculum taught in business schools has only a small relationship to what is important for succeeding in business.  Porter and McKibbin (1993: 65) noted that many critics felt that quantitatively based analytical techniques received too much attention, while there was too little attention given to leadership and interpersonal skills, and too little emphasis on communication skills.  Not surprisingly, a survey conducted in 1982, by the Graduate Management Admissions Council came to the same conclusions regarding “perceived weaknesses in personal skills (Jenkins & Reizenstein, 1984:21).  Mintzberg and Gosling (2002) noted that “contemporary business education focuses on the functions of business more than the practice of managing (p.28).”

The Study: Setting, Data and Research Method

To address the above issues and concerns, a study of talk at a restaurant’s staff meeting was undertaken with the purpose of exploring the verbal practices and processes of topics in OB/OT. The choice of talk as the verbal practice is justifiable since an important social practice performed by any social actor, including those in organizations, is talking and conversing (e.g., Boden, 1994; Daft & Wiginton, 1979; Gephart, 1978; Gronn, 1983; Pondy, 1986).  It is both common sense and a formal observation that organizations consist of members at conversation with each other (e.g., Barge and Oliver, 2003; Ford, 1999; Ford & Ford, 1995). Barely (1983) refers to organizations as “speech communities”, and Mintzberg (1973) observes that verbal communication is the most frequently observed managerial practice.

The data for the study consisted of a transcript of thirty eight pages (one hour) of talk from an actual restaurant’s staff meeting. The meeting was taped by the author who was a participant himself with the informed consent of the participants. The meeting was at a small family-type restaurant, serving traditional American dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. At the time of the meeting, the restaurant was employing about 12 full-time and part-time employees. There were 10 employees present in the meeting.  The tape of the meeting was transcribed and was later listened to by two researchers, the author and a research associate, for the purpose of this study. A sample of the transcript appears in Exhibit 1.

The basic mode of this exploratory investigation was the researchers’ interpretation of the meeting’s talk from the transcript. Generally this technique is referred to as Discourse or Conversational Analysis, and it is essentially based on the ethnomethodological and everyday life paradigm belief (Antaki, 1988; Burrell & Morgan, 1979; Garfinkel, 1967; Leiter, 1980; Linstead, 2006). The validity and relevance of interpretation and discourse analysis have been discussed elsewhere (Antaki, 1988; Morgan, 1983).

Each of the two researchers – this author and a graduate research associate - separately listened to the tape, read over the transcript turn line by line, and then engaged in interpreting the existence of OB and OT topics in the meeting’s talk in each speaker’s turn. Transcript turn refers to the distinct talk that begins by a speaker and is either completed by that speaker, or is interrupted by another speaker.   Resumption of an interrupted talk constitutes the beginning of a new turn. Thus a turn may certainly include more than one sentence. As the researchers interpreted the existence of an OB/OT topic in a transcript turn, they were expected to explain the evidence for the topic in writing. Once done with their separate interpretations, the two researchers held several long sessions together in which they compared their interpretations and writings.  From these sessions, they generated the study’s findings that were sensible to both of them. Westley and Mintzberg (1988) use a similar interpretative (content analysis) method and procedure for their study of charismatic leadership.  Exhibit 2 details the plan, procedure and steps of the study reported here.

Two notes should be made. First, while both of the researchers were familiar with the formal topics presented in Exhibit 2, they were asked to interpret the existence of a topic as they sensed it in the transcription. However, it is reasonable to assume that their interpretations were influenced by their formal knowledge of the topics. Second, the two researchers understood that they were expected to make their own interpretations of the meeting’s talk.  Neither claimed they were able to make interpretations for the meeting participants.  

Results 

Results of two authors’ interpretive analyses indicated that most of the meeting involved talk about structuring the work (see Exhibit 3). That is, the meeting participants, and especially the manager, were primarily engaged in verbal actions aimed at giving form to the restaurant’s structure. In terms of common frequency of occurrence across the two researchers, other OB/OT topics were also interpreted to exist for six or more times throughout the transcript. Table 1 shows the frequency of interpreting the existence of different OB/OT topics in the transcript by both of the two researchers.   

Based on these interpretations, researchers noticed that for most of the topics they were able to discern a number of verbal practices and processes. Some of the practices were characterized by certain words, expressions and comments.  Others were identified as the processes that were codified by researchers as a distinct type of verbal action or a sequence of verbal actions. The processes of verbal actions for each topic is presented and discussed below.

TABLE 1

Giving Form and Structure

Most of the talk in the meeting was an attempt to give form and structure to the operational behavior of restaurant members. Exhibit 4 shows a select sample of talk representing the verbal practice of this topic in the restaurant’s meeting. When giving form and structure, the speaker’s tone was authoritative, the language was characterized by “do” and “don’t” statements, routines were suggested, and performance expectations were presented. The process of verbal practice of giving form and structure was interpreted to consist of a combination of one (the first) or more of the following verbal actions: a) stating an operational routine to be followed by the employees; b) reasoning for the stated routine; c) receiving support for the stated routine from other meeting’s participants; d) uttering extraordinary statements, phrases and/or words, for establishing the stated routine. 

For example, the process of giving form and structure contained in 4.1 and 4.7 in Exhibit 4 consists of verbal action (a) only. The remaining verbal practices presented in Exhibit 4 consist of, at minimum, actions (a) and (b) above. Manifestation of action (d) takes place in verbal practices 4.3 and 4.5. In 4.3, the speaker reasons why floor waiting people should use table numbers on their tickets, and in order to illustrate the importance of enforcing this stated routine, he utters an extraordinary phrase by saying: “[The] customer is crying and wants to have his/her lunch”. By this, he means, that if tickets have table numbers, the waiting staff can take the food to the designated table number when the food is ready on the kitchen counter.  The speaker, then, receives support through verbal action (c) from another speaker with regard to the stated routine. In 4.5, the speaker utters the extraordinary phrase (in a sarcastic manner) by saying: “please, if your watch needs to be repaired, do that, and repair it.”  Here, the speaker means that you should perform your task on time and not delay it.

Culture and Counter-Culture Talk 

After the first half of the meeting, it was observed and interpreted that the restaurant manager initiated a series of talk aimed at creating a “friendship” culture in the restaurant. Creation of the friendship culture was subsequently challenged by some other participants in the meeting (e.g., kitchen personnel). Exhibit 5 shows the verbal practice of creating culture and counter-culture talk in the meeting.  The tone of culture creating talk was normative.  The process of culture creating talk was primarily characterized by one or more of the following verbal actions:  a) the speaker (i.e., the sponsor of the cultural theme) presenting the cultural value to be held by restaurant staff (i.e., friendship, see 5.1); b) the sponsor repeatedly stating the cultural value (i.e., friendship); c) others expressing and reflecting their belief in the cultural norm voluntarily (see 5.2); d) some members presenting opposing beliefs to the cultural norm, i.e., counter-culture (see 5.3); e) the sponsor reasoning why the adoption of the cultural norm would help the well-functioning of organization’s operation (see 5.4); f) the sponsor of the cultural value soliciting others’ support for the stated cultural value (see 5.5). Later, in the section on power exerting, it will be shown how the manager exerts power to solicit public acceptance of the cultural norms from dissident members. 

Leading  

There were several occasions in the meeting that were interpreted to contain leading. All of these occasions were observed when there was uncertainty regarding what to do with the problem of interpersonal conflicts. It was interpreted, then, that the head chef (a woman) engaged in leading as she attempted to lead people by defining the problem situation for the meeting’s participants and then proposing a solution. Thus, the process of leading was interpreted to be leading one from a position of uncertainty to a position of certainty in problem situations (see Exhibit 6). 

As Exhibit 6 shows, the leading talk was characterized by the use of special nouns, and metaphors (e.g., “utopia”, “heaven”, “adults”). Verbal actions involved were: a) defining the situation by using extraordinary nouns and adjectives (6.1, 6.2); b) stating clear beliefs and views about the situation (6.1: “we are all people and not machines”); c) making instructional remarks (e.g., 6.3: “we are all [to be considered] responsible here,” “swallow your pride”); d) stating a definitive solution to the problem situation at hand (6.1: “In order to alleviate some of the personality clashes, if you have problems with each other and you don’t want to talk about it, then, don’t. Keep your mouth shut. I believe that”). 

Motivating 

Exhibit 7 shows three examples of the motivating talk from the meeting. The verbal practice of motivating was characterized by words of encouragement and “do or else” statements. The process of motivating was comprised of the following verbal actions: a) appealing to or encouraging the restaurant employees to perform in a certain manner or to perform certain actions; b) appealing was preceded or succeeded by reasoning, receiving support from others, giving examples, and letting the employees know about the past mistake.  

In example 7.1, the manager is appealing to the employees to write their orders as clear as possible by saying: “It is for your own sake (to do so)”. In 7.2, a waitress offers her personal willingness to help, which was interpreted as encouraging (motivating) others to cooperate (i.e., sets a positive example). In 7.3, the manager is encouraging employees to do their jobs well and reasons that otherwise, the business goes down , and you the employees would lose their jobs (i.e., do or else statement). 

Verbalizing Conflict, Exerting Power, and Controlling  

The verbal practices of conflict and exerting power and control were primarily characterized by a speaker indicating what he/she does not like. Exhibit 8 shows examples of verbal practices of conflict, exerting power and controlling. The meeting’s participants engaged in conflict-ridden talk once there was an issue (e.g., gossiping and openness, see 8.1) about which they did not share the same view. Once such an issue was raised, the speaker would manifest interpersonal conflict by expressing a feeling of dislike of a particular practice in the restaurant, e.g., “I don’t enjoy coming to work and hearing something about me…” Thus, this example was interpreted to show the existence of an interpersonal conflict in the restaurant. 

Exerting power and control was interpreted to exist when the restaurant’s manager expressed what he expects, prefers, and demands from others. Controlling was more apparent when the speaker determined the limits of one’s role/actions, or when he said, who may or may not perform certain tasks (see 8.3 in Exhibit 8).  Example 8.4 shows a clear occasion of intra-meeting conflict emerging between the manager and one of the cooks, and how the manager exerts control over the cook by saying what he likes and expects from his employees. Since there was only one occasion of decision making interpreted to exist, and given its absolute minimal observation, it will not be discussed here.   

Discussion 

The results of this exploratory study show that the topics in OB and OT can be captured in the verbal practices of organizational members. According to the two researchers’ interpretations, the meeting participants, through talk, engaged in structuring, motivating, leading, creating culture and counter-culture, creating or resolving conflict, controlling and exerting power. The results are interesting and relevant for two interrelated reasons: first, the OB and OT topics were interpreted to exist in verbal actions of the meeting speakers, and second, the flow and processes of these topics were identified and/or characterized. A closer look at both follows. 

OB/OT Topics 

The dominance of structuring talk over other topics, at least in this meeting, is a reminder of Mintzberg’s (1979) claim that structure is the center of almost everything we do in organizations. In relation to formal - or textbook - theories of organizations (Pugh, 1981; Weber, 1947), the talk was primarily about structuring the dimensions of standardization, specialization, coordination and hierarchy (see Exhibits 3 and 4). It can be proposed here that it is through these processes that the dimensions of structure become salient in the minds of organizational members.  The process of structuring talk was more straightforward than some other topics, such as culture and leadership. 

In cultural verbal practices, the speakers were creating culture by referring to what the restaurant and its employees “are.” “We are friends” was a main theme, which was introduced and pursued. This is clearly in line with the previous theorizing about organizational culture as “what organizations are” (Smircich, 1983a, 1983b) vs. “what organizations do, or have” (Kennedy & Deal, 1982). Indeed, a closer look at the structuring vs. culture creating talk shows that the former is primarily of “doing” or “not doing” nature, and the latter is primarily of “being” or “not being” nature. 

Leading and motivating were not observed as frequently as structuring and culture creating. When observed, leading seemed to be more congruent with the notion of leadership as communication of meaning and vision (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Pondy & Mitroff, 1979; Smircich & Morgan, 1982; Northouse, 2004), than with situational and path-goal theories (Fiedler, 1967; House, 1971; Northouse, 2004). Thus the latter theories cannot be used to explain the leadership as observed in this particular meeting. Unlike most of the structuring, both leading and creating counter-culture were initiated by sponsors other than the manager. Following French and Raven (1959), it can be argued that the restaurant’s manager relied on legitimate source of power in structuring, whereas the sponsors of counter-culture and leading relied on other sources of power such as referent, and expert power. 

Motivating occasions (see Exhibit 7) do not explicitly render themselves to an explanation by the existing theories of motivation. Reinforcement theories, though, may be used to explain the occasions of motivating by “do or else” statements (see 7.3) as a form of negative reinforcement. Generally motivating seemed to attempt to provide the answer to “why” employees should follow a certain procedure or routine (see 7.1). The occasions of exerting power and engaging in interpersonal conflict were observed to have a common quality:  sponsors of both were very straightforward about their preferences, i.e., what they like or don’t like, and what they expect to see happening. 

Verbal Action Processes for Delivering Topics  

With regard to verbal actions, they were typically presented in the “ing” form, e.g., stating, initiating, presenting. This is in line with Weick’s (1979) organizing principle. Some of the other verbal actions, such as “sponsor repeating a cultural value” in culture creation, are also supported by the literature (e.g., Peters & Waterman, 1982). In general, while some of the verbal actions, such as “stating an operational routine” in structuring talk, are fundamentally clear and simple, some other actions, such as “reasoning for the stated routine” may need further description and refinement in future studies, (i.e., it may be necessary to study the process of “reasoning” itself.) 

Those processes of verbal actions that involve uttering extraordinary or sensational words, expressions or statements, such as “utopia”, or “customer is crying” are of particular significance in this study. These extraordinary expressions, words, or metaphors were interpreted to be relevant as the qualifiers and/or highlighters for the central issue of the talk, e.g., structure, or motivation. For example, the qualifier “customer is crying” is highlighting the importance of serving the customer’s food promptly once it gets ready.   It can be argued that as the waitress finds out that the dish is put on the kitchen counter and is ready to go to the customer, she would immediately attach a meaning to that dish, such as taking it to the customer immediately or face “a crying customer!”  Thus, individuals through words and language attach meaning to the situations (Silverman, 1971) and engage in the construction of social realities (Berger & Luckman, 1966; Watzlawick, 1984; Searle, 1995). 

Limitations of the Study and its Practical Implications 

The main goal of the study was the discovery of verbal processes of OB/OT topics based solely on the interpretations of the two researchers. This study, however, did not check on the effectiveness of these proposed verbal processes.  In future studies, the effectiveness may be checked by asking both the interpreters and the participants, whether the verbal practices were indeed effective.  

No claim of generalization of the findings is made here. Indeed, the phenomenological and ethnomethodological studies do not prescribe, nor subscribe to, the notion of generalizable findings (e.g., Garfinkel, 1967; Fox, 2006; Linstead, 2006). Rather, the major goal of ethnomethodological studies is to make the practitioners aware of the processes that they go through on “moment by moment” basis for accomplishing their tasks and lives. Leiter (1980) writes: “Indeed, ethnomethodology goes back to examine how the social reality is created…Ethnomethodology examines social interaction. It examines social interaction at two levels: how people understand each other and how social interaction is constructed.”  

There are a significant number of similar studies that would lend support to the methodology and the findings of this study (e.g., Boden, 1994; Samra-Fredericks, 2004a, 2004b; Yeung, 2004).  Clifton (2006) uses conversational analysis in analyzing leadership talk based on the transcript of a tape-recorded staff meeting of “a small, specialist cabinetmaking and joinery company.”  He concludes: “this article has demonstrated how participants in a business meeting do leadership.  From an emic perspective, the participants at the meeting are describing the state of affairs of the company, but they are doing more than that.  CA’s [conversational analysis] emphasis on the local in situ construction of meaning means that describing what is going on can be seen as a sensemaking process through which reality [of leadership] is constructed.” 

One main implication of the findings of the present study is to enable a practitioner to develop self-awareness by observing his/her own verbal processes and practices, questioning their effectiveness, and modifying those practices and processes accordingly.  Moreover, a study such as this can provide numerous examples of actual verbal practices and processes for the students and practitioners of organization management.  

The discovery of such a process as the one used for structuring this restaurant, can provide the OB/OT students and practitioners with a perspective on how managers actually go about structuring employees in the workplace. A student or a manager may be taught to implement the following verbal actions’ process sequence for structuring: a) mention an issue; b) define the situation; and c) use extraordinary language. Given a process such as this, the students can then practice it verbally during the class sessions.  To illustrate this, the example of Starbucks’ Howard Schulz may be useful. 

To structure operational routines at Starbucks stores, Schultz (Nocera, 2007) may state the following in a meeting: a) As we are expanding the number of stores (from 6 in 1987 to 13000 in 2007), we are losing our original way of being the “third place” – other than home and work - for a unique “coffee experience.” b) As I see it, there’s a “loss of aroma because the baristas no longer scooped fresh coffee beans from bins and ground them in front of customers.”  This “streamlining the company’s store designs had caused them to lose ‘the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store.” c) Our beloved “Starbucks experience was becoming commoditized.”  I urge you all “the executive team [members,] to go back to the core.”  

The implications of the research method of this study are also important. Indeed, the research method of this study, i.e., interpretation of what one and others say, is no different from how people in society and organizations do react to what they see, hear, or feel in general. One important characteristic of people is their ongoing and ever present capacity and natural tendency to interpret what they hear, see or feel. Thus, any managerial practice is going to be validated - for example being motivational or not - based on the respective interpretations that it triggers in its audience.  

It should be underscored again that this study does not claim to be interpreting for the participants in the meeting. Rather, the researchers were interpreting for themselves. In simple terms, this study implies that managers and other organizational members should take extra care in choosing an appropriate language and verbal practice as they engage in managerial acts.  In more significant terms, this study, supported by a growing number of research and evidence (e.g., Cooren, 2006) argues that organizations are socially constructed phenomenon which can be best captured and studied via verbal practices of its members.   

Acknowledgements 

Author wishes to thank three anonymous reviewers of the journal and Professors Amy Hietapelto, Durward Hofler, and  Constantine Loucopoulos for their helpful comments on this article.  I also wish to thank Lisa Schram, my research associate for her collaboration on this study, and Ms. Lynn Payer for proof reading a final draft of this article.   

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