Using Psychology at Work

Freud and Psychoanalytic Theory The seminal theorist selected from Chapter 7 of the Morgan (2006) text is Sigmund Freud. Freud was one of the early pioneers of psychoanalytic theory, which is still prevalent today and is associated with a psychodynamic perspective and its presence in contemporary organizations. There is a distinctive way in which psychoanalytic theory -- and many of the concepts advanced by Freud -- can influence functional cultural identity.

By extension, there are a number of different ways cultural identity can pertain to a leader's influence on the perception of cultural identity and on organizational (and individual) performance. Perhaps the core notion of psychoanalytic theory is that a person's past plays a substantial role in his or her present.

The clinician utilizing this theory attempts to identify key elements in a person's past that are contributing to myriad manifestations in his or her present life, and change them to both positively impact the present and future behavior of such a person. The goal is to then reconstruct one's personality out of its various components (such as the Id, Superego, and the Ego). This theory also incorporates various elements of psychosexual developmental stages, which are believed to account for one's personality and various cognitive complications such as neurosis (Garcia, 1995, p. 498).

This perspective can influence cultural identity in any number of ways. However, what is most significant about this perspective is that it largely does not account for various sociological and cultural factors -- certainly not to the extent that other theories and theorists do. In fact, the elements of psychoanalytic theory advanced by Freud are predicated on the fact that most people are the same regardless of culture and simply consist of various aspects of personality.

As such, the dominant aspect of cultural identity associated with this perspective is a Westernized one with little accountability for other cultures. Thus, the principle influence of this perspective on functional cultural identity is that it reinforces Westernization and, to a lesser extent, Western superiority. Rather, it does not take into account other aspects of culture that theories that are more modern do.

It merely adds to the conviction that Western cultural homogeneity reigns, and takes much more precedence in explicating psychodynamic forces than other cultures, and other theories that are more inclusive of other cultures, do. Within an organizational context, cultural identity is greatly related to the performance of both the organization as a whole and to individuals working within it. Subsequently, there are different approaches to developing collaboration and communication that is effective for certain company cultures and the performance that they induce.

In general, it is best to align one's organizational culture with those methods of collaboration and communication. There are some organizations, for instance, in which there are aggressive company cultures. Consequently, the means of fostering communication and collaboration the best emphasize an aggressive, competitive aspect. During Enron's heyday, for example, employees were evaluated and those that finished in the bottom percentage were dismissed from their positions (Gibney, 2005).

The sort of collaboration between employees, then, was based on attempting to outperform one another and leveraging communication as a means of doing so. Other approaches to developing communication and collaboration as a means of affecting performance based.