Managing impressions On visually decoding the workplace as a symbolic environment

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the way by which corporations visually communicate their values and norms through the deliberate and/or less conscious construction of the material environment. Studying these cultural products and other material traces allows us to gain significant information about aspects of a corporation's culture which other‐wise often remain intangible or inaccessible.

Some results of visual fieldwork in a Norwegian multi‐national are presented as a case study, focusing on the workplace as a symbolic environment that may both reveal and mystify significant aspects of corporate culture.