Symbols and Artifacts

A selection of 18 papers from an international conference in Milan, June 1987, organized by the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism. Details how corporate artifacts are invested with meaning, are related to control, and can be used as cultural indicators in research. Among the topics are office design, housing modifications, computer systems, and the space shuttle. Fairly devoid of specialist jargon.

Introduction 1. Artifacts as Pathways and Remains of Organizational Life Part I: Designing Physical Settings in Organizations 2. Corporate Architecture: Turning Physical Settings into Symbolic Resources 3. Building Buildings and Living Lives: A Critique of Bureaucracy, Ideology and Concrete Artifacts 4. Housing Modifications as Organizational Communication 5. Meaning of the Workplace: Using Ideas of Ritual Space in Design 6. The Symbolics of Office Design: An Empirical Exploration 7. Designing Dynamic Artifacts: Computer Systems as Formative Contexts Part II: Disclosing Organizational Cultures Through Artifacts 8. Colors, Artifacts, and Ideologies 9. Photograph Analysis: A Method to Capture Organizational Belief Systems 10. Curing the Monster: Some Images of and Considerations About the Dragon 11. The Symbolic Value of Computerized Information Systems 12. Car Makers and Marathon Runners: In Pursuit of Culture Through the Language of Leadership Part III: Root Metaphors Embedded in Artifacts 13. The C.E.O. as Corporate Myth-Maker: Negotiating the Boundaries of Work and Play at Domino's Pizza Company 14. Artifacts in a Bureaucratic Monastery 15. The Symbol of the Space Shuttle and the Degeneration of the American Dream Part IV: Artifacts and Organizational Control 16. The Aesthetic Imperative of a Rational-Technical Machinery: A Study in Organizational Control Through the Design of Artifacts 17. Linguistic Artifacts at Service of Organizational Control 18. Failed Artifacts Part V: De-Constructing Artifacts 19. Theory as Artefact: Artefact as Theory