p

CASE 3

JoannaBrewis

This casestudy derives from qualitative researchundertaken in two uni-

versity departments,one large and well established,the other much smaller
and newer. The former broadly demonstratesthe bureaucraticprinciple of
the exclusion of personalisedrelationships, the other is a far more intimate
and close-knit environment. The aim is to illustrate different organisational
cultures and offer suggestionsas to the effect eachmight have on individu-
als and organisational processes,for example communications, co-ord-
ination of different projects and measurementof organisational effective-
ness.Intimacy here refers to relationships which revolve around reacting to
the other person as an individual rather than an organisationalposition; the
continuum of intimacy extends from casual acquaintanceshipat one end
through to close friendship and romance at the other. Typically intimacy
has been characterisedas problematic at work given the lack of objectivity
such a relationship implies; one cannot, it is argued' make viable business
decisionsconcerningpromotions for exampleif one is personally involved
with thosewho will be affected.But it is also possibleto argue that a closer,
friendlier atmosphereat work allows for a higher level of motivation and
improved communications. Recentdevelopments in managementtheory
have addressedthe use of culture to achieveimprovements like these;the
casecan thereforebe used to high1i~t suchwork.

BACKGROUND

British academiapresently facesa number of important challenges.These

include the fact that resourcesare being continually cut while studentnum-
bers at many institutions are rising, the removal of tenure (lifetime

.E
employment)for lecturers,and the introduction of quality initiatives in acad-
emic teaching.It is also the casethat direct competition for studentsbetWeen
institutions has intensified due to the old polytechniCsachieving university
statuS.The institution cited in the caseis certainly facing all of thesepres-
sures,which must be assumedto be impacting on the two departmentsused
in the study. Department A is a large, multi-site department which dates
back to the inception of the university itself. It employs 70 academicstaff.
The undergraduate course numbers approximately 600 students across3
years and there are 150postgraduates.Department B is much smaller and
.
operatesfrom a single location. It has relatively recently becomea research
and teaching centre in its own right. Department B employs 28 academic
staff, 9 researchersand has 160postgraduate students.The subjectstaught
I
and researched
The inconducted
research both departments
in theseare scientific.
two departments consisted of semi-
structured interviews, designed by the author, which focused on the
respondents' thoughts concerning the way in which members of the
department communicatedand interacted with eachother. Interviews were
conducted with individuals at all organisationallevels and with both men

and women.

THE SITUATION

Department
The culture inA this department was reported as revolving mainly around
the work ethic; respondents commented that the feeling was very much
one that the staff were here to work and any extraneouscontactbeyond the
demandsof a particular project was 'just politics' and thereforedangerous,
unnecessaryand distracting. There is no room for what was dubbed 'senti-
ment'. It is also the casethat external constraints have impacted on the
department as one man remarked, 'it's difficult to find five minutes to
have a chat about the weather any more.' This was attributed to tighter
funding and an increasing student rolL Intimacy and friendship then
would' get in the way' of the tasks at hand; the achievementof departmen-

tal Itresearch
is hardly
andsurprising, given the above findings, that very few of the
teachinggoals.
respondentsclaimed that they had closefriends at work and eventhosethat
did saidthey wereby no meansascloseas thoseoutsideof work; otherpeople
at work were more usually describedas 'colleagues','pals', 'working friends',
'very closeacquaintances' and so on. Relationshipsthat did exist tendedto be
between same-statusindividuals.. Interaction was emphasisedfor the most
part to be very professional; 'I would say this is one of the most person-
respectingsetof peopleI've comeacross','it's very civilised', 'informal but on
a profp:ssionallevel'. This was put down by some respondentsto the fact
that it was an academic institution rather i1-l&iJ..
~ Ln.d,-1sh-1al
establishment.

.
 The role of intimacy at work 45

Romancewas certainly absent from the agenda.It is felt generally that

any particularly 'inappropriate' behaviour, for examplea staff-student liai-
son, would be dealt with extremely quickly and from a high level. It was
also noted that any such arrangementswould be highly incongruous;most
respondents found it extremely hard to picture any kind of involvements
J (between members of staff or between staff and students) taking place in
the department it simply seemedalien to them, '.. . a foreign idea'. An aca-
\ demic jokingly made referenceto the David Lodge novels about academia
..
~
and wondered what kind of an institution he taught at to find so much
t romantic intrigue there.A postgraduatestudent further claimed that 'I can
categoricallysay that we don't go to the extent of romance'.
The distancebetween colleaguesis illustrated by a secretary'sanecdote
e concerning her boss,who is a professor. When he wishes to communicate
e something to someonehe will always give it to her to type up and sendas a
e formal memo; this even happenswhen it is being sent to the academicwho
(\ occupiesthe office next door to his. A similar procedureis enactedwhen he
telephonessomeone;he always requests that his secretarytelephone first
and 'announce'him as it were. Indeed this professoralso finds disciplinary
matters hard to deal with becausethey involve interpersonal communica-
tion; he will engagehis secretary to deal with these as they arise on his
behalf. Communication on the whole tends to be work-related and for-
malised. Another secretarycommented that' a lot of them round here are
not very good at communicating. . . you find as if you're working at
d
having conversations. . . talking about anything that's not to do with work
h
. . . they ~on't seemto be able to approachyou. . .'.
\e
Hierarchy is an important element in departmental culture. A female
.5,
academicobservedthat even though appointments of women to academic
:1-
positions were on the increase,those in posts had made little real impact
\e
becausethey were not in positions of power. A secretary also made the
to
point that
er
~n in a company,apart from M.D.s, managementand the rest of the staff are more
n- or lessequal, they all treat eachother the same,but academicsand non-acade-
mics arejust completely(unequal). . . the academicsare very condescendingand
I meanl'm one of the youngestmembersof staff so I'm treatedasa baby in some
he
respectswhich I don't like at all. . . they don't have much respect. . . they think a
\at
secretaryis just going to have a baby and then shegives up.
,Ie
.s', There is also little communication between the different departmental sites-
be there are four spread acrosscampus - and although one could put this down
)st to geographical distance there are ample telephone, internal mail and com-
>n- puter links to enable communication. Furthermore, while it is the case that
on contact is sought on the basis of shared work interests (members of research
lct groups tend to be familiar with each other), one respondent commented that
.t. if two laboratories were engaged in separate work they would be unlikely
It: --~--

~~i~~~: 46 Casesin Organisational Behaviour

to communicateat all even if the rooms were next to eachother on a corri-

dor. It was further noted that the lack of a communal common room made
mingling unlikely, and that at the annual Christmas dinner everyone sat
together in researchgroups and very little mixing took place.When asked
whether they thought such an event brought the department closer
together,somecommentedthat it did, but only in so far as they were gath-
ered in the sameroom! One respondentcommentedthat this departmental
function was always held on campus (which is not true of similar eventsin
other departments) and that had it not been it would perhaps have been
more relaxed;'onceyou leave X (workplace) somehowthings change'.

Impactof culture on staff

How does this culture of distance, of lack of intimacy, affect those who
work within it? The atmosphere in the department was variously charac-
terised by its members. A member of support staff said that
I feel that whatever closerelationships there are at work, whether it be father-
son, husband-wife, girlfriend-boyfriend, it does tend to cloud people's judg-
ments when they're having to make judgments about things both from their
aspectand also from the aspectof someonewho's trying to either superviseor
look after or be responsiblefor [them]. You always have that, however liberal
I I'
. ;1:
you like to feel. . . and that's my basicview of it, I would rather leaverelation-
shipsaway from work.
The feeling among some respondents then is that close involvement with
colleagues detracts from one's ability to perform at the optimum level at
I:
, work.
The lack of intimacy is also seenas positive for other reasons.Two of the
! Ir
1: women interviewed had been seriously sexually harassed,both in other
university departments.Mary's reaction was to tell her husband,who sub-
J il.,
[j !i sequentlyaccompaniedher to work to discussthe matter with her superior.
1
~ I
"
;1
Sheremarked of her former department that 'that's how it had always been
- the men acceptedit, when you worked in that office that's just the way it
was. You go into somewherewhere that isn't the way. . . there's no one
like that here (Department A) now and if someone came in like that it
would get straightenedout.'
That culture had resulted in an unpleasantand uncomfortable situation
for the junior women who worked within it; the harassingbehaviour was
certainly 'nothing personal' in that it was directed at more than one
woman. The more senior women, interestingly, had not experienced
harassmentfrom the man in question.
The other woman, Brenda,had resignedwhen the man in questionmade
it physically impossible for her to do her job. Subsequentlyshe had in fact
been offered her position back, slightly redefined in order to put a distance

~
 The role of intimacy at work 47

between her and the harasser.Brenda's harasserhad also been her senior
and again his behaviour had not been confined to her although she did
comment that she was the target of his most sustained efforts. She also
mentioned that the department in which these events occurred was
smaller, more gossipy and that intimate relationships were far more the
norm. Both she and Mary were much more comfortable with the imper-
1 sonal atmosphereof DepartmentA.
\ But there were also negative evaluations. The formal nature of depart-
1 mental culture was seen to hinder communication in such a way that
uneasytolerancecharacterisedmost working relationships.One respondent
commentedthat 'back stabbing' was rife, becausepeople were unwilling or
unable to communicate.Lack of sensitivity was imputed to the department
by another respondent (a relatively new member of staff) who saw the
:> departmentalworking environment as 'very strange. . . very competitive. .
. no tolerance whatsoever'. Indeed this respondent's dealings wjth the
department thus far had in fact taken the form of a serious disagreement
with a superior, the stressresulting from which had led to the respondent
becomingill. The lack of understanding, contact and reciprocity identified
by thesetwo respondentsin particular and many respondentsin generalis
>r seento mitigate againsteffective departmental operation first and job satis-
faction second- clearly the two are also connected.
al
n-
Department B
:h The other department studied as part of this programme was much smaller
at and altogether different. It is single-site,which is seento accountfor some
of the closeness.Lines of communication were universally described as
le clearer and less cluttered than in some of the larger departments.There is
er far less emphasis on hierarchy; a technician claimed that in other depart-
b- ments the academics' . . . tend to treat the non-academicstaff like slaves
\T- basically', but that in this one 'they muck in' for the most part.
m Here it was the presence(rather than the absence)of communicationand
it closenesswhich was identified as the glue which maintained the effective-
n.e nessof the workplace. As one respondent put it, 'it's like a family. . . you
it know families. I mean,I've got three sistersand we're always falling out. . .
but eventually it all gets back on an even keel'. She described a 'blazing
In row' she'd had with a senior academic - hierarchically very much her
as superior - the previous week, saying that it had all been 'forgiven and for-
ne gotten'. This department is very much one where the participant 'can say
ed what you feel without there being repercussions'. Another respondent
commented that disagreements which do occur are typically smoothed
de over at departmental socialeventswhich are frequent ('any opportunity for
act.. a celebrationthere is a party here'). There is also a great deal of out-of-work
'ice socialising,which does not necessarilyobservehierarchy - a secretarysaid
 48 Casesin Organisational Behaviour

that she would invite a professor to her house should she give a dinner
party and a technician described her and her husband's friendship with
another professorwho lives near to them.
The continuum of interaction in the department also extends to the
romantic. Mutual romance is frequent and accepted, even adulterous
romance. There have been several staff-student liaisons for example,
including one which resulted in divorce - when husband and wife both
worked in the deparbnent. However, it seemsthat this has actually caused
very little trouble; it was only pointed out that the academicand the stu-
dent in question were askednot to attend the Christmas party that year in
order not to disrupt the celebrations.In fact most regulation in the depart-
ment does seem to take place at this very informal level; as a senior
academic put it, 'one would hope there's not a reason to mention it'.
Relationships are tolerated and for the most part do not createproblems.
As one respondent said 'it works quite well. . . if people are professional
about it and don't let it interfere with their working life'. Two other depart-
mental members have also been married to each other and subsequently U
divorced during their careersin the department and still continue to work b
together amicably. CI
Romanceis an everyday part of working life for this particular depart- il
ment, but it is generally expected that people will regulate their
involvements themselves,and 'regulate' is the key word. One or two mem-
bers were identified as not being able to undertake this, and were
castigated for their poor handling of the situations that resulted. Those

I exampleswhich follow were referred to by severalrespondents.One indi-

vidual (who admitted flirting all year) had to fight a co-worker off at a
e departmental social event. Another had naively encouragedan academic's
attentions and had experiencedsubstantial difficulty in deterring him as a
result, and a further woman had reputedly 'come on' to various members
of the department (both men and women) to the extent that shewas practi-
I
cally physically assaulting them at work. Intimacy here then is seen to
co-existwith departmental operations,and even enhancethem, but only if
carefully controlled.
Furthermore the informality and cohesivenesswithin the department is
not always seen to be positive. Two respondents mentioned occasions
when the police arguably should have been alerted to events,but were not
called due to an unwillingness to, as one put it, 'wash the dirty linen in
public'. One incident in fact constituted a serious assault and yet was
'hushed up'. It is also possible to comment that the kind of incidents
described above - e.g. the problem experiencedat the departmental social
event - are at least partially generatedby the highly sexualisedatmosphere
of this particular working environment. One's fellow employeeis certainly
I likely to be a friend and possibly a partner, unlike in the larger deparbnent.
!t is ironic also that the intimacy within the department seemsto gener-

~
 The role of intimacy at work 49

~r ate 'bitchiriess',just as lack of communication does in Department A. Two

th respondents described themselvesas good friends in two separateinter-
views and then went onto heartily criticise eachother; one saying the other
1e one was an over-friendly teaseand one saying the other was catty and jeal-
.15
ous. Here it seemsto be a caseof familiarity breeding contempt. It should
also be pointed out that any such remarks made in the other department
.e,
th
(A) were a good deal more reticent and also tended to be generalisations
~
rather than referring to specific individuals. Department B was further
u- describedby a postgraduatestudent as extremely 'gossipy'; colleaguescon-
in tinually 'fished' for personal information about each other which then
rt- spread very quickly round the grapevine. As a result this student never
or discussed anything personal with other members of the department.
.t'. Perhapsthen the closenesswhich the department values is also to a certain
15. extent counter-productive, in terms of relationships and of departmental
\al achievement.
rt-
It is also the casethat the veneerof mutual respectsometimesslips; as in
the anecdoterelated by a secretary,who had been given a report to write
tly
trk by an academicand upon submissionreceived the somewhatbackhanded
compliment, 'I didn't know you could write - this is very good'. It was sim-
.rt- ilarly pointed out that freedom of information was restricted by the senior
eir academicsdiscussing important departmental matters over lunch at the
m- somewhat exclusive Staff Centre. Again the intimacy of interaction does
~re not impact significantly on the 'real' businessof the department, which is
)se conductedfor the most part as the formal structure dictates.
di-
ta ACTIVITY BRIEF
ic's
sa 1 (a) According to bureaucracy theory, what kind of personal relation-
ers ships should exist between organisational participants? Draw upon the
cti- casefor illustration.
. to (b) How might the above model impact on
y if (i) individuals and
(ii) the achievement of organisationaI goals?
tis Draw upon the casefor illustration.
)ns 2 (a) Contemporary management theories advocate a different mode
not of interaction within the workplace. How does it differ from that
1m described above? What is the rationale behind these recommen-
vas dations?
~nts (b) Would you say that Department 8 demonstratesthe characteristicsof the
cia! new workplace,as envisagedby the theories above?Support your answer.
lere
3 Suggest why the two departments differ in culture. If you were given the
lnly

..
~nt. task of managing cultural change as suggested by the theories in question

.
l'\er- 2(a), how might you go about it? Why might current pressureson academia
n~r~~~;t~t~ ~I Irh , ~
- rh~n"'D"
~.._,.~_.
 ~

i~ 50 Casesin organisational Behaviour

RECOMMENDED READING
Crozier, M. (1964). The Bureaucratic phenomenon,Chicago: University Press (Chapter 7).
Gerth, H. H. and Wright-Mills, C. (1948) (eds.). From Max Weber:Essays in Sociology,
London:Routledgeand KeganPaul (Chapterviii).
Harrison, R. (1987).OrganizationalCulture and Quality of Service:A Strategyfor
ReleasingLovein the Workplace,London: AMED.
Peters, T. (1989). Thriving on Chaos:Handbookfor a Managemert:tRevolution,London:

Mullins,
Pan &>oks,
L. J. (Chapter
(1993). Management
iv). and Organisational Behaviour, London, Pitman
~J
11
(Chapters 2, 10 and 20).