Detecting cultural knowledge in organization members' personal construct systems

Abstract

This study examines organization members' personal construct system content to identify 1 type of cultural knowledge: recipe knowledge. S. Sackmann (1991) defined recipe knowledge as organization members' cognitions about what ought and ought not be done. Employees of a media organization (N = 57) completed the liked and disliked coworker version of the Role Category Questionnaire (W. Crockett, 1965). Using J. Meyer and B. Sypher's (1993) coding scheme, categories of descriptors were identified. The themes emphasized by respondents indicated what organization members should and should not do. Differences in content themes by tenure, department, and hierarchical status suggested that these factors influenced the acquisition of interpersonal recipe knowledge. Implications of these findings are discussed.