Our chapter on organizational communication this week defines the good as the dwelling place. The dwelling place is "a gathering of communicative practices and stories that gives an organization a sense of uniqueness, supporting a specified organization from others within the same industry" (Arnett et al 2009, p. 138). When I read this definition and started reflecting on what organizational uniqueness constituted, one of the differentiating factors that I came up with was corporate culture versus franchise culture or small business culture. In my work experience, whether you work for a corporate company, a franchise or a small business can have a big effect on the way that you and your co-workers go about your work and how you interact with each other.
For example, working for a corporate company can often mean that you work for a company that is physically larger and has more employees, which often means that you experience less face-to-face time with your boss or supervisor than if you worked for a smaller company. Less face-to-face time with your boss or supervisor would definitely impact how you experience the workplace dwelling because it would alter your communicative practice with your manager and inform the story that you tell about your experiences at work. Your experiences are unique to you, and their contribution to the company's narrative would help to differentiate it from other companies in the same industry.
Company ownership effects a lot of other factors that impact the dwelling place good of an organization. For example, how many days a week the company is open, how much importance is placed on building maintenance and cleanliness, what sorts of benefits and wages the company pays, etc. All of these factors impact an organization's dwelling place good.
Based on your experiences, how does the size of an organization and/or the ownership of an organization inform the culture of that company and how you feel working there?
That is a very intriguing example of comparing the work place of a large corporation and a smaller franchise. Often times it seems that the larger companies aren't as concerned about the well-being of their employees, especially in comparison to smaller franchises. I also think it is interesting to look at how the good differ between the different sized companies. In my own experience, the larger companies may communicate to their audience that their good is the community and their customers, but usually it's simply profits. On the other hand, I have encountered many smaller franchises that go out of their way to help out and potentially lose some revenue to help out, something you rarely ever see a large corporate company do.
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