Significance of Artifacts in Organizational Culture

Question: Write an essay on "Significance of Artifacts in Organizational Culture". Answer: 1.0 Introduction Artifacts are symbols or other physical objects used by a business organization that depict the company statement, values or even cultural background associated with the organization. These artifacts are cleverly created with the apparent sight of only logo but containing the companys cultural background that is revealed if studied closely (Rafaeli and Pratt 2013). In this essay, significance of artifacts for getting an insight into the companys culture and analysis of reputed companies using artifacts have been discussed. 2.0 Significance of Artifacts in Organizational Culture 2.1 Artifacts An artifact is a physical object or symbol that represents a company or a business organization. From the creation of these artifacts, people thought they are simple representations of the companys name or its functions (Carlile and Langley 2013). However, with growing number of research activities, researchers have found that these artifacts actually have a lot more meanings and can give a user a good insight on the cultural background of the company. 2.2 Example 1: Amazon.com Let the case of Amazon.com, a popular ecommerce website be taken. The company logo shows a hidden smiling face along with the name (Rothaermel 2015). This face depicts the culture of the company. Amazons main culture is based on making clients happy with their service and they show this particular culture in their logo. Figure 1: Amazon Logo with a Hidden Smiley Face (Source: Digital Synopsis 2016) 2.3 Example 2: Melbourne Food and Wine Festival This is festival conducted throughout the world by a business organization named Food Wine Festival. Their cultural background is based on providing food and wine to the guests during the hosted festival according to the local cultures. Their logo (artifact) shows a pictogram of a wine bottle that is also an inverted fork (Hogan and Coote 2014). The space between the fork blades also depict three people standing. This logo depicts everything about the business of the company. Figure 2: Logo of Melbourne Food Wine Festival (Source: Digital Synopsis 2016) 2.4 Analysis and Insight From the two examples, it is evident that the business organizations create the artifacts by keeping in mind a number of factors (Mullarkey, Hevner and Collins 2013). The artifact must be unique and represent the company. The artifact must contain the background of the company (services). The artifact should represent the services of the company in a pictographic form with a hidden layout that can be depicted only if studied closely. The pictograph also represents the cultural background of the company. The cultural aspect represents services, objectives, cultural following and other aspects related to the business of the company. The significance of artifacts of a business organization is massive and affects the business of the organization. Not only people show more interest in the company but also they create a distinct identity from the similar companies (Schneider, Ehrhart and Macey 2013). The artifacts also attract more customers as they can have clear cultural insight of the company and can be sure that the particular company is the best option for business. Hence, the artifacts are not only representations of companies but also are important aspects of business that allows the company to gain more popularity and build a distinct identity in the market. 3.0 Conclusion From the essay, it is evident that the artifacts of the business organizations are not merely simple symbols or representations of the company names; rather they are proofs of company culture, business and other factors. They give a user an insight about the companys cultural background if studied closely. Many reputed organizations create their artifacts with a lot of hidden meanings that can be explored for getting an insight about the company. References Carlile, P.R. and Langley, A. eds., 2013.How matter matters: Objects, artifacts, and materiality in organization studies(Vol. 3). Oxford University Press. Hogan, S.J. and Coote, L.V., 2014. Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein's model.Journal of Business Research,67(8), pp.1609-1621. Mullarkey, M.T., Hevner, A. and Collins, R., 2013. Inter-Organizational Social Networks: An Action Design Research Study. InProceedings of SIGPRAG Workshop, Milan(pp. 1-11). Rafaeli, A. and Pratt, M.G., 2013.Artifacts and organizations: Beyond mere symbolism. Psychology Press. Rothaermel, F.T., 2015.Strategic management. McGraw-Hill. Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M.G. and Macey, W.H., 2013. Organizational climate and culture.Annual review of psychology,64, pp.361-388.