Variations in Organizational Style
Communication in virtually any business will exhibit the common norms of the business culture,
but every organization is also unique in some respects. The new graduate must learn the general
rules of business in order to communicate effectively as a part of the business community, but it
is equally important to learn what is considered appropriate within his or her own company. No
one business organization’s culture is any “better” than another, although some business authors
have argued that the most successful companies seem to exhibit “strong” cultures in which
everyone agrees on a single, clear way to get things done (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Peters &
Waterman, 1982). Generally, decisions can be made more easily and action taken more quickly
when most of the organization’s citizens “know the rules,” even though it doesn’t seem to matter
as much what those rules are.
It is impossible to say exactly what the communication rules of a particular company will be
before spending quite a bit of time getting acquainted. The major differences among business
organizations follow cultural patterns that are found among all discourse communities, however,
and some principles of “cross-cultural” co