There can be no discussion of cultural analysis without a discussion of human communication. That's because the members of a given culture need to share a common language in order to be able to focus on what's important for business success, and for day to day business activity. When we talk about cultural analysis, we have to focus on two key components from communication standpoint. And those are language and symbols. Let's look at the issue of language first. Studying language as part of cultural analysis involves three basic activities.

First, we have to identify the specific words, phrases or concepts that are unique to the company being studied. Next, we have to determine the reasons those terms exist from the standpoint of their purpose and function. And most importantly, we need to decipher their meaning. Analyze language in the context of cultural analysis requires that we identify the specific words and phrases acronyms that a business uses on a day to day basis, but then we need to unearth their significance, what are those terms mean? is a specific language used to communicate the way this particular organization does business? Is it to maintain an element of confidentiality.

This is our role as cultural analysts to identify specific terms and linguistic techniques using a given culture and then to unearth their meaning. It is essential to understand the underlying significance of those terms and to ask questions about how they came to be and what do they mean, and how did they define the culture in terms of its operations, or its social material and ideological artifacts, we always want to identify the connection between language and the artifacts that we have been discussing, which are used in the context of cultural analysis. Now let's turn our attention to the study of symbols that appear in a given culture. Let's look at the things we need to examine as part of the analysis of symbols. Similar to analyzing language in the context of cultural analysis, analyzing symbols involves these three activities. Number one, identifying the presence of physical symbols.

Number two, determining the reason these symbols exist, and again, most importantly, deciphering their meaning. What did these symbols say about the culture under study? Studying symbols in the context of cultural analysis is critical activity. In fact, many anthropologists believe that all cultures can be studied based on their symbols. Now, when we talk about symbols in the context of corporate culture, we're talking about the things that you can visibly see, when you look around the workspace. In the lesson on social cultural artifacts, we talked about physical manifestations of power, like the executive gym, or the You'd have lunchroom those are symbols.

Another example would be the layout of a given workspace. Is it one that's characterized by cubicle after cubicle with minimal employee interaction? Or is it an open floor plan that is designed for maximum collaboration and maximum communication between coworkers. Again, these are just two examples of the symbols that you might see when you look around to give an organization and begin to study its culture. From a symbolic standpoint. Let's sum up with three key takeaways.

Language and symbols are the essential communication components involved in studying culture. The research task involves first identifying unique patterns of language and symbols as they appear as they're used in the organization being studied. And the analytical task is unearthing the meaning of those patterns of language and those symbols and their relationship to specific social material and ideological art. artifacts. In the next lesson we go on our archeological dig, which is where we begin to actually apply the research that we've identified through our study of social material and ideological artifacts. When we begin to apply that information in the context of ongoing CULTURAL MANAGEMENT, or in special situations like mergers and acquisitions, where we hope to avoid the proverbial culture clash that can work against those types of corporate combinations and other strategic initiatives.