Collaborative Practice and Perspectives
Campaign to Improve Conservation Awareness: Improving Awareness of Energy Conservation for a Rocky Mountain City
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Agnes Otjen, Sarah Keller
University professors collaborated on an interdisciplinary project with students to improve awareness of a city-wide attempt to conserve energy. The project had a two-pronged strategy: To improve public awareness of city employee efforts to conserve energy and to encourage the public to follow their lead and increase individual energy conservation practices. Primary research included a pre- and post-survey (n = 350) and focus groups (n = 40) to assess the effectiveness of the campaign. Utilizing the results of early research, students employed various marketing models and concepts to develop the appropriate targets and associated messages for an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) campaign. Final results revealed the campaign did increase public willingness to make small changes in their habits.
It's All Liquid: Applying Social Transaction Theory to Organizational Culture and Culture Change
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Thomas Brian Whalen
There has been much written in the literature regarding organizational culture. Specifically, how it is developed, how it emerges, and how to change it. Some social theorists treat culture as a monolithic feature of an organization that can either be frozen and unfrozen at the direction of leadership. Others approach culture as an unchanging object. Still others approach culture as something that is subject to their command. This paper will apply Social Transaction Theory (STT) to the subject and show that these are flawed views. STT states that social entities such as culture continually and organically emerge from social transaction. An organization’s culture is completely dependent on its people and their continual interaction with each other and the surrounding environment. Dewey and Bentley’s term “transaction” is used to combine human and environmental interaction into one entity. By using the STT lens to examine organizational culture, we can provide guidance to business and not-for-profit leaders in developing strategies to deal with developing and established stronger organizational cultures.
