Culture, Charisma, and the CEO: An Essay on the Meaning of High Office

Abstract

The collective attribution of meaning to offices of authority and the constraints this attribution imposes on the. individuals who occupy these offices is little understood in the study of bureaucratic organization. In this essay, the relationship between the CEO and the vice-presidents in a Bell Telephone operating company is analyzed with regard to this phenomenon. An interpretive concept of culture is employed to gain access to the locally constructed system of symbols that these managers used to guide their behavior. The concept of institutional charisma is utilized to bring into focus the part of the cultural system that was used to attribute meaning to relationships of authority. My approach is contrasted with the management as symbolic action approach and the historical-interpretive approach to the study of culture in organizations. The former is found to be based on a false dichotomy between expressive and substantive levels of reality which limits its range of applicability. The latter is found to rely too heavily on the factor of change and to overlook what Weber called the "eternal yesterday" in human behavior.