Ram and Collins.

Draft Abstract for Critical Management Studies Conference

Organisational Culture in Entrepreneurial organisations: new forms of

employment relationships

Lorna Collins, Leicester Business School,

De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH
Email: lacollins@dmu.ac.uk

Monder Ram, Leicester Business School,

De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH
Email: mrcor@dmu.ac.uk

Abstract

Entrepreneurship, a term that defies easy precision, carries the promise of new
forms of employment relationships in tandem with its more common association
with new venture creation. Surprisingly, critical scrutiny of the dynamics of such
relationships is rare. Extant literature on employment relations in small firms
rarely ventures beyond the confine of 'low-skill' enterprises (see Scase, 1995 for
review). Contemporary interest in 'knowledge workers' has tended to focus on
their emergence rather than their organization with entrepreneurial settings. And
although the notion of 'entrepreneurial culture' is often used, its meaning in
relation to the management of people is far from clear. This paper aims to
contribute to these debates by presenting the results of a two-year long
ethnography examining the organisational culture within an avowedly
entrepreneurial firm. Three particular issues are discussed. First, the importance
of history in shaping organisational culture and relationships within the
entrepreneurial firm. A second issue for investigation is the organisation of
entrepreneurial behaviours, focusing in particular on the role that culture plays i n
harnessing the activities of key employees. Finally, the tensions inherent in
managing within an entrepreneurial culture are examined.

The ethnography was conducted in a single entrepreneurial organisation over a

period of two and a half years. The small printing firm, Checkprint Ltd. is
considered to be entrepreneurial by other actors in the industry sector and this
perception is supported by evidence gathered as part of the study.

Participant observation was conducted in the organisation full-time for a total of

18 weeks. During this time 50 semi-structured interviews, lasting between 1 and
2 hours, were conducted with employees. These were supplemented by

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Ram and Collins. Draft Abstract for Critical Management Studies Conference

attendance at most functional unit meetings, management team meetings and

weekly company-wide meetings. Company documents, the company business
plan, internal memos, minutes of meetings, contract tenders, company
newsletters and policy documents were also scrutinised.

Adopting a reflexive ethnographic study, and what is a ‘second-order’ social

constructionist approach, was made in order to acknowledge the involvement
and role of the researcher as part of the inquiry. Reflexive ethnographers use
their own experiences in a culture ‘reflexively to bend back on self and look more
deeply at self-other interactions’ (Ellis and Bochner, 2000, p.740). ‘Second-
order’ theorizing renders all forms of organisational research and theorising as
the activity of ‘telling ourselves a story about ourselves’ (Steier, 1991: 3) and thus
represent what are deemed to be ‘intelligible narratives’ rather than systematic
attempts at making ‘transcendental truth claims’ (Grant and Oswick, 1996:133).
Broadly speaking we have taken the view of research as relationship and
therefore must acknowledge, as other writers (Parker, 2000) have, that neither
the respondents’ nor our own interpretative strategies are value -free or
unprejudiced.

For the purpose of understanding the nature of employment relationships, and to

complement the exploratory nature of the study, an interpretative perspective of
culture was adopted; that is, that the organisation is a culture and that
organisational culture is a process that is locally produced by people but that it
can also be usefully talked about as a material manifestation with particular
effects on people (Parker, 2000).

Connolly (1998) suggests that detailed description can ‘uncover the meaning’
people ‘attach’ to their own and others’ behaviour, and thereby ‘begin to unravel
the causes of an individual’s or a group’s behaviour’ (p.124). The primary goal
therefore of this ethnography is to discover the causal relationships operating in
the case studied, rather than to test whether these relationships occur elsewhere
(Connolly, 1998).

In this paper we explore the importance of history in shaping organisational

culture and relationships within the entrepreneurial firm. Key themes that will be
explored will be (Checkprint) organisational history and its effects on the social
construction of employment relationships, i.e. how employment relationships are
constructed, what they contain. Checkprint was formed in 1997 as a result of a
management buy-out of an American owned subsidiary. The American history is
examined and we consider how this cultural heritage served to shape
Checkprint’s present organisational culture and the relationships which exist in it.

A second issue for investigation is the organisation of entrepreneurial

behaviours, focusing in particular on the role that culture plays in harnessing the
activities of key employees. Checkprint is considered to be an entrepreneurial
organisation by its stakeholders and by others in the industry. In this paper we

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Ram and Collins. Draft Abstract for Critical Management Studies Conference

explore what social effects these constructions, patterns of understanding, have

on stakeholders inside and outside the organisation. In part these social
constructions must flow from our understanding of the organisation’s culture.
‘Culture can be understood as a human creation which helps human beings
avoid the dark abyss of disorder and chaos into which they might otherwise
fall…we are not left to whistle to keep our spirits up; we can talk to all those who
have gone before us by involving the principles, guidelines, norms, values and
precedents recorded on the cultural tape recorder ‘(Watson, 1994: 20-1). Or to
put it another way, to accomplish and do things and say things that make sense
(not non-sense) requires a framework of assumptions, in organisational terms, a
history. We explore the nature of the organisation’s culture itself and examine the
notions of openness, collegiality and innovation which support the
entrepreneurial ‘spirit’ within the firm and activities of key employees.

Finally, the tensions inherent in managing within an entrepreneurial culture are

examined. A key theme to be explored is what effects Checkprint’s
entrepreneurial culture has on the management of conflict within the firm.
Entrepreneurial ‘spirit’ and the effect of this on commitment to Checkprint will
also be examined.

Bibliography

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