The symphony: Organizational discourse and the symbolic tensions between artistic and business ideologies

Abstract

This study represents an ethnographic account of the organizational discourse that constituted, at least in part, the cultural world of a regional symphony. Within the Symphony, organizational members embraced a particular ideology that was grounded in the symbolic expression of either an artistic code or a business code, each code competing with one another for organizational prominence. The enactment of these codes revealed the fractured nature of Symphony life where musicians and their expressions of the artistic code were pitted against management and the board of directors who primarily advanced a corporate vision of decision making. Based on the routine speech of organizational members, it was argued that a business orientation prevailed much of the time and, consequently, served to diminish artistic concerns about how the Symphony should function.

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